More at WirelessNorth.ca - for everything that sucks, and everything that's awesome about wireless in canada. (This presentation is about the former) What The National Post had to say about this presentation: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomaspurves/2296586493/ "DemoCamp Warms Up to Toronto Tech Crowd More than 400 people packed the Toronto Board of Trade conference hall on Monday night for DemoCamp, a loosely organized gathering of Web entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and technology enthusiasts. Startup companies that made an impression on attendees included Kaitlyn McLachlan’s AskItOnline online survey Web site and Alain Chesnais’s SceneCaster 3-D embedded imaging application. But the real crowd-pleaser of the night had to be WirelessNorth webmaster Tom Purves’ fast-paced Ignite presentation on why the Canadian wireless industry “sucks.” Although he was preaching to the converted, Mr. Purves spent just over five minutes pointing out the high price of Canadian cellphone service and compared different price plans from around the world. For example, did you know that Rwanda has better cellphone plans than Canada? Or my favourite stat of the night: According to Mr. Purves, one megabyte of wireless data transfer on Rogers’ network costs $50, a measurement not seen since the early 1990s, when relatively minuscule hard drives cost upward of $1000. For his efforts, Mr. Purves was rewarded with a standing ovation. Needless to say, Monday’s DemoCamp was the largest turnout in 17 different meetings. With the Toronto Board of Trade firmly on board (no pun intended) with DemoCamp’s main intention — to foster and develop new Canadian tech talent to the global market — there’s a good chance we may see a local success story sooner than later. Or maybe cheaper cellphone plans. The jury’s still out on which will happen first. David George-Cosh "

1. DemoCamp17.Toronto.Canada
Ignite Presentation, ThomasPurves.com
Led by: Thomas Purves WirelessNorth.ca

2. Why I’m here. An Infamous Chart.
Posted April 2007
Touched a nerve
Tens of thousands of visitors
150 Blog comments
100s of links
Hundreds more comments
on Digg and other sites
Front page of Digg
Somewhat remarkable for a
post related to Canadian
Telecom regulatory policy.

3. Why Wireless Matters
Innovation – Wireless IS the new last mile
 All computing is moving to the cloud, the web
 The network is the computer (finally)
 BUT this future of computing relies ubiquitous
connectivity
 Prevalent, ubiquitous, affordable wired and
wireless connectivity
 Culture and Economic growth (what sectors
do not now depend on computers and
connectivity)

5. Canadian Landscape
 Some of worst data rates in the developed
world.
 A country of Blackberry addicts, but low
accessibility to most advanced devices.
 Dominated by on-deck content and services,
crap accessibility to open content, open services.
 High pricing to consumers, lagging wireless
penetration, lagging adoption behaviours

6. Devices are overpriced in Canada

7. Contract lengths are obscene
 Canada is the only country with 3 year
contracts
 6, 12, 18, 24 month contracts standard
everywhere else

8. New Devices are transforming
Wireless Except in Canada

9. Why does Canada suck?
 Only one GSM carrier
 Little competitive behaviour
 Small market w/ no foreign ownership
 Curse of blackberry
 CRTC + industry Canada asleep at switch
 On the bright side it could be worse: Cuba,
North Korea for example have far less access
than we have

10. Victims of our own crackberry
addiction
 Canadian success story
 Poor browser
 Is really good at email
 Email is so 1999
 Appeals to a lucrative niche w/ moderate
data needs but high willingness to pay

11. Since the Chart, has it gotten any
better?
 YES Telus Unlimited PC card data access $75/month
 YES Bell / Telus unlimited “on device” browsing. At
least on Some devices, other restrictions
 NO Roger’s unlimited plans shuts off the internet to
third party apps. Rogers data rates have gone UP
from 30$ / MB to
$50 / MB (WTF!)

12. How much is $50/MB (WTF!) ?
 Cost to fill equivalent of a 1.44MB floppy drive
circa 1992? $72 + GST/PST
 Cost to fill equivalent of a $30 2GB MicroSD
card? $102,400 + GST/PST
 Cost to listen to a single mp3 (5MB) streaming?
$250 + GST/PST
 Data cost per hour at theoretical HSPA speed?
(3.7Mbs)? $1260 / Hour + GST/PST

13. The last time in the history of computing
anything cost $50/MB

14. What can we do about it?
New spectrum Auctions has created opportunities for
• New wireless policies
• New wireless entrants
• New / Disruptive Business models
Cost to play
• About 1.5 to 2 Billion CAD
• Expensive, risky

15. What is Canada’s Future?

16. Future of wireless - Optimism
“The rosy future: new entrants kick ass, telus
goes gsm too, iphones come to canada, cheap
highly capable and android and other devices
from china flood into Canada, spectrum auction
1. Optimistic pt1
comes with just the right rules/incentives to
open up the mobile platform to widespread
innovation, Rim comes out with a great
browser. Canada leapfrogs UK / US on the way
to 4G...

17. Future of wireless - Optimism
...by 2015 canada is exporting its model to
other countries as a world leader in services,
network operation, and hand set manufacture.
A company that goes on to become the next
1. Optimistic pt2
great facebook/google/microsoft is founded in
a dorm room in 2010 in canada is now fertile
ground for experiments in uber-connectivity”

18. Future of wireless – Not Optimism
“THE GLOOM FUTURE: the auction fails. new
entrants tied up in litigation over tower
sharing never achieving rollout, spectrum goes
fallow, a series of dithering governments
2.
forestalls the 700mhz auction,pt1 on any
Pessimistic
fails
other effective measure of stimulate
competition or openness and access...

19. Future of wireless – Not Optimism
... bell telus rogers use their complete domination
of the pipes to lock down media distribution in
canada on wired and wireless pipes though
descriminatory pricing and all hope of net
neutrality dies in canada. At birth all canadians are
2. Pessimistic pt2
allocated 10mb of outside internet access. Canadas
productivity gap with the US widens, eventually
Castro dies and north and south korea reunite and
both these countries have greater freedom of
access to the internet than canadians.”

20. What to Do about it
 Be aware of what you are missing
 Don’t sign up for a 3 year data plan
 Talk or write to your MP (it works)
 Buy an unlocked phone
 Support the new entrants (if they are better)
 Build kick-ass mobile apps anyway, and sell to
the global market
 Stay in touch: WirelessNorth.ca