The State Of Wireless In Canada Sucks Toronto Democamp17 Thomas Purves
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Desc: More at WirelessNorth.ca - for everything that sucks, and everything that's awesome about wireless in canada. (This presentation is about the former)
What The National Post had to say about this presentation:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomaspurves/2296586493/
"DemoCamp Warms Up to Toronto Tech Crowd
More than 400 people packed the Toronto Board of Trade conference hall on Monday night for DemoCamp, a loosely organized gathering of Web entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and technology enthusiasts.
Startup companies that made an impression on attendees included Kaitlyn McLachlan’s AskItOnline online survey Web site and Alain Chesnais’s SceneCaster 3-D embedded imaging application.
But the real crowd-pleaser of the night had to be WirelessNorth webmaster Tom Purves’ fast-paced Ignite presentation on why the Canadian wireless industry “sucks.”
Although he was preaching to the converted, Mr. Purves spent just over five minutes pointing out the high price of Canadian cellphone service and compared different price plans from around the world. For example, did you know that Rwanda has better cellphone plans than Canada? Or my favourite stat of the night: According to Mr. Purves, one megabyte of wireless data transfer on Rogers’ network costs $50, a measurement not seen since the early 1990s, when relatively minuscule hard drives cost upward of $1000.
For his efforts, Mr. Purves was rewarded with a standing ovation.
Needless to say, Monday’s DemoCamp was the largest turnout in 17 different meetings. With the Toronto Board of Trade firmly on board (no pun intended) with DemoCamp’s main intention — to foster and develop new Canadian tech talent to the global market — there’s a good chance we may see a local success story sooner than later.
Or maybe cheaper cellphone plans. The jury’s still out on which will happen first.
David George-Cosh "
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Slideshow Transcript
- Slide 1: DemoCamp17.Toronto.Canada Ignite Presentation, ThomasPurves.com Led by: Thomas Purves WirelessNorth.ca
- Slide 2: Why I’m here. An Infamous Chart. Posted April 2007 Touched a nerve Tens of thousands of visitors 150 Blog comments 100s of links Hundreds more comments on Digg and other sites Front page of Digg Somewhat remarkable for a post related to Canadian Telecom regulatory policy.
- Slide 3: Why Wireless Matters Innovation – Wireless IS the new last mile All computing is moving to the cloud, the web The network is the computer (finally) BUT this future of computing relies ubiquitous connectivity Prevalent, ubiquitous, affordable wired and wireless connectivity Culture and Economic growth (what sectors do not now depend on computers and connectivity)
- Slide 5: Canadian Landscape Some of worst data rates in the developed world. A country of Blackberry addicts, but low accessibility to most advanced devices. Dominated by on-deck content and services, crap accessibility to open content, open services. High pricing to consumers, lagging wireless penetration, lagging adoption behaviours
- Slide 6: Devices are overpriced in Canada
- Slide 7: Contract lengths are obscene Canada is the only country with 3 year contracts 6, 12, 18, 24 month contracts standard everywhere else
- Slide 8: New Devices are transforming Wireless Except in Canada
- Slide 9: Why does Canada suck? Only one GSM carrier Little competitive behaviour Small market w/ no foreign ownership Curse of blackberry CRTC + industry Canada asleep at switch On the bright side it could be worse: Cuba, North Korea for example have far less access than we have
- Slide 10: Victims of our own crackberry addiction Canadian success story Poor browser Is really good at email Email is so 1999 Appeals to a lucrative niche w/ moderate data needs but high willingness to pay
- Slide 11: Since the Chart, has it gotten any better? YES Telus Unlimited PC card data access $75/month YES Bell / Telus unlimited “on device” browsing. At least on Some devices, other restrictions NO Roger’s unlimited plans shuts off the internet to third party apps. Rogers data rates have gone UP from 30$ / MB to $50 / MB (WTF!)
- Slide 12: How much is $50/MB (WTF!) ? Cost to fill equivalent of a 1.44MB floppy drive circa 1992? $72 + GST/PST Cost to fill equivalent of a $30 2GB MicroSD card? $102,400 + GST/PST Cost to listen to a single mp3 (5MB) streaming? $250 + GST/PST Data cost per hour at theoretical HSPA speed? (3.7Mbs)? $1260 / Hour + GST/PST
- Slide 13: The last time in the history of computing anything cost $50/MB
- Slide 14: What can we do about it? New spectrum Auctions has created opportunities for • New wireless policies • New wireless entrants • New / Disruptive Business models Cost to play • About 1.5 to 2 Billion CAD • Expensive, risky
- Slide 15: What is Canada’s Future?
- Slide 16: Future of wireless - Optimism “The rosy future: new entrants kick ass, telus goes gsm too, iphones come to canada, cheap highly capable and android and other devices from china flood into Canada, spectrum auction 1. Optimistic pt1 comes with just the right rules/incentives to open up the mobile platform to widespread innovation, Rim comes out with a great browser. Canada leapfrogs UK / US on the way to 4G...
- Slide 17: Future of wireless - Optimism ...by 2015 canada is exporting its model to other countries as a world leader in services, network operation, and hand set manufacture. A company that goes on to become the next 1. Optimistic pt2 great facebook/google/microsoft is founded in a dorm room in 2010 in canada is now fertile ground for experiments in uber-connectivity”
- Slide 18: Future of wireless – Not Optimism “THE GLOOM FUTURE: the auction fails. new entrants tied up in litigation over tower sharing never achieving rollout, spectrum goes fallow, a series of dithering governments 2. forestalls the 700mhz auction,pt1 on any Pessimistic fails other effective measure of stimulate competition or openness and access...
- Slide 19: Future of wireless – Not Optimism ... bell telus rogers use their complete domination of the pipes to lock down media distribution in canada on wired and wireless pipes though descriminatory pricing and all hope of net neutrality dies in canada. At birth all canadians are 2. Pessimistic pt2 allocated 10mb of outside internet access. Canadas productivity gap with the US widens, eventually Castro dies and north and south korea reunite and both these countries have greater freedom of access to the internet than canadians.”
- Slide 20: What to Do about it Be aware of what you are missing Don’t sign up for a 3 year data plan Talk or write to your MP (it works) Buy an unlocked phone Support the new entrants (if they are better) Build kick-ass mobile apps anyway, and sell to the global market Stay in touch: WirelessNorth.ca
