Canadian iphone trouble early

Some early adopters of Apple’s second-generation iPhone have witnessed thin cracks appear at the edges of the device that damage the phone’s look and threaten to pose a larger threat down the road. Those tracking the issue in an Apple support discussion thread and elsewhere say the hairline fractures most often appear on the plastic shell near the corners of the device, particularly near the headphone jack, ringer switch, and volume controls. The flaws appear regardless of how gently the user takes care of the phone and can increase in number, according to multiple claims, although there are no known reports of existing cracks growing in size. At least a few users, however, report cracks deep enough to create a visible opening, particularly at the headphone jack. Most of those noticing the issue are owners of the white model. Nonetheless, some owners of black editions also report the issue and suggest that it’s not a matter of the material used for the color but a more general problem. The black shell simply hides the cracks better, these users suggest. Apple’s own response to the problem has been mixed. The company doesn’t yet list the problem as common and has largely left exchanges to its in-store technicians. While some affected owners claim to have received little trouble and a quick replacement, others describe being rejected due to the cosmetic nature of the cracks, which to date haven’t resulted in an outright device failure. Those contacting their carriers aren’t necessarily so fortunate: in one case, an Ottawa, Canada resident has been turned back at retail and on the phone by Canadian iPhone provider Rogers Wireless, which said it would have to technically rule the flaws “customer abuse” and charge the full replacement cost of the phone. In all circumstances, though, these customers express frustration at a device that in a short space of time is already appearing to break down, even if the faults are purely superficial. “I don’t think it is such a big deal but then again, I just got this phone and paid a fortune for it,” says one detailed report. “There should not be any problems with it in week one.”

Phone got wet?

Posted by Marketnews – Christine Persaud in Marketnews.ca

Most people think that once an electronic device gets wet, that’s it. Chuck it into the garbage, because it’ll never work again (unless, of course, it’s water-proof or resistant). But this weekend, I was amazed to see a mobile phone come back to life after having been rained on for a full 8-hour night. Here’s what happened.

My friend accidentally left her phone out in the rain all night on a patio table. Although it was partially covered by an overhead umbrella, the phone was still considerably drenched when it was retrieved. We removed the battery and SIM and proceeded to sick my blow dryer on the device. At the same time, I did what any sane tech-savvy person does in an emergency like this one: “Google” the situation for some tips. I surfed a few sites, some confirmed to be reputable and others blogs from people around the world who had similar situations (or just knew what to do). Here’s what I came up with on what to do in such a situation:

1) Always, always, always remove the SIM (if it’s a GSM phone) and the battery

2) NEVER use a blow dryer. Because this simply blows air into the device, it could cause water to seep into hard-to-reach spots, eventually damaging the insides of the phone. It’s better to use a vacuum of some sort that will suck the water out.

3) Stick the device in a bag of rice for a few hours. Yes, rice. Apparently it will help to remove moisture. If you want to help keep rice particles out of the insides, you can also add a few bags of silica (that stuff that comes in a jacket or purse pocket when you first buy it).

4) Try the phone first by plugging it into the wall socket without the battery, then with the battery. It might just be the battery that’s gone kaput.

Despite the fact that we did initially use a blowdryer in a panic, the phone came back to life by the end of the day, and has been working ever since. Although there’s no telling how long it will continue to function, I was amazed that it was even able to power back up after being exposed to a full night of pouring rain.

Nevertheless, if these tips help to save just one device, then I’ve done my part.
Posted by Marketnews – Christine Persaud marketnews.ca

people lining up for the iphone in New Jersey

iPhone Mania Hits Northern New Jersey
By Evan Koblentz
WirelessWeek – July 11, 2008

ROCKAWAY, N.J.—By 9:45 a.m., about 100 customers already were lined up near the Apple Store at the Townsquare Mall here, all hoping to purchase a new iPhone 3G which goes on sale today for $199. The line blocked several other stores and wrapped around a nearby perfume kiosk.
Many customers who already own an Apple iPhone enthusiastically wait in line for the new model. The buying process takes at least 15-20 minutes per phone and there’s plenty of inventory on hand, said David Steinruck, store manager. Then the line grew longer by another few dozen when stock ran out at an AT&T store upstairs. Most customers in queue were 30 to 50 years old and several were using their current iPhone s and laptops to stay in touch with their jobs through various Wi-Fi networks in the mall.
Approaching the long line, and talking on her first-generation iPhone , customer Raquel Hodge said she expected to wait and did not mind. Last year, her family paid $400 in termination fees to escape their old contracts using Motorola IPHONE s. “My husband and I had to have it,” she said. “We don’t care because it’s for the convenience.”
Another customer, Stephen Stetler, already downloaded the new iPhone firmware but still wanted the new hardware for its high-speed networking. He said waiting in line with fellow Apple enthusiasts is fun. “As long as it takes. I can come here tomorrow and probably walk in and walk out. But it’s the experience,” he said.
“It’s not to me a godsend of a product,” said Rod Gammon, who stood in front of Stetler in the ever-growing line. Gammon’s view of the iPhone 3G is more pragmatic. Its features save him 30 minutes each day because he can work while commuting to Manhattan. To get all of the iPhone ’s features on other phones would probably cost more, he said.

Trish Clark
http://northcentralcommunications.ca/
trish@northcentralcommunications.ca

iphone trouble already

Software problems bug Apple’s launch of new iPhone (AP)
NEW YORK – Apple Inc.’s new iPhone went on sale Friday to eager buyers worldwide, but there were problems getting the phones to work.
Kenny Pichardo, 24, was the first to buy an iPhone 3G at an AT&T store in the New York borough of Queens, but he said it took the store half an hour to get the phone activated.
That boded badly for the approximately 70 people after him in line. Pichardo had camped out overnight to be first.
A spokesman for AT&T Inc., the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S., said there was a global problem with Apple Inc.’s iTunes servers that prevented the phones from being fully activated in-store, as had been planned.
Instead, employees are telling buyers to go home and perform the last step by connecting their phones to their own computers, spokesman Michael Coe said.
At Apple’s flagship store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, customers were waiting at the counter for at least 20 minutes to get their new phones activated.
When the first iPhone went on sale a year ago, customers performed the whole activation procedure at home, freeing store employees to focus on sales. But the new model is subsidized by carriers, as is standard in the wireless industry, and Apple and AT&T therefore planned to activate all phones in-store to get customers on a contract.
The problem extended to owners of the previous iPhone model. A software update released for that phone on Friday morning required the phone to be reactivated through iTunes.
“It’s a mess,” said freelance photographer Giovanni Cipriano, who updated his first-generation iPhone only to find it unusable.
On Thursday, Apple had problems with the launch of a new data service, MobileMe. The service is designed to synchronize a users personal data across devices, including the iPhone , but many users were denied access to their accounts.
Enthusiasm was high ahead of the 8 a.m. launch of the new phone, and a line of hundreds at the Fifth Avenue store encircled the block. Many of them were already owners of the first iPhone , suggesting that Apple is preaching to the choir with the new model, which updates the one launched a year ago by speeding up Internet access and adding a navigation chip.
Thanks to subsidies by the carrier, the price has also been cut substantially to $199 for the cheapest model in the United States.
Alex Cavallo, 24, lined up at the Fifth Avenue store, just as he had been a year ago for the original iPhone . He sold that one recently on eBay in anticipation of the new one. In the meantime, he has been using another phone, which felt “uncomfortable.”
“The iPhone is just a superior user experience,” he said. The phone also proved a decent investment for him: He bought the old model for $599 and sold it for $570.
Nick Epperson, a 24-year-old grad student, spent the night outside an AT&T store in Atlanta, keeping his cheer up with bags of Doritos, three games of Scrabble and two packs of cigarettes. Asked why he was waiting in line, he responded simply “Chicks dig the iPhone .”
The new phone went on sale Friday in 21 countries, with one more, France, following next week. In most of them it was the first time any iPhone was officially sold there, though several countries have seen a brisk grey-market trade in phones imported from the U.S.
iPhone fever was strong even in Japan, where consumers are used to tech-heavy that do restaurant searches, e-mail, music downloads, reading digital novels and electronic shopping. More than 1,000 people lined up at the Softbank Corp. store in Tokyo and the phone quickly sold out.
“Just look at this obviously innovative design,” Yuki Kurita, 23, said as he emerged from buying his iPhone , carrying bags of clothing and a skateboard he had used as a chair during his wait outside the Tokyo store. “I am so thrilled just thinking about how I get to touch this.”
The phone went on sale first in New Zealand, where hundreds of people lined up outside stores in New Zealand’s main cities to snap it up right at midnight — 8 a.m. Thursday in New York.
“Steve Jobs knows what people want,” Web developer Lucinda McCullough told the Christchurch Press newspaper, referring to Apple’s chief executive. “And I need a new phone.”
In Germany, sales were brisk at local carrier T-Mobile’s stores, particularly in Munich, Hamburg and Cologne, said spokeswoman Marion Kessing.
___
AP Business Writers George Frey in Frankfurt, Germany, Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo and Greg Bluestein in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Trish Clark
http://northcentralcommunications.ca/
trish@northcentralcommunications.ca

iphone questions answered

Steve Jobs may have launched the iPhone 3G on Monday, and we may have gotten a hands on with it already, but in typical Apple fashion, there’s still a lot of stuff left unsaid. How does activation work? How will first-gen iPhone users bring an iPhone 3G onto their plan? Does the GPS work for driving? How much will games cost on the App Store? We’ve got answers. Lots of them.

The Phone
What’s changed between the first generation and the iPhone 3G? Honestly? Not all that much. The iPhone 3G has all the features of the first one, plus faster 3G data downloads, GPS, and a better battery life. Externally, the phone’s casing is slightly changed, with a thinner edge and thicker middle, but a flush headphone jack and solid-colored back make up the only other major differences visually. Everything else from the screen to the number of buttons and switches on the outside are the same.
How much will it really cost me over 2 years?. That depends on how many minutes you use and how many text messages you want to sign up for, but at AT&T’s lowest plan price of $39 a month for 450 minutes, plus a mandatory $30 data charge and $5 for 200 text messages, you’re looking at $1975 over the course of two years. Before tax and other fees. Here’s how it stacks up against the old iPhone and against other 3G smartphones on Verizon and Sprint. In Canada the phone is $199 on a 3yr contract and a special price of $30 a month for the largest download package available.

When can I buy it? If you’re in one of the first countries to get the phone, which includes the US, Canada, the UK, Spain, Japan and Mexico, it’s July 11. Otherwise, it’s still unknown. Come July 11, there’s going to be a gigantic line of people wanting that phone. You’ll have to wait not only for people in front of you to buy a phone, but activate it too—which is now mandatory and takes about 10-15 minutes. If you can wait, we’d recommend going after July 11.

How fast is the 3G over 2G (EDGE)? During the WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs showed a demo that compared the iPhone 3G vs. the old iPhone when downloading a large web page with lots of images. Apple’s site lists the result of that matchup as 20 seconds vs. 48 seconds, which is 2.4x faster. We’ve got a explainer about the details of 3G as well, if you’re interested.
How does the GPS work? We’ve got a great tutorial on how the iPhone’s GPS works. Long story short, it’s A-GPS, or assisted GPS, which means most of the time it uses the cell towers and Wi-Fi to help triangulate (but doesn’t necessarily need help). If you’re looking to use the iPhone 3G as a GPS in your car for navigation, there’s a catch. There’s a restriction in the SDK that prohibits developers from using the phone for “real time route guidance”. You can still use Google Maps to help guide you if you’re lost, but it’s not as smooth a system as a real GPS. TomTom may have an iPhone 3G guidance suite already in the works, despite the SDK restrictions.
Will the added 3G and GPS hurt my battery life? Apple’s improved the battery life compared to the old version, which ups the talk time on 2G (same as the first iPhone) from 8 hours to 10 hours. On 3G, you get half that. So yes, your battery life will be significantly degraded when you’re using 3G instead of 2G. Apple still hasn’t provided numbers on how much GPS use will degrade your talk time.
What about that rumor that the iPhone 3G has a front camera? Yeah, not so much. Apple didn’t say anything about that during their keynote, and there’s been no evidence of it yet. There’s a weird anomaly on the demo iPhone that Apple’s Phil Schiller was using on stage during the event, but it’s probably just a weird fingerprint.
Does the iPhone 3G finally have MMS/picture messaging? Unfortunately not. Not officially, anyway. There are third-party apps already available that give your iPhone a sort of MMS functionality, but it’s not great.
Can I tether the iPhone 3G to my laptop to get on-the-go internet? Not out of the box, no. The old iPhone was able to be hacked into doing this, but EDGE speeds meant that people only really used it in emergencies. With 3G, it’ll be much more useful. We’ll keep an eye on this one.
How durable is it compared to the first-gen? Our hands-on will tell you more about that, but from what we heard, the new backing is a lot more fingerprint-smudgy than the first.

The Software
When will the iPhone 2.0 software be released? At the very latest, July 11, when the iPhone 3G is launched. There are rumors that it can come as early as June 27, but Apple hasn’t given any official word yet.
What’s MobileMe? It’s Apple’s replacement for .Mac, which manages your email, calendar, contacts, pictures and various other things. It’s useful for iPhone users because it allows you to sync stuff automatically between your phone and your various computers. Any changes you make on one device gets pushed to the other ones.
Are there limits to what kind of applications I can download in the App Store? Not really. A good 71% of iPhone applications will be free, with the rest starting at a price of $0.99 going all the way up to $999. You can pretty much download as many apps as you have space for on your phone. The largest applications will be 2GB, but we don’t think there are going to be very many at that weight. The Sims for iPhone, maybe, if EA ever decides to release that.
Is there going to be iChat? Apple unveiled the AIM application back at the last event, but as far as we know, there hasn’t been any talk of iChat (like the one on OS X). As such, we wouldn’t count on any iChat Video chat either.
The Service
Do I need to sign a new two-year contract with AT&T if I buy a new iPhone 3G? Yes, but the good news is that your old contract gets ripped up. If you signed yourself into AT&T’s grasp back when the iPhone was launched, you’ll only have to stick with them for another two years starting now, not three. It’s as if you’re an entirely new customer. Rogers customers must sign up for a new three year plan.
Will activating a new iPhone 3G brick my old iPhone? Definitely not. You’ll be able to give your 1st gen iPhone to someone to reactivate via iTunes on a new plan.
What are European iPhone plans looking like? You’ll have to check your local provider, but from what we’ve been hearing, O2 in the UK and Telefonica in Spain will get free a iPhone 3G if they sign up for an 18-month plan that’s at least $88/month.
What happens a year from now when Apple releases an even better iPhone? Nobody really knows, but it’s likely that they’ll just do what they did this time and have you buy the phone and renew the contract for another two years.
.

The Rest
Will there be cases for the iPhone 3G when it launches? Yes. All accessories are available at http://northcentralcommunications.ca
If I somehow get hold of an iPhone 3G and shove in a SIM from my old iPhone, what happens? That’s a pretty damn good question. We’re not sure. If the iPhone 3G is straight out of the box, it’ll need to be activated. If it somehow already got activated (or, hacktivated), you might be able to just use it on your old iPhone 2G plan. We’ll keep an eye on this. Thanks Moe.
Does the iPhone 3G work like an iPod with iPod accessories? Yes, it works just like the first iPhone does. Most iPod accessories will support the iPhone 3G, but some speaker docks might have some GSM interference static if it isn’t shielded correctly.
Can I use the iPhone 3G on Telus or Bell? Nope, never. Not even if you unlock it.
If I buy my friend’s old iPhone when he updates to iPhone 3G, can I use it as a cheap iPod touch without activating it? Yup! Everything but the calling features should be active, except it will say “No SIM” at the top.
What are the chances of Apple releasing an iPhone with increased data storage before the next-next gen iPhones come out? Pretty damn likely. I’d expect a 32GB iPhone some time late this year or early next year.
I’ve got international roaming on my AT&T plan now. Can I take the iPhone 3G to various countries, including Japan? We don’t have official confirmation of this from Apple yet, it’s likely that your phone will work in Japan. The iPhone is Quad-Band, which means it works on GSM/EDGE on the 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz frequencies and UMTS/HSDPA on the 850, 1900 and 2100 MHz frequencies. Because of the reports that Apple’s using Softbank to distribute iPhones in Japan, we can deduce that you should be able to roam just fine. From Wikipedia:
SoftBank Mobile currently operates both PDC (Japanese 2G) and W-CDMA (UMTS 3G) networks. SoftBank’s 3G network is compatible with UMTS and supports transparent global roaming for existing UMTS subscribers from other countries outside Japan. Subscribers of GSM networks having roaming agreements with SoftBank Mobile can also roam on the SoftBank 3G network by using UMTS handsets.
After I activate my iPhone 3G, will I be able to sync all the settings from my old iPhone onto it? Yes. When you activate the new phone, iTunes will ask you if you want to sync the old existing data onto it. Do a sync with your old phone before docking your new one and you’ll be set.

All iphone accessories available at http://northcentralcommunications.ca

Rogers changes thier iphone plans slightly

MONTREAL – After consumer complaints about the costs of running an iPhone, Rogers Wireless (TSX:RCI.B) is cutting the price of the smartphone’s data plan to $30 a month for a limited time.

The $30 monthly fee for data applies to a three-year contract for customers who activate their iPhones by Aug. 31.

The data plan rate is for Web browsing, emails and video.

Rogers says the six-gigabyte data plan will allow users to visit 36,000 Web pages, send or receive more than 157,000 emails or watch almost 6,300 minutes of YouTube videos each month.

The much-anticipated iPhone goes on sale this Friday at select Rogers Plus stores in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax, Calgary and Vancouver.

Rogers says customers will also have the choice of selecting existing Rogers voice and smartphone data plans.

The iPhone will cost $199 and Rogers is the only Canadian carrier that has a network capable of running the high-end, touch-screen multimedia phone.
Canada press

iphone frenzy hits Japan

iPhone Fever Hits the Streets
By Teresa von Fuchs
WirelessWeek – July 08, 2008

Japanese carrier Softbank plans to open its store in the Harajuku district at 7 a.m. local time this Friday to accommodate iPhone enthusiasts who just can’t wait to get their hands on Apple’s new 3G handset. The launch on Friday marks the first time Japanese consumers will be able to buy the much-hyped handset, since the original iPhone ran on networks incompatible to those in Japan.

But even New Zealanders will beat the Japanese at being first to get the device. Vodafone announced that it will open three stores across New Zealand at just 1 minute after midnight on July 11, making it the first country in which the 3G iPhone will be available. Australia will be second and then Japan.

Not being first has not stopped a group from camping out in front of Apple’s flagship New York store. Starting last Friday, a full week before the handset goes on sale, the group reportedly said it is trying to set a Guinness World Record for the most time spent waiting in line to buy something, and trying to promote sustainable agriculture.

Calling itself Waiting for Apples, the group is presumably waiting for a week outside in order to purchase iPhones, but in interviews the group also said its goals are to use the stunt to promote the idea that the next U.S. president should plant an organic farm at the White House, and that “it’s a good idea to grow food.”

David Bowman Simon, spokesman for Waiting for Apples, also reportedly said that he plans to buy a 3G iPhone for both U.S. presidential candidates.

Sony Ericsson z520 review

Z520i – GSM 900/1800/1900 in Europe and Asia
Z520a - GSM 850/900/1800/1900 in America

General 2G Network GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 – Z520i
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 – Z520a
Announced 2005, June
Status Available
Size Dimensions 93 x 46 x 24 mm
Weight 96 g
Display Type TFT, 65K colors
Size 128 x 160 pixels, 29 x 35 mm
– Second external CSTN display 4096 colors (101 x 80 pixels)
- Wallpapers, screensavers
Ringtones Type Polyphonic (40 channels), MP3, AAC
Customization Composer, download, order now
Vibration Yes
Memory Phonebook 500 x 8 fields, Photo call
Call records 30 received, dialed and missed calls
Card slot No
– 16 MB shared memory
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
HSCSD No
EDGE No
3G No
WLAN No
Bluetooth Yes, v2.0
Infrared port Yes
USB Yes
Features Messaging SMS, EMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML
Games Yes + downloadable, order now
Colors Light Blue, Pale Purple, Pale Pink, Pale Yellow
Camera VGA, 640×480 pixels, video
– Java MIDP 2.0
- MP3/MPEG4 player
- Image viewer/editor
- Exchangeable covers
- Built-in handsfree
- Organizer
- SyncML
Battery Standard, Li-Ion 900 mAh Stand-by Up to 400 h
Talk time Up to 9 h
z520 manual

Controversial Japanese cell phone ad pulled

A Japanese mobile phone firm said today it had pulled a TV advert depicting a monkey as a political candidate amid accusations that it was a racist reference to Barack Obama, who is seeking to become the first black US president.

The ad, for eMobile, shows a monkey in a suit addressing an election rally, surrounded by supporters carrying placards with the word “Change”.

The apparent intention is to persuade subscribers to other mobile phone carriers to transfer to eMobile.

But the combination of the monkey, and the resemblance of his message to the theme of Obama’s campaign – “Change we can believe in” – prompted bloggers to accuse the company of making a racist slur against the Democratic hopeful.

The company, which stressed it had used the macaque mascot in several other adverts, said it had never intended to insult Obama but had decided to pull the “Change” ad in response to criticism in the blogosphere.

“We had no bad intentions, but this is a cross-cultural gap issue and we have to accept it,” eMobile’s chief executive, Sachio Semmoto, told Reuters. “There are African-Americans in Japan, so we decided to take prompt action and shut down the ad.”

Semmoto went further, describing the senator from Illinois as the kind of leader who could benefit not only the US but also Japan. “For two years I’ve been saying Obama has the capacity to change America, the kind of capacity that Japan needs,” he said.

Monkeys are revered in Japan, and their image can be found at numerous Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, but eMobile’s choice of animal for this ad did not impress the foreign blogging community.

Zurui, in a message to the Black Tokyo site, wrote: “Well it seems like the ugly head of racism has reared its big head again on Japanese television.

“Am I crazy to think the monkey is supposed to represent Barack Obama? Given the track record for companies in Japan that use monkeys and blacks or monkeys as blacks in advertisements … maybe not!”

Writing on Japan Probe, James disagreed: “Is this ‘the ugly head of racism’ in Japan, as sites like Black Tokyo have written? I don’t think so.

“The commercial clearly is a parody of Barack Obama’s campaign, which has received a lot of positive media coverage in Japan, but I don’t feel that it reflects racist ideas about black people and monkeys.

“I doubt that most Japanese people would even understand how a pink-faced grey monkey native to Japan could be equated with African people.”

It isn’t the first time a Japanese firm has found itself accused of racist depictions of black people.

Three years ago a TV commercial by Mandom, which makes men’s grooming products, drew condemnation because it showed a Rastafarian accompanied by a chimpanzee that had been made up to resemble him.

Obama is hugely popular in Japan, not least among the residents of a fishing town on the Japan Sea coast that shares his name.

The residents of Obama – “little shore” in Japanese – formed a supporters’ group to follow his progress through the Democratic primaries.

His Japanese supporters made sweet-bean buns bearing Obama’s face and “I love Obama” T-shirts, as well as similarly themed chopsticks, which the town’s mayor sent to the candidate along with a message of support.

Justin McCurry in Tokyo
guardian.co.uk, Friday June 27, 2008
Article history
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Friday June 27 2008.

Competition in Canada’s cell phone industry

By Luann Lasalle, The Canadian Press

ADVERTISEMENT

MONTREAL – Bidding has reached more than $4.1 billion in an online auction to open Canada’s cellphone market to more competition, prompting a complaint from one of its participants.

Shaw Communications Inc. (TSX:SJR.B) raised some concerns about the online auction and its costs. “It is interesting to see a process so clearly driven by foreign money,” CEO Jim Shaw said Friday during a conference call to discuss the cable company’s third-quarter results.

“We just hope that when the auction’s over and the bidders are qualified, that they all can recite the words to the Canadian national anthem,” Shaw said.

Shaw president Peter Bissonette then chimed in with the first few notes of the “Hockey Night in Canada” theme.

The Calgary-based Shaw had bid $208.7 million for 25 spectrum licences primarily in Western Canada, said Industry Canada’s website.

Shaw appeared to be making a dig at Toronto-based Globalive, which is also trying to get into the Canadian cellphone market but has financial backing from European and Egyptian telecom investors.

Globalive had bid $433.1 million for 26 licences in many parts of the country and is aiming to be a new, national cellphone player.

However, strict federal regulations prevent foreign telecom companies from simply breaking into Canada with their own platforms and they can only invest a minority stake in a Canadian company.

Shaw didn’t comment on what his company intends to do with the wireless spectrum it has acquired during the auction.

He also said the auction has increased prices for new players to enter the Canadian cellphone market.

“How is that good if your mandate is to deliver quality new products to Canadians? How can you do that when you bring in a whole bunch of people to drive up the price? They’ll have to charge you more.”

The domestic cellphone market is estimated to generate $16 billion in revenues a year and is dominated by Rogers Communications Inc. (TSX:RCI.B), Telus Communications Company (TSX:T) and Bell Mobility Inc. (TSX:BCE).

The big three players and new participants in Industry Canada’s wireless spectrum auction are bidding for more than 250 licences for airwaves over which wireless networks need to operate.

Analysts had originally estimated the bidding would go as high as $2 billion for the 105-megahertz band of spectrum.

Some had believed it might have been winding down when bids recently reached $3.5 billion, but the auction won’t end until bidding halts.

Analyst Carmi Levy said the higher than expected amounts that have been bid will have fallout for all of the players in terms of what they will be able to offer consumers.

“So obviously the more you spend on bandwidth and on the rights to own bandwidth, then the less you have after the fact and that will have implications for the kinds of services we can see and when we will be able to see them,” said Levy of Toronto’s AR Communications Inc.

It will also impact the smaller players that want to build cellphone networks, said Levy, senior vice-president of strategic consulting.

Quebecor Inc. (TSX:QBR.B) had bid $565.1 million for 18 licences primarily in Quebec and parts of Ontario for its Videotron cable service to get a crack at the cellphone business.

“I cannot discuss this subject in more detail, except to tell you that if all goes according to plan, Videotron will build its own network and add third-generation wireless services to its range of products,” CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau said this week at his company’s annual meeting.

Even though bidding is starting to flatten, nobody is giving an inch, Levy said.

“This is the way it’s being played out and they don’t have a choice,” said Levy. “Their only alternative is to fold up their tents and go home and none of them is doing that.”

The big three players were leading bidding on Friday, but they can’t bid on the 40-megahertz of spectrum specifically reserved for new players in the cellphone market.

Dominant player Rogers had bid $946.1 million for 57 licences spread across much of the country with heavy concentration in Ontario.

Telus had bid $800.4 million for 53 licences in and Bell had bid $695 million for 53 licences, both of them bidding in many different parts of Canada.

For his part, Shaw said he’s not worried about losing customers to new independent wireless providers that may emerge once the auction wraps up because it will take them a long time to develop the infrastructure and cultivate customer relationships.

“They might have a billing system, they might have some expertise. They maybe they’ve got lots of money. But it’s that back office that really makes the service work,” he said.