Thanks for the link-love! I’m delighted to see that Yak made it through. Combine that with Telus / Bell joining the GSM ranks finally, and we’ve got some decent competition coming up.

’bout time, too.

Re. how Canadian iPhone plans are vs. the rest of the world, the CBC begs to differ with you:

Only Italy more expensive than Canada

Of the 21 countries where the iPhone is being launched on Friday, Italy comes in first with $2,554 for a two-year service agreement. The amounts are in U.S. dollars for the purpose of comparison in CBCNews.ca’s iPhone index.

My apologies to Sweden. Woe is us indeed. (In Italy, I guess they’re saying “Oi mei!” or something like that.)

Check this out: http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/map-telecom/

I understand that some people got their knickers in a bunch because they’re super interested in this one particular product. But if we look at the broader picture of Rogers and mobile telephony in Canada, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. After the hype and the wailing is over, this is what the whole thing boils down to (how it will read in the news summaries at the end of the year):

Rogers brought the iPhone (a premium cell phone) to market and sold out.

Also: Canadian phone plans are NOT the “most expensive in the world (woe is us)”.

As for them being sold out in the US, that may be, but I also remember hearing that there were probably no more than 20 phones per store in several areas. Don’t know the total number that came into Canada, but I wonder what would have happened if Rogers had said ‘We’ve only got 150 phones for Friday. You can sign up for one now, or get on the list for the next shipment.’ That would have made a lot of consumers a lot happier on Friday (especially the ones who waited for hours only to be turned away later.)

I should have made it clear that it’s GSM competition, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it (heh). GSM is the dominant technology nearly everywhere else in the world (except for the US, but it could be argued that they are a backwater when it comes to cellphone usage and networks compared to the rest of the world).

I’ve heard the rumor of Telus migrating to GSM (but not Bell). It will be interesting if the GSM network vendor choices go from 1 to say, 3 or 4 in the space of 2 years. Maybe the three year contract that Rogers requires will last just enough for them to change their business. Nah.

Also, iPhone 3Gs are completely sold out across the US, too: in a note posted Sunday night, John Gruber found four available iPhones in any Apple Store in the country.

Finally, I’m hearing plausible rumors that Telus and Bell will migrate to GSM-based networks by 2010.

Rogers has always had competition, just not iPhone competition. CDMA is not the hot technology right now, but for all practical purposes (except SIM swapping) it’s equivalent to GSM.