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The iPhone Canada Report

Posted August 14, 2007 7:30 AM by Hadley Stern
Categories: News 

imageI was up in Canada visiting family this past weekend and of course brought along my iPhone. Following up on my Puerto Rico report I thought I’d give you all some details on using the iPhone in Canada…in the Ottawa area specifically.

The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane and switched on the iPhone was that AT&T was replaced with Rogers. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the fact that Rogers is, according to a lot of folks, going to be the provider of the iPhone in Canada, or whether its because Rogers provides network support for AT&T in Canada but either way it was curious.

The iPhone functioned perfectly in Canada with a caveat or two that I will get to in a moment. The phone worked fine, visual voicemail was there for me. The one caveat was that the edge network was very very slow. The E showed up on the iPhone, but I’d put the speed of the network at around 25% of what I experience in Boston. For email this isn’t really that big of a deal, but for Safari and YouTube it is a show-stopper. If the iPhone is coming to Canada, I can only hope that the network speed will be bumped up.

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Comments

  1. I’d be very interested if you’d follow up with an analysis of your bill next month, particularly for data while using Edge in Canada. My guess is that very slow Edge connection will also prove very costly.

    Posted by John M on August 14, 2007 8:46 AM

  2. #1

    There’s an International iPhone roaming plan. For an additional $24.99/month you get 20MB and a reduced roaming rate (0.0125/KB in Canada). Since I do a lot of traveling to Canada this was a must for me. I just make sure now to abuse the 20MB’s while I take the trip up North.

    To Hadley Stern, Rogers was the carrier of choice for your iPhone because that’s the ONLY GSM carrier in Canada. Therefore AT&T and Apple really don’t have a choice who they can roam with, all they have is Rogers. There use to be another carrier (Fido) but that was purchased by Rogers several years ago.

    Of course being the only GSM carrier, their pricing is ludacris due to a lack of competetion. Hence the main reason Apple hasn’t released the iPhone. And trust me Rogers is stubborn enough NOT to change their pricing models just for the iPhone. Because the moment they change it, people will wonder why they’re paying so much more for data on other phones they offer.

    One can only wait for another carrier like Bell or TELUS to roll-out a competitive UMTS/HSDPA network. If Rogers holds out log enough it might just happen.

    Posted by Marco Rodrigues on August 14, 2007 8:55 AM

  3. I’ve traveled four times to Canada since I got my iPhone on June 30th.  It works there just fine, both in Toronto and Montreal.  I’m hoping to try it in Vancouver later in the week.

    I was trying NOT to use any data, even thought the “E” was indicating EDGE enabled.  When I opened Google Maps (I brought up the map of downtown Montreal before I left the US to have something to go by) it updated when I moved it around…so obviously it was on the network.  We’ll see what the bill is like.

    By the way, it was a hit in Starbucks in Montreal…lots of interest there.

    Posted by David Manning on August 14, 2007 9:04 AM

  4. FWIW, Fido it still around — but you are correct, that is how Rogers got GSM. And Rogers has placed Fido on a slow track to ruination. They don’t want to wake up the Gov’mint.

    But truly, is there such a thing as a good service in Canada? We’ve got CDMA with adequate customer service or GSM with antagonistic customer service.

    Posted by Jonny Canuck on August 14, 2007 10:35 AM

  5. Maybe we will get the Euro iPhone model through Bell in the east and Telus in the west. That would be a best case scenario.

    Posted by Big Al on August 14, 2007 1:27 PM

  6. Apple better hammer Roger’s hard to get a good service package deal.

    Posted by Neil Anderson on August 15, 2007 11:37 PM

  7. Considering the network issues here, it can only get better: http://www.thenewsroom.com/details/462894/All+Categories?c_id=wom-bc-js

    Posted by Ian from www.thenewsroom.com on August 16, 2007 5:38 PM

  8. hey man i just read ue post and i have a couple of questions. Next week im going to the states and i really want to buy an iPhone. if i were to bring it home and plug it into my computer would i be able to put my music on it and stuff? What will happen during the activation process, like can i just pick a random adress and ZIP from the states and use it during the process
    ??

    Posted by Patrick on August 17, 2007 1:14 PM

  9. Patrick,

    Officially no. But there are some ‘hacks’ out there that allow you to use an iPhone for the specific purpose of using it as an iPod. Search Google and you’ll find it.

    Posted by Marco Rodrigues on August 17, 2007 1:29 PM

  10. This is encouraging.

    Posted by offgrid on August 20, 2007 11:03 AM

  11. To Jonny Canuck Rogers was GSM before or around the same time Fido was.  And that was well before the two become one.  I sold Rogers phones for 2 years before they bought Fido, and for about a year of those 2 Rogers sold GSM phones. 

    As far as them being crap and expensive I agree, but family I have on Bell are just as convinced Bell is crap.  Same goes for Telus.  They’re all somewhat garbage.  With only 3 carriers in Canada it’ll stay that way too.

    And no Virgin Mobile doesn’t count since I believe they’re using Bell for their service.  Plus, they’re pay-go only.

    Posted by J on August 27, 2007 2:04 AM

  12. To Hadley Stern, who was so “surprised” that in Canada, AT&T was “replaced” with Rogers:  why are you Americans always so surprised to find that your stuff from your country doesn’t always apply in other countries?

    The reason Rogers showed up was not because it’s the only GSM provider, as another person suggested, but because AT&T doesn’t EXIST in Canada.  We have our own cell carriers that (surprise!) are different from yours.  So AT&T users are roaming in Canada.

    Why am I never surprised when my Rogers changes over to Cingular, or T-Mobile or some other company when I cross over into your country?  Well, the same reason why I take the time to convert my currency into yours instead of insisting that my dAWllars be automatically accepted everywhere, to switch my thinking over to miles and Fahrenheit and gallons and all of the other 18th century crap—that reason is that I am aware that I am entering another country, and I just automatically accept that.

    Do you think you could do the same?

    Posted by Irked on August 28, 2007 6:42 PM

  13. Irked,

    thanks for making my morning! I almost dropped my iPhone when I read your comment. See, I’m Canadian. Really. The hint may have been in the post when I said I was visiting family. I was, my parents…in Ottawa where I grew up for part of my life. I’ve been down in the states since 1994 and only two weeks ago became an American citizen.

    The reason I was suprised to see Rogers wasn’t because I’m some self-centered American who thinks everything follows him around the world. I was surprised due to the rumors, but not confirmation, of Rogers being the iPhone provider of choice.

    I must say your comment reminded me of one thing I don’t miss about Canada, and that is the incredible insecurity of a lot of its citizens, especially when it comes to America. I always try to step outside myself when reading someone elses words, and not frame everything so tightly in my context.

    Do you think you could do the same?

    Posted by Hadley Stern on August 30, 2007 6:57 AM

  14. Canadians aren’t insecure… In fact the exact opposite is true…

    I would suggest that most US Citizens are both insecure and paranoid.

    I certainly know my ex-wife is - An Oncologist in Redondo Beach, CA where I lived for many years… She was one of the most intelligent and well travelled people I have ever met, and yet her ‘knowledge’ and ‘understanding’ of the workings of the world in general were extremely limited to US gov. and media propoganda…

    (In Canada, we have the same thing, we just choose not to beleive everything we read or hear!!)

    But then, I only live here a few months every year… The rest of the time in the Turks and Caicos

    Anyway, this is very off-topic… however I must admit that one would think that someone who travels often would have known that the listed provider would be the one that had an international agreement with the root provider - It DOES seem obvious…Unless you are from Minnesota or something…

    Posted by S_Sampson on November 13, 2007 1:30 AM

  15. um…this post was concerning iphones, not american/canadian bickering.

    The top half of it was good, the others….well…not very informative about the iphone.

    I’m quite interested in seeing what your bill looked like, especially the rogers portion, if that applies.

    Posted by Al on November 13, 2007 4:46 AM

  16. The appearance of ‘Rogers’ over the AT&T link is actually more remarkable than Irked allows for.  The logo in the corner of the phone is actually not text, but an image.

    If the Rogers network is providing the images used to render in the iPhone’s network indicator, this is more telling than the usual roaming network ID you get.

    Basically I’m saying, Chill the Fuck out, Irked.

    Posted by Scott on November 30, 2007 12:54 PM

  17. But there are some ‘hacks’ out there that allow you to use an iPhone for the specific purpose of using it as an iPod. Search Google and you’ll find it.

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    Posted by Brewery lofts on April 18, 2008 7:13 AM

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