Bell To Stop Throttling Their Customers

If you’ve got Bell as your Internet provider, here’s an early Christmas present for you. Throttling of your Internet connection is about to come to an end:

Bell Canada and Bell Aliant will stop using equipment to selectively slow down file sharing applications on their networks starting March 1, the companies said in a letter to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on Monday.

That will affect both the companies’ own retail internet customers and the customers of independent internet service providers who rent wholesale access to Bell’s network in order to connect directly with customers’ homes.

So why the sudden change of heart? Bell claims that they’ve invested heavily in their network. But there might be another reason:

Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor with a special interest in the regulation of the internet, believes “Bell had little choice” but to end its traffic shaping, given CRTC rules that make it clear the regulator favours network investment and economic means to manage internet traffic.

The regulator had issued new guidelines in September for resolving customer complaints about throttling, including timelines for action by internet service providers. It said ISPs could face a third-party audit or even a public hearing if they did not comply.

So with Bell making this move, one wonders how long Rogers and Telus can justify throttling their customers. They’re going to have to do something quickly or face losing customers.

Are People Lining Up To Buy RIM?

RIM may be down in the dumps at the moment, but their stock took a 10% bump yesterday on news that several companies might be after them:

Microsoft and Nokia have been named as potential buyers of Research In Motion by The Wall Street Journal, which on Wednesday reported that the two companies had in recent months discussed of a joint bid for the struggling BlackBerry maker.

The Journal report comes on the heels of a Reuters article from earlier in the week that identified Amazon as a potential RIM suitor before being rebuffed by a company that “prefers to fix its problems on its own.”

Here’s the thing. RIM’s problems need immediate attention. The best way to fix their problems might be to sell to someone who can fix their issues better than the two CEOs who run the company at the moment. Perhaps they should seriously consider a takeover?

Thoughts?

Rogers Gives Their Users A Early Xmas Present…. And A Peek Into The Future

I’ve got not one, but two announcements from Rogers. Here’s the first one:

We have great SMS news that will now help you manage your Premium SMS messages easier.

We provide a $40 monthly subscription cap for premium SMS programs, so when your subscription to a premium SMS program reaches $40 you won’t receive any more texts or charges.

Rogers/Fido are the only Canadian carriers to also offer other ways to manage these messages. You can now block all premium SMS messages, receive a reminder when you reach $100 for SMS chat programs, and you will now see detailed information on third party premium SMS message services on your bill so if you have questions about a charge, you can easily contact the message provider.

You can find more details on these premium SMS management details on RedBoard.

This is a big deal as so called premium SMS messages can cost mobile phone users a pile of cash and sometimes there’s no easy way to stop the messages. If this can make a difference, then I applaud Rogers for doing this.

Here’s the second announcement.

It’s that time of year where everyone looks ahead to see what’s in store for the new year, and this year, Rogers is adding to the conversation. We have some cool new stats that are uniquely Canadian and provide some very interesting insight into 2012.

The Rogers Innovation Report is a first-of-its-kind survey from Rogers that captures consumer predictions on hot technology topics that impact our daily lives.
For Rogers’ inaugural survey edition, we tracked how tech-savvy Canadians expect technology to transform their lives in 2012. The results are in and we have some exciting findings to share with you and your readers.

Here are a few stats you may be interested in:

• 73% of Canadians feel that cloud computing will make their lives better

• 86% of Canadians say faster mobile network speeds on mobile devices will improve their lives

• 61% feel that the Mobile Wallet will make their lives better

• 79% expect we will make more purchases with our smartphones and 43% feel that the traditional wallet will be replaced over the new few years

More trends can be found in the infographic posted on RedBoard.

There’s some interesting stats here. It’s worth a look and we’ll see how these pan out.

Rogers Announces The Ability To Stream Live TV To Your iPad

I got some news yesterday from my “best friends at Rogers” about watching TV on something other than your TV:

We’ve had some great TV viewing news launch this morning that I thought you and your readers would be interested in knowing about.

Rogers has launched the Rogers Live TV app, currently in beta, that lets you stream live TV on your iPad. The first in Canada, this app will let you stream 20 channels through your iPad. We anticipate a full launch of the app in early 2012. Also, an Android tablet version will be available soon.

The full details are on Redboard as usual, but I’ll hit the highlights. To make this work you have to:

1. Live in Ontario.
2. Subscribe to Rogers Digital TV and Rogers High Speed Internet.
3. Have one of the following cable boxes: 8642, 8300HD, 4250, or 4642
4. Have a MyRogers Account.
5. Download the app to your iPad.
6. Watch TV via WiFi

I for one don’t have an iPad and if I did I don’t have Rogers High Speed Internet, so I couldn’t take advantage of this. But if I did, I’m not sure that I would. A lot of the things I watch are streamed via the Web so my TV watching has dropped to such a degree that I’m having second thoughts about even having cable at all. But that’s just me. I’m sure others out there will jump on this.

What are your thoughts? Comments below please.

 

The Death Spiral Of RIM Continues

If it wasn’t clear that RIM wasn’t already in deep trouble, it should be now. RIM released their Q3 report [Warning: PDF] yesterday and the results speak for themselves:

• RIM made $5.2 billion last quarter while recording earnings of $1.27 per share, or $667 million. That was on reduced guidance.
• RIM shipped 14.1 million smartphones in the quarter.
• Net income dropped to $285 million from $911 million in the same quarter last year. That factors in the $485 million charge related to unsold PlayBook inventory in the third fiscal quarter.
• Speaking of Playbooks. RIM only sold 150000 of them in Q3.
• RIM has forecast EPS of between $0.80 and $0.95 in Q4 compared to Wall Street’s $1.08 expectation
• RIM has forecast revenue of $4.6 billion and $4.98 billion compared to Wall Street’s $5.12 billion expectation.

In a bit of less than stunning news, RIM co-CEO’s Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis will both take $1 salaries until the ship gets turned around. It’s not stunning because most of their compensation is likely in stock (albeit stock that has been hammered over the last year) which means that Balsillie is free to try and buy another NHL team at his leisure. The stunning news came in the announcement that RIM won’t be shipping their Blackberry 10 phones until the latter half of 2012. That my friends is a #fail because by then Apple and Google will be so far ahead of RIM, nobody will care what they come out with even if it is amazing from a tech standpoint.

Expect investors to whip out their Android or iOS phones and key in the word “sell” today.

 

Rogers Expands LTE Coverage

One of the things that came up during my test of Rogers LTE network is that the coverage in Toronto meant the 416 area code. Today I got an e-mail from “my best friends at Rogers” saying that this has changed:

The Rogers LTE network offers mobile speeds similar to broadband connections and is now live in more cities in the Greater Toronto Area. Rogers is first to offer an  LTE network to residents in Brampton, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, and Markham. Surrounding Vancouver, Rogers is the first to offer access to an LTE network to the communities of West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Port Coquitlam, Delta, Langley, Surrey and Maple Ridge.

You can fully expect the LTE footprint to expand as I expect Rogers to be aggressive about their LTE coverage relative to what Bell offers. You can check out Rogers Redboard for all the details.

WebOS Goes To Open Source Says HP

The future of WebOS has been decided. According to a press release, it’s going to be Open Sourced:

“webOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.”

HP will make the underlying code of webOS available under an open source license. Developers, partners, HP engineers and other hardware manufacturers can deliver ongoing enhancements and new versions into the marketplace.

This sounds good as this has worked for Google. Whether it can find success this way remains to be seen though. Although there are reports of new tablets being a possibility.

Review: Garmin Nuvi 1350LMT – Part 2: The GPS

Let’s start with the specs. The Garmin Nuvi 1350LMT is a 4.3” touch-screen with a MicroSD card slot to add extra content (pictures, additional maps, etc). It comes with a battery that lasts 4 hours, but you can plug it into your car power adapter. It’s preloaded with North America maps. Speaking of the maps, it has free lifetime updates for the maps (as long you’re the original owner). Just make sure you have plenty of time to update the maps and the OS for the GPS. It took me almost an hour to do both after I got the GPS. But it’s well worth it.

Now here’s some cool features of the GPS:

• It tracks your speed and will display your speed in red if you are exceeding the speed limit.
• It logs where you’ve been and you can download this to your computer (or erase it if you have something to hide).
• There’s a feature called ecoRoute which has a “less fuel” option to your routing choices and gives you fuel and mileage reports, estimated fuel cost for trips, and even a “driving challenge” to improve your fuel efficiency.
• There’s a feature called CityXplorer where you can use it as a handheld GPS and get routing info via public transit. However you’ll have to spring for the maps to do so and they go for $10 to $15 for each map.
• There’s text-to-speech, so you’ll hear “drive one-half mile, then turn left on Main Street.”
• You get lifetime traffic alerts which warns you of traffic ahead of you both visually and via speech. What you get depends on where you are though.
• The interface is very customizable. You can tweak it to make it look or sound the way you want it. You can add custom icons, voices (including Darth Vader and Yoda) and even add your own voice using free software from Garmin.
• You can add favorite places via Google Maps as long as the GPS is connected via USB to your computer. Plus it works with Windows and Mac.

How does this GPS perform. Quite well I must say. I’ve got it set to find me the fastest route that uses the least amount of gas, and I’ve discovered that a lot of the routes to places that I’ve used for years haven’t be as fast or as fuel efficient as I thought they were. The traffic alerts are kind of handy, and the visual cues for driving green (a leaf that turns red if you’re driving badly, yellow if you’re only doing okay, or green if you’re driving fuel efficiently) are nice to have. The screen is clear and readable in all light.

Would I recommend it? Totally. If you want a GPS for your car, check out the Garmin Nuvi 1350LMT. You won’t be disappointed.

Review: Garmin Nuvi 1350LMT – Part 1: The Install

My wife is shall we say directionally challenged. She tends to use Google Maps to print out directions to where she needs to go to. But looking at printed directions isn’t exactly safe. Thus I figured that it might be a good idea to get a GPS for the car. After much research, I decided on the Garmin Nuvi 1350LMT which fit my needs. Simply put, I wanted a GPS that was simple to use and had cheap or free upgrades for the maps. This particular Garmin fit that need as it had lifetime (to the original owner) free updates for the maps and it was really simple to use. More on that in part two of my review.

When I got it, I didn’t want to just stick it onto the windshield. Why? In Ontario, having anything in the windshield is illegal in theory. While I don’t know anybody who has actually been nailed by this law, I figured that it wasn’t worth taking a chance. Besides, I think it looks cheap having a GPS mounted in the windshield. So I did some more research and came across a company called ProClip who make mounting hardware for cars balance the need to have the device in close proximity with the need to make it look integrated with the car. I ordered the hardware I needed to properly mount the GPS in my Toyota Matrix. Installation of the hardware took ten minutes. Five minutes to screw everything together. Two minutes to put it in the car. Here’s what the end result looks like:

It looks good doesn’t it. Here’s a picture with the GPS installed:

It’s a very clean look and it’s very accessible and way better than a windshield mounted solution. If you have a GPS, I’d highly recommend that you look at ProClip for a mounting solution.

My next report will detail the operation of the GPS and how well it works in the real world.

Roger On Demand Makes Appearance On Xbox 360

I got a note from my “best friends at Rogers” announcing that Rogers On Demand will be available to Xbox 360 users:

I wanted to drop you a note about the new initiative Xbox Canada and Rogers announced this morning at Xbox 360 Central in Toronto. Just in time for the holidays, the Rogers On Demand app on Xbox 360 will launch on the newly designed Xbox LIVE dashboard.

This is the first time Rogers On Demand will be available on a gaming console, and is just one of many new TV innovations expected from Rogers in the next few months. Customers will be able to enjoy their TV and movie entertainment in new ways thanks to Kinect technology.

How do you get it? If you have Xbox LIVE Gold membership and a Rogers On Demand Online account, you’re set. Need more details. Check out this post on Rogers Redboard.

I do have one question. What about Wii and PS3 users? Will they be getting some love from Rogers?