All Articles Tagged canada

Making good on their promise from a few days ago, O2 UK has launched a website where customers can get their iPhone’s officially unlocked starting November 10, 2009. Here are the details:

• Pay Monthly customers can get the unlock any time, but you have to keep paying O2 for the length of your remaining service contract.
• Pay Go customers can get the unlock after 12 months, for a one-time £15 fee (deducted from airtime balance).

To begin the process, customers need to complete the online form (via the link above). The process will take up to 14 days, but customers will get an SMS confirmation when it’s completed, and they can then place a non-O2 SIM in their iPhones, hook up to iTunes, and finish the unlock.

Curious as to whether the other major new iPhone multi-carrier market would be following suit, TiPb contacted Rogers and received the following reply:

Rogers policies haven’t changed in this regard.

One step forward, one step back. Hopefully Rogers will reconsider and take a page from O2’s consumer-friendly approach.

Meanwhile, if you go for the new O2 unlock, let us know how the process works out for you!

[Via Chris Oldroyd]

Bell Mobility has just announced that their new GSM/HSPA network, shared with previously-CDMA frenemy Telus, has gone live! What does that mean? Yesterday, Rogers and their Fido subsidiary were the only place to go for Apple’s iPhone (or a BlackBerry Bold if that’s how you roll). Today — technically as soon as Telus announces — you have your choice of 3.5 carriers (Fido is still Rogers).

So this means massive competition, price wars, and a huge win for consumers, right?

Eh… not so much. Like Orange UK, multiple carriers seems only to mean multiple non-competitive pricing plans, as each one wants as much as they can get, and don’t feel any pressure to compete — yet.

Hardware prices are the same, up to $299 for the iPhone 3GS on a 3-year contract, with service plans ranging from $45 for 100 minutes, Fab Five, 500MB, night/weekends 9pm-7am to $95 for 500 min, Fab Five, 2GB, nights/weekends.

(Along with $6.95 system access fee, monthly e911 fee, $2 paper billing option, $35 activation fee, and other nickel and diming…)

If you’re planning to hook your iPhone up to Ma (Canadian) Bell, let us know what you think of the pricing, and what you choose!

Telus looks to be launching the iPhone along with their new GSM/HSPA network on November 5, 2009, with BGR reporting pricing that’s pretty much spot on standard:

same as it is for Rogers (and Bell, for that matter) with the 3G going for $99.99/$599.99 and the 16 and 32GB 3GS going for $199.99/$699.99 and $299.99/$799.99.

And Telus has dropped their presser to make it all nice and official like.

So, any Canadians been waiting for their iPhone on Telus?

[via BGR, and congrats on the new site look!]

Google today flipped the switch on Google Street View for Canadians, making it available to Canadian iPhone users for the first time via the built-in Maps App. According to the CBC:

The service is now available in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax, Vancouver, Squamish, B.C., Whistler, B.C., Ottawa, Kitchener, Ont., and Waterloo, Ont.

Due to concerns brought by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, faces and license plates have been blurred out, and a method to request privacy-based image removal has been created.

So, Canadian readers, can you find your favorite local landmark on your iPhone now?

Update: Telus is official too, here’s their sign-up page for those who want more info.

Bell just went and made it official:

Bell and Apple have reached an agreement to bring iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS to Canada this November.

For US readers, this is sort of like Verizon and Sprint both announcing HSPA networks and iPhone availability in November. Sounds, nifty, doesn’t it?

Canadian readers, what we want to know is will you stick with Rogers/Fido, or give Bell or Telus a whirl?

TiPb, among others, has been hearing rumors for months now that Bell and Telus’ new GSM-based HSPA+ network would be up and running by November, and that the iPhone would follow along immediately there after. Nice to see some confirmation via Canadian stalwart, the Globe and Mail, however:

Bell announced Monday that it will launch national service in November on the $1-billion next-generation wireless network it has been building with Telus, months ahead of schedule. The project extends the two companies’ existing third-generation (3G) networks to include the same technology standard employed by Rogers, the nation’s largest cellphone company.

No comments from any of the carriers or Apple, of course, and it remains to be seen what if any downward pressure competition in Canada — like in the UK — would put on iPhone pricing for consumers.

Our question: Bell and Telus will have HSPA+ but no EDGE (to our knowledge), so if an iPhone on Bell or Telus couldn’t get a 3G signal, what exactly would it fall back on? EVDO/CDMA is not an option…

Yes, the Canadian App Store Categories tab really is all-Skype, all the time and has been for me since just after iPhone 3.1 launched last Wednesday (and no, the irony isn’t lost on us). Since App Store is fed by the web, I figured Apple would realize it and fix whatever feed needed fixing, but so far no such luck.

I tried TUAW’s workaround — switching to the US App Store an back, but iTunes intercepted me saying I couldn’t change stores until I’d spent whatever iTunes credit I had left in my account, and my rentals expired (I don’t currently have any rentals — the only one expired last weekend).

So I’m back to hoping Apple realizes it and fixes it, but if anyone does come up with a repeatable user-end fix, do let all of us Canadians know in the comments.

Skype [free - iTunes link], which debuted for the rest of the world back in March, is finally available for iPhone and iPod touch users in Canada. What took so long?

A “territorial restriction” over the licensing of a single, solitary audio codec used to play sound from Skype on the iPhone. No, we [insert secret Canadian curse word] you not. That’s it, and it’s been resolved, so go get it!

[CBC iPhoneinCanada]

Boy Genius is reporting several tips on this, so it looks likely that Rogers in Canada is getting ready to launch an 8GB iPhone 3GS. Why? They proffer:

Maybe the iPhone 3G stock is finally sold out and Apple will quietly (or not quietly) replace the $99 model iPhone with an 8GB 3GS?

This appeal to anyone? How about to anyone who jumped on the $99 16GB iPhone 3G already?

Rogers dropped us a note to let us know they’ve extended their 6GB/$30 data plan, first introduced last year with the iPhone 3G and re-introduced this year with the Android Dream and Magic, and the iPhone 3GS, until September 15. So, if you have a qualifying phone like the iPhone, and you want ungodly amounts of data usage — and you haven’t already — make sure you add the 6GB/$30 promo to your plan ASAP. (Especially with free tethering still on until December 31, 2009).

While we’ve heard Canadian iPhone supplies still can’t keep up with demand, Rogers says:

Rolling inventory of the iPhone 3GS is on its way, and back orders are being filled for customers on a priority basis.

(And no, no official word yet on when Bell or Telus’ HSPA network will be functionally rolled out, nor when they will begin offering the iPhone 3GS, but we can’t help but think increased competition is great for consumers — and for the networks, witness Rogers beginning to test 21Mbps HSPA+).

Full Rogers/Fido iPhone upgrade options repeated after the break…

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