Walled Gardens? How About Locked in a Dungeon?

I was planning on launching this blog with some deep thoughts on current affairs.  Something that clearly shows my graps of everything mobile.

Then I looked at my new mobile.  It looked back at me.  It was just begging me to tell its story. 

 First things first though.  I live in Canada.  Yes, it’s “that country” north of the US.  Wonderful place, really.  Lakes, mountains, snow – we’ve got it all.

One thing we’re somewhat short on is a thriving mobile culture.  We’re getting there.  Sort of.  Almost.  Not quite.  For starters, there are only 3 operators (Bell, Telus, Rogers/Fido).  The first two are CDMA, the latter is GSM.  So far so good.

Of the three operators, only one has a high-speed network.  Telus operates an EVDO network on top of its 1X net.  The other two are on 1X (Bell) and EDGE (Rogers/Fido).  As my work requires me to spend much time on the mobile browsing the web, it made sense for me to get (another) phone, this time from Telus.  Network speed was critical.

I finally made it to a Telus store.  A friendly saleslady greeted me and explained to me that nearly all their phones support EVDO.  I complimented her on her vast knowledge, and mentioned to her that they offer just about 5 modesl with EVDO, the rest being 1X. 

I opted for the new Samsung A720.  That’s another thing to consider – phone-wise, Canada (and the US for that matter) is light-years behind Europe and Asia when it comes to devices.  Oh well, you get what you can.

After going through all the various plans, add-ons and extras (the total number of service permutations must be in the thousands) I was happy to activate my 30mb/month traffic plan.  All-you-can-eat flat fee data plan?  You’re joking, right?  No carrier in Canada offers it.

As I began to explore the new phone (with its 150 page user manual) I was happy to note its improved web browser.  I decided to check out the built in (read: hard coded by Telus) Google search function.  It worked great.  Of course once I landed on Google’s page, I got some interesting recommendations, such as downloading GMAIL and Google Maps to my phone.

Always a sucker for J2ME applications (and having used both on other phones) I decided to download them.  Lo-and-behold, I got a “Forbidden” message each time I tried to download them.  “Must be a bug in the browser”, I thought.

Next I tried accessing the mobile video platform provided by Nexage.  Oddly enough, I was unable to access any of their videos.  Anyhow, it all went downhill from there.  Telus won’t let you install stuff on your phone unless you get it from them.  Ringtones?  Either buy them from Telus or hack the phone.

Let’s recap:  I paid +$300 for the latest and greatest phone, I’m paying $60/month for the data plan, and it turns out there’s not much I can do on the phone other than use the native browser, and even then some stuff is blocked by the operator.  Walled garden?  How about locked in a dungeon.

The final twist is the crippled bluetooth interface.  You can only use it to exchange contacts with others.  Transfer files?  High-speed data modem?  Cripple-ware.

So… will I switch away from Telus?  Not until the other carriers catch up with their networks.  Once you get used to EVDO speeds, everything else looks so… dial-up like.  Can they get away with it?  Hell yes.  Do I have the energy to complain to the CRTC (Canadian FCC)?  No, I’m too busy writing this post.

— Oren