GSM comes to Prince Rupert to Prince George corridor

Rogers Wireless comes to Prince Rupert.
March 13 of this year, Rogers GSM service officially launched in Prince Rupert. This is the first stage of a 10 million dollar investment by Rogers to give full GSM service between Prince George and Prince Rupert.
With the recent growth of Prince Rupert with the port and cruise industry bringing GSM in only makes sense. Gordon Nelson a Rogers Vice President is quoted as saying “You have a lot of activity going on in the city with the expansion of the port, the cruise ship industry growth ant it’s a great tourist destination. The Prince George corridor is very, very important to our customers. This level of expansion will enhance our connection to the world”
Currently there are four operational sites in Prince Rupert stretching to the Terrace area. It is hoped by June that this will increase to 17 including enhanced Terrace coverage. It is hoped that Smithers, Kitimat and Hazelton will be up next year.
This is a huge deal for Rogers as until now truckers hauling in this corridor leaving Prince George have not been able to use their phone outside of Vanderhoof and even then only if they are lucky. This has put Rogers at a huge disadvantage in Northern BC. It has been the primary reason Rogers has often been the last choice among consumers when looking to buy a cell phone in this area.
But the addition of Rogers GSM between Prince George and Prince Rupert will go a long way to changing that. It will mean that not only can people in Smithers for instance enjoy GSM data speeds but that people in Prince Rupert will be able to use the iphone when it hits the Canadian market. It means people in this area now have a choice of subscribers they did not have previously and more exciting a choice of phones as well as smart phones.
If Prince Rupert takes off and becomes the international hub everyone expects and people from all over come with their GSM phones in hand this can only help both Prince George and Prince Rupert in the long run gain on the international stage.
I think the big question will be in my mind can Rogers stick to their stated time table? All this was originally thought to be in place last year, while weather prevented the start they thought they would get surly poor weather on highway 16 should not come as any surprise in November when they were first looking at doing the work. I would also like to see them with the same commitment heading north beyond McKenzie. The mountains and the passes make getting coverage everywhere in this area difficult. As providing cell phone coverage to the Praries is much easier then through the Pine Pass or isolated areas out west however more can be done. And thankfully is.

Nokia 6086 comes to Rogers

Rogers has announced that starting Apr 25 it will be carrying the Nokia 6086 on a 3yr plan it will be $24.99 or $169.99 to buy out right. It is a very basic phone with 200 name address book, calendar, to do list, world time and alarm clock. It also has all the basic features a vga camera, video capablities, and mp3 capable. There has been some complaints about the sound quality of this phone but it is a basic entry level phone. What makes it interesting is that it is wifi capable making it great for internet usage.

Band GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, UMA
Size 92mm x 46mm x 23mm
Weight 84g (2.96oz)
Battery Life 240 hours GSM, 96 hours UMA standby time
5 hours GSM, 6 hours UMA talk time
Main Display 262k color CSTN LCD, 128×160 pixel resolution
Sub-Display Black and white FSTN LCD, 96×68 pixel resolution
Camera Yes, VGA resolution
Video Video capture/playback at sub-QCIF (128×96 pixel) resolution
Messaging MMS/SMS
Email Yes
Bluetooth Yes
Memory Unknown on board memory, microSD memory expansion
Availability Q1 2007
Other 802.11b/g WLAN connectivity

Iphone to Rogers Canada

Say it ain’t so Ted Say it ain’t so!
After waiting for over a year while our American counterparts drooled over the iphone, Ted Rogers announced Apr 29th that Rogers would be bringing in the iphone sometime this year. Nothing has been announced as to officially when or how much it will cost but techies have been waiting for this for a very long tme. Rumor has it that part of the delay was caused by Apples pending release of a newer faster 3g Apple iphone (note 3g allows for faster data but does not impact calls). Data speeds and packages have long been a sticky point with Rogers they tend not to like the unlimited data that Steve Jobs and iphone desire. Rogers has long had very expensive data plans and with a phone geared to data use like the iphone that has made it hard to bring in.
But Rogers has also had time to wait being the only carrier for now capable of carrying the iphone. But as customers get more and more impatient and unlocked black market iphones becoming more popular the time was now for Rogers to jump in.
Apple has already faced an uphill struggle as the name iphone was previously trademarked by another company Comcave telecom out of Toronto. But that was soon dealt with.
So be happy Canadian’s we will soon have the coveted iphone. The iphone first came to the United States June of 2007 and the lineups for it were massive. Its fancy touch screen interface made it a hit with the techno crowd. The biggest advantage the iphone has is its data capabilities. Data usage on the iphone is thought to be 30 times higher then on any other phone. With its Safari web browser full html web surfing is easy. So imagine being able to watch those Youtube videos on your phone in amazing clarity and colour. Or get your email (yahoo or gmail) and view those excel files or PDF files without being in front of your desktop computer, with full synchronization with your Microsoft products. Blackberry users can already do a lot of this but there is no doubt this will give them some strong competition. A 2.0 mega pixel camera and full picture viewing makes this a very fun phone.
It does have its down side though; the headset is not unlike those you find with the ipod but of course with a microphone. Making it hard to use like a regular phone held against you ear. There is a 3.5mm headset jack and of course Bluetooth is always an option. Of course Apples lack of a decent battery is still a problem with this phone and many people in the States had to get it replaced in the first few months of use. It is built in similar to the ipod so replacement is not easy. But there is an external battery available after market. There is also no place for a memory card but does come with 16GB. The iphone comes with a sim card that is only activated through itunes so you can not put in another sim card when you travel overseas. Forcing you to use your Rogers sim card while traveling wracking up heavy roaming fees when calling.
But even the drawbacks have done little or nothing to squelch the popularity of the iphone, within 30hrs of being on sale in the States over 270,000 had been sold and big numbers were also seen in Germany and the UK when it launched there so it is going to be nothing but popular when it comes to Canada whenever that maybe.

Greener cell phones

With the Olympics coming in Beijing and numerous recalls, China has been in the news a lot lately and not for good reason. But it is interesting to look at what China is doing in the cell phone industry. Hi-tech Wealth Company a Chinese telecommunication company is one of the world leaders in green cell phones. Recently they introduced the HTW S116 Solar Mobile phone. It is a flip phone currently only available in China. The top side of the phone is solar panels that recharge a battery that has a lifetime of 2.5hrs longer then the Li-Ion we know here in the rest of the world. Sources say that for every hour charge 40 mins of talk time is gained. So you could put the phone on your dash solar powered up and always have a full charge. But despite getting its power from the sun this is a full feature cell phone. It has a 1.3 mega pixel camera, mp3 player as well as flash memory options. At $510US it is not cheap but environmentally the impact is huge, China has over 400 million cell phone users so to think if even ½ of them went to this phone the impact on our globe would be huge, as there is no need for electrical recharging. With all the talk right now of China being such a big environmental polluter this is encouraging. Right now this is just available in china but manufacturers hope to have as many as 30 solar powered models out there by the end of 2008 and so it is only a matter of time before they catch on globally. Right now American manufactures are working on solar powered back up chargers like the Solio universal charger which has 3 solar panels that fan out with the battery in the middle. So it resembles something like a daisy. So that if your phone dies any needed power is picked up from the sun but it is hard to see someone carrying something like that around with them all the time.
China’s advancement in this area can come none to soon for the rest of the world. As cell phone use grows throughout the world so does the need for Lithium batteries. This is especially bad news for the African nation of the Democratic nation of Congo. The Congo is home to the worlds deposits of Colton an ore used in creating a heat resistant ore that stores electrical charges. Often found in electrical capacitors. It is smaller and lighter then aluminum so as phones get smaller and lighter this ore becomes more valuable. Colton is available in Canada and Australia but 97% of the worlds supply exists in the Congo. But mining for it has come at a horrible price. Large scale deforestation has robbed the native gorilla of its home making them prime target for poachers over the past 5yrs this has contributed to a decline of their population by as much as 90% in some areas. In an effort to combat this, American companies such as Kemet a capacitor manufacturer has begun to require its suppliers get their goods from other places. But that is just one company as so many other companies do get their supplies from the Congo civil wars have broken out over competing groups eager to mine what at one time was gorgeous national park area.
As new phones with the new bells and whistles come out people are upgrading their cell phones an average of about once every 2 years so our dependence on Colton only grows. A company called Eco-cell has partnered with zoos to try to not only recycle phones but save the gorilla. You bring your old phone to a recycling center, where they refurbish it and sell it to low income families who otherwise many not have a phone, with the proceeds going to gorilla conservation agencies. Right now Eco-cell is only available in the States but many such companies exist in Canada and many cell phone dealers have the facilities to do it themselves. Considering most of us just place their old cell in a drawer and forget about it, it is really not costing us much and can save so much more in the process. Both for the recipient of the new cell phone and for Mother Nature.

Cell phones have come a long way….

There is no denying it now phones are everywhere. It is almost amazing that it is as old as it is. The first car phone a Motorola appeared in the 1940s but took so much battery power it did not catch on until the 1980s. Since then the cell phone is everywhere. It is now believed that 50% of the world has a cell phone. Finland being the country with the most cell phones per capita. It is not a coincidence that one of the biggest cell phone manufacturers Nokia is based there

            The cell phone itself has come a long long way. No longer are they just phones. Perhaps the biggest change came about in 1997. That year Philippe Kahn was a young entrepreneur with a fledgling company called Starfish. He had just been out of a company he help found Borland software. And was looking for new direction, He also had something else. A pregnant wife Sonia Lee, The labour was not easy it 18hrs plus. Midway through she decided that she had had enough of the Lamaze techniques her husband was trying to get her to use. She told her husband to shut up and leave her alone. And that is what Philippe did. He sat down but needed something to do. He was too excited. Like any perspective parent he had his cell phone and his camera with him and thought about how to combine the 2. He had time for some trips to Radio Shack and some fiddling and pretty soon the cell phone camera was born. And Philippe’s daughter was the first person profiled with a camera phone! He then approached Motorola with his new idea but sadly they passed in what has to be one of the biggest regrets of the company’s history. It is interesting to point out though that Motorola did buy his company Starfish. So he took his product to Japan and a whole industry was born.

            And what an industry it has become. Think of how many big events in the world are captured on cell phone cameras. This summer in Burma as the government silenced it pro democracy critics by cutting off the internet, TV and radio the world got a first hand view of the brave monks walking the streets of Burma thanks to a cell phone camera.

            Where would the career of Michael Richards’ of Seinfeld be now if a cell phone camera had not captured his racist remarks and put them on youtube?  Prince Harry will always be haunted by the cell phone picture of him in a Nazi costume one Halloween. Even the final demise of Saddam Hussein was captured on cell phone camera for the world to see. There was a case in New York where a man on a subway decided to flash fellow passengers. Imagine his horror when the next day he appeared in all his glory on the front page of the New York post thanks to a cell phone camera. No doubt mom was pleased.

            Think of the past and the days of JFK how would his presidency been different if he was caught on cell phone camera going into Marylyn Monroe’s hotel room? Would we see him differently today?

            George Orwell’s book 1984 scared us all with the thought of Big Brother government watching our every move. Nobody thought it would be the person beside you with a cell phone camera that would be the bigger risk. I miss the days when the most advanced phone we had was Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone at least you knew then who had what. As Maxwell Smart himself would say “would you believe?”

           

Cell Phone Accessories

Car Chargers

When you’re on the road, there are times when it isn’t convenient to find a place to recharge your cell phone battery. Cell phone chargers are available which allow you to plug your cellular phone in to the cigarette lighter to recharge the battery. Many of the top quality chargers use an integrated chip that charges a 600 mAH phone battery from empty to full in less than an hour. The charger’s switching circuit has been designed to recognize a full battery and will automatically switch off.

Hands-Free Sets
In some states it is already illegal to drive while talking on the cell phone. Other states are considering similar legislation because of the number of deadly accidents that have been caused by inattentive drivers who do more talking than watching the road. Hands free cellular accessories allow you to mount your phone for easy dialing, answering and to wear a headset or microphone for convenient talking. They’re safe, convenient and - since some cellular phones respond to voice activation - round out the package to make the driving experience as safe as possible. With the advent of Bluetooth, trendy hands-free kits can also contain LED displays, voice dialing functions and caller ID displays. A swivel clip can clip it on to clothing for use outside the car as well.

Belt Clips/Holsters (Cell Phone Holders)
As an alternative to the cell phone case, which completely covers the device, belt clips and holsters allow you to attach the unit to your belt, purse or pocket while keeping the bulk of the phone uncovered. Just a simple click on or off, and you can make a call when you need to and clip it back into place without a lot of fuss. The added perk to this type of accessory is that you don’t have to struggle with a plastic covering that can hinder your ability to quickly place or answer calls when necessary.

Personalize Your Cell Phone
Will all of the options to personalize your cell phones these days, they can be used as an expression of your very self, or just to spice things up a bit so that you’ll be able to locate your phone at a glance. Just as the first land lines - which were nothing but black boxes that offered nothing in the way of mobility - have evolved through the years, so have mobile phones. With the choices that today’s market has to offer, there’s no need to walk around with a dull, black hand-held unit that reflects nothing about who you are. Instead, you can use your cell phone as an extension of your interests, hobbies and personality - for a very reasonable price

Samsung Katana DLX

A music and media phone the Katana Dlx is a great little phone. Especially for media purposes. However the case does have a cheap feel to it which is a downer. The clear lcd is a treat, with instant access to text, music and video right from the home screen. Easy syncing with a pc allows you to put your favorite tunes from your computer to your phone and always carry your tunes.

specs

• 3.7in by 1.9 by .6in 3.5ounces
• 32 mb ram 240×320 pixel lcd
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• bluetooth, 128mb micro sd included
• cdma

http://www.northcentralcommunications.ca/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=katana&search_in_description=1&sort=2a&&page=1

Motorola Q to Rogers

In the last Quarter of 2007 Rogers introduced a very cool phone. The Motorola Q 9h in Canada only through Rogers. The Q is a 3g smart phone so the data speeds are amazing With the HSPA can di 3.6mb per second. Built in Qwerty keyboard, gps, 2.0 megapixel camera with flash and 15 frams per second video! It also has a micro SD slot. So it is great for buisinesses and people on the go. Get those emails fast and easy with the windows mobile 6. Emails come in thier original format and all word or excell files can be edited while on the road. The email push technology ensures they are replied to fast so you can close that deal. Complete syncing with Outlook makes this the perfect work partner. Sms, mms and Im ensures you reach those important people fast and the gps feature ensures you are never late for that important meeting.

http://www.northcentralcommunications.ca/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=Q&search_in_description=1&sort=2a&&page=6

Samsung A736 to Rogers

Recently Rogers introduced the A736 to its lineup of phones. This newest phone, a slider, is quad band and thus will work almost anywhere in the world. But on the plus side this phone is 3g meaning super fast download rates great for games and music. It also has great video telephony so you can communicate face to face with your caller. It also has a built in mp3 player when used with the 3g network means you can get your favorite songs downloaded to your phone fast!

Specs:

• quad edge dual band
• 100×48x15.5mm
• 95g
• talk time 2.5hrs standby 200 hrs max.
• phone book 1000 names
• 45mb memory 20 mb for internet download expandable to 4g
• sms and mms capable
• 1.3 megapixel camera qcif video
• bluetooth capable

I was actually quite impressed with this phone it looks sleek with its metaclic fiish and hidden keyboard. The keyboard is not individual buttons so findng the correct ones by feel while doing other things is impossible. Since by feel there is no distinct keys. But I did like the slidng mechansim itself it feels strong like it will last not like some I have felt proving that it is a quality built phone. Many American carriers have carried this phone since Oct of 2007 but with some carriers it is known as the A737 the different numbers for the different carriers only.

Accessories for the A736

Blueant Bluetooth Z9

The newest bluetooth unit from the Blueant lineup. The z9.  Fits comfortable with a great noise cancellation feature.  But the best part of this unit is the BlueGenie voice user interface. The user can talk to the interface ask “how much battery is left?” or “answer” to pick up an incoming call. The ultimate in hands free. No buttons to push just total hands free! Removeable ear hook and included car and a/c charger.

http://www.northcentralcommunications.ca/product_info.php?products_id=279