Latest News

DAVE Wireless invested $243.1-million for 10 licences during the Canadian Wireless Spectrum Auction a few months ago. They’ve brought on former Toronto Hydro Telecom president Dave Dobbin to run the show. John Bitove said “In my mind, you need people and a plan. We’ve got a great plan and you need to put it in place with good people. That’s how you have success in business.” More here

Samsung forecasting mobile future to Reuters: James Chung, a spokesman for Samsung said “The actual global market growth on a unit basis could come short of our initial forecast for 9 percent growth (in 2008), as for next year, it is possible that the market could post a single-digit or even negative growth,” More here

Coming off a very successful release of the BlackBerry Pearl 8130, Virgin Mobile Canada has officially released the BlackBerry Curve 8330 on the following price plans: $49.99 on a 3-year plan (with any BlackBerry  Bundle); $329.99 on a 2-year plan, $379.99 on a 1-year plan and 429.99 for 30 days.

Basic BlackBerry Bundles start at $15 per month and gives you unlimited e-mail and Instant Messenger.

The Curve weighs 114 grams and comes with a full QWERTY keyboard, built-in GPS, a 2 MP camera with video, 3.5 mm headphone jack and Bluetooth compatible.

As a bonus Virgin is throwing in an 8GB memory card while supplies last. More here at Virgin

Bell has a new commercial out that features a few of their Smartphones such as the HTC Diamond, BlackBerry Curve, LG Reveal and the Samsung Instinct.

Whenever a new device comes out we always get to see what the insides look like. This happened with the Bold and iPhone… and now the BlackBerry Stormhas been ripped apart and dissected. PhoneWreck has some interesting pics which can be seen here

Bell has decided to cut a few more jobs, this time it’s 250 clerical jobs in Hamilton, Ont., Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. With the earlier cuts this year as part of Georg Cope’s 100-day plan, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada is outraged and believe the cuts are the result of outsourcing.

Bell spokesman Jacques Bouchard denied that any of the jobs are being outsourced and said “We will work with a certain number of employees to help them find a new job at Bell.”

A Harris/Decima survey finds that 72% of Canadian households now have access to a wireless phone (up from 64% in 2006). The survey also showed “text messaging and picture-taking top the list of the most common activities performed on mobile phones. The use of text messaging has grown enormously from 25% of wireless users in 2006 to 44% in 2008; picture-taking has gone from 15% to 38%; and the use of multimedia messaging has increased from 3% to 13%.”

Bernard Lord, CWTA President and CEO said “Canadians continue to be some of the most enthusiastic mobile phone users in the world, averaging more than 400 minutes of talk time each month, and text messaging volumes continue to soar with growth rates in excess of 100% per year. In the first six months of this year, Canadians sent close to 9 billion text messages, with a current daily count of more than 54 million.”

If you are having a challenge finding the info on the Rogers Samsung SGH-f406 slider, this is the device that comes loaded with speakers by Bang & Olufsen, 3 megapixel camera with camcorder, MP3 player and can hold up to 8GB. It is available for $49.99 with Vision. A full spec sheet can be found here

With the flurry of BlackBerry Storm reviews and videos that have surfaced from the Vodafone and Verizon launches, hopefully us Canadians won’t be forgotten when it launches in the Great White North! (Just remember RIM is homegrown Canadian!)

News from the Bell BlackBerry Storm front: A notice has gone out to the Bell Dealers that their 1-hour hands on training will be starting December 1st in various cities across Canada. From what we hear this is the first time a hands on training has been made available and will be hosted by RIM. Here are the dates for the hands on training in several locations:
Vancouver: December 9th
Edmonton: December 10th
Calgary: December 11th
Waterloo: December 1st
Mississauga & Scarborough is December 2nd & 4th
Ottawa: December 9th
Montreal: December 4th & 5th
Quebec City:December 11th
Halifax: TBD (Week of December 8th)

The e-mail continues to say: “Bell is very excited to annouce an opportunity for the sales channels (Corporate Stores and Dealers) to get live hands-on experience BEFORE the BlackBerry Storm lauinches.”

Take this news and couple it with the recent info from last week stating: “The Storm will be available in Canada closely following the US launch. Testing on the Bell Storm has begun; Bell & Telus will receive the device for sale at the same time.”

Does this mean that the launch date is December 12th?
We will have more info soon.

Apple has released the latest updates to the iPhone, version 2.2. The enhancements are mainly to the Maps app and your Mail settings. Enhancements to Maps are: Google Street View, Public transit and walking directions, display address of dropping pins, share location via email. In addition, some enhancements to your Mail are: Improved stability and performance of Safari, Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application (over Wi-Fi and cellular network). Full details at Apple Canada