Gus Digital

The Canadian Wireless spectrum auction is now completed and the winner is….the Canadian Government which will net $4.2 billion dollars, based on the CBC report.

What does this mean, well we will now have a new national cellphone provider - Globalive who currently sells home and long distance service under Yak.

As per the Federal Industry Minister, Jim Prentice, says this will bring in more competition and will benefit the Canadian consumer. I’m currently not so sure about that. This auction itself brought in more money than expected, almost 4x as much. This means current suppliers like Telus, Bell and Rogers paid more for the auction and will of course pass on this to their consumers with higher rates. Also the new player will probably want a big cut of the “Canadian cellphone pie” and will charge higher rates just because we are so use to these rates here in Canada.

I honestly hope I am wrong in this, but really time will tell.  We have to wait for 30 days from now before Globalive announces its plan and how long it will take to be operational.

The good news is that the new player will have 3G capabilities and run under GMS, which is what Rogers and Fido currently run under.  Hopefully they will introduce the iPhone to their line and give Rogers a run for their money.

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Dr. Horrible is here, but only for limited time on the internet and for free.

Brought to you by Josh Whedon, the creator of the Buffy the Vampire series, join Dr. Horrible as he video blogs and sings about his love Penny and the Super Hero, Mr. Hammer, he despises.

Truly an awesome piece of work divided up into 3 separate acts that run free on the internet until this coming Sunday (July 20th). Watch it now, before it’s gone (but not for good).

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Well Rogers you did it! You have crushed my dreams of owning an iPhone.  How does that make you feel? What’s that? You don’t care? Yeah I figured as much.

I have been going back and forth with Rogers this past week trying to attempt to get an iPhone.

First they tell me I’m not able to upgrade until I have been with them for 12 months.  When I question this and let them know that they are treating their “new customers” like dirt, they return with another offer.  What is that offer? Cancel your contract and pay $400 and then get a new three year contract and start like a new customer.  I’m not at that point yet.

My hopes grew when a friend referred me to FIDO’s site and they have “something in the works” for people who don’t qualify for an upgrade and are new customers.

When I questioned Rogers on this, their response:

We are unsure of what FIDO is planning, however, be advised that the terms for obtaining the phone are the same between FIDO and Rogers. We do not have any information about anything planned in the future by FIDO and the IPhone, nor at the present time does Rogers. This product has been available for less than a week now and the terms are still applicable.

What? As a parent company you have *no* idea what is in the works?

I think my frustration is more on the “hush hush” that Rogers has. I think if they just open up and tell people that something is in the works that would be great!

I’m even willing to pay a premium to get the iPhone now, but just not willing to spend $400 and cancel and then renew again.

At this point my dreams have been crushed.  We’ll see how I feel in a few days, weeks or months.

As a new Rogers customer I feel like I’m in prison waiting for my parol hearing to come in 12 months to decide if I qualify for the phone.

I fully regret signing up with Rogers and I should have gone with FIDO long time ago!

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Today is youngest nephew Steven’s birthday.

When I was in Toronto last month I got reconnect with him and find out what a truly amazing kid he is.  He loves to go-kart race and currently competes.  I believe this boy is going to be a future Indy car racer or will be involved in some kind of stunt work.

Although I can’t be there to celebrate with him, I wanted to take the time to wish him a fantastic day.

PS your birthday card is in the mail today

UPDATE: Again I got the dates screwed up.  Steven’s birthday is actually on July 17th!!!  Happy Birthday Steven!

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The other day I put my name in for the Social Media Club’s 42 interim board member, and you can now vote for me at their site.

I believe we need some more Canadian representation, with currently only one other Canadian - Megan Cole.

The Social Media Club helps to

bring together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. Essentially the people who create and consume media who have an interest in seeing the ‘media industry’ evolve for everyone’s benefit. We are more than just USERS, we are the reason the tools exist - we are the people who communicate our thoughts and ideas near and far.

I look forward to seeing this club grow. We have some great people in the Social Media scene in Canada and I hope to bring them all together and grow as a community with your support.

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Russ, Junior and I headed away from the city this weekend, up the Sea to Sky Highway to our so far favourite place to camp - Cal-Chek.

Now Cal-Chek is an old forestry campground and not run by the BC Government, but run by the Indian Band. As such they don’t have a general store, they don’t have showers, it has an outhouse, it doesn’t have a beach, but it has a running river.  That said, the campground is well maintained and you are shaded by the elements from the huge trees that surround the campsite.

We managed to get our old site from last year, to my surprise, Russ had the tent set up prior to me leaving work.  He was good at driving up to the site earlier on Friday and securing a spot.

We had a great relaxing weekend.  We headed into Whistler on Saturday to grab some essentials, and also hiked abit along the Cal-Chek trail that took us to Brandywine Falls.  We walked along the trail and were treated to an awesome vista of the area.  We truly are blessed to live so close to such beauty.

Junior of course had a run of the campsite and he enjoyed running around and sneaking into other campsites to see what everyone was doing.  Of course he did have to be told a few times to stay within bounds, but overall he was a very good boy.

We were also treated to a couple of woodpeckers that decided to do some “pecking” of the “wood” and I snapped up a couple of photos. Who thought that taking a photo of a bird would be hard, but I had difficulty in getting the right shot.

The temperature at night did drop to about 5C, and if it wasn’t for the heater Russ had purchased last year I think we would have froze. This of course didn’t deter the mosquitoes from being out in full force.  If it wasn’t for the OFF-Lanterns we purchased I don’t think we would have survived. Thank you OFF for creating these, an item that *actually* works!

On our treck back into Vancouver, we stopped along Britannia Beach for a bit.  This where you can find the BC Museum of Mining.  Granted we did not go into the Museum itself, we did walk around the surrounding buildings, which was fun. One day we will venture in.

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Well the iPhone has come and there are some happy people and there are some angry people.  I for one just need a break from it all as I could only watch in the sidelines.

Add the fact that my uncle in Argentina isn’t the greatest, I need to get away.

Russ has secured a camp ground site in Cal-Chek (near Whistler) and I’ll be heading up there shortly after I leave work.  Hopefully mosquitoes won’t get to be too much of a hastle and hopefully I’ll be able to recharge and relax from all the information overload of the past week.

We did have the opportunity to visit Tofino this weekend, but alas they do not take pets and I couldn’t get someone to take care of Junior on such notice.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get to Tofino one day and see what everyone is raving about.

Here’s looking forward to a great weekend!

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Today is the official launch of the iPhone in Canada, but the 3G model no less and I have ot admit I’m feeling envious to all the people that currently lined up and will be purchasing this awesome looking device today. I had been waiting for this for over a year and I had even signed up with Rogers 4 months ago in anticipation for this.  Alas since doing this so early, I am on a "contract" and cannot get one for a year.  This just bites and it bites hard.

A good friend of mine says he knows a manager at one of the Rogers store and is getting one (even though he is currently on a contract himself).  If he does, I am going to try to get one myself next week since I will be going camping this weekend and this will get me away from the city and avoid seeing my fellow techies walking around with the phone I’d love to have!

A co-worker of mine had said that today will be a sad day for me and that I should have called in sick.  He did say to other co-workers that no one should talk about the iPhone today to help me out - What a nice guy

So to all how have gotten the iPhone, just know this guy here is envious.

Enjoy the iPhone everyone!!

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Today I’m not feeling my best.  I have some few family issues I’m dealing with.  My mother should be arriving in Argentina soon as her brother isn’t doing the best, so I wish my Tio Tito all the best and hope he recovers soon. I’m looking forward to visiting him and the rest of my family in Argentina in January.

On a more materialistic side, I don’t think I can get the iPhone, even though Rogers has announced a $30/month 6GB data add on offer today.  My current Rogers contract doesn’t allow me to upgrade my phone until February.  That said Tanya did say I could, but at a higher price.  We are trying to figure out what that price might be.

At any rate I’m trying to be positive on all fronts here and the following view from Kat Kam just makes me relax and hope for the best.

Hope you have a great day everyone!

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What is it with our Canadian Cell Phone companies of late.

Sure the Rogers iPhone rates have been a major discussion as of late with www.ruinediphone.com having more than 52,000 people signing their petition (as of this post).

Then of course was Bell’s introduction of the Samsung Instinct with an unlimited data plan for $10, and Telus’s introduction of the HTC Diamond with $15-$30 unlimited data plan, which brought on pressure to Roger.  People were going to jump ship and get on with Bell and Telus.

Now today comes news that Bell and Telus are going to start charging you, their customers, for incoming text message. What is getting customers angry is the fact that incoming unsolicited messages will be charged at $0.15/message. Of course you can “subscribe” to a package deal if you’d like and not have this affect you.

Here we are again in Canada being guaged by companies. Are they trying to drive Canada into a consumer recession?

I just don’t get what executives are thinking.  True you can argue “value” over “pricing” but in this case I don’t see any value to the consumer, I only see the value to the corporations themselves.  How can someone block text messages from their phones anyways?  They must offer such a service.

This government needs to open up the market for more competition.  Bring in the big boyz!!

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