NorthGeek

iPhone, Nexus One 3G Frequencies

Also known as, why you can’t use the new Google phone in Canada… yet.

The chart shows the 3G frequencies (different from 2G) supported by each of these two devices, as well as the 3G frequencies of four mobile carriers.

Rogers/Fido does also use 1900MHz but it seems only for 2G, not 3G. Bell and Telus’ new HSPA network uses 850MHz (possibly also 1900MHz — this is unclear but irrelevant here).

Can people run the Nexus One on Wind Mobile in Canada? It seems so. So why can’t you buy the Google phone in Canada yet? Or you could always bear with EDGE speeds from The Three Stooges. And considering that option, I still think it’s a terrible shame you can’t buy this shiny new toy in Canada yet!

We also want to know why Google decided to go with that spectrum selection? Either T-Mobile had a say, Google is in no rush to ship millions of devices to the mass market, or… price? Qualcomm pushback? (Other Android devices do have a different choice of frequencies.) Please share your thoughts below!

More info at Wikipedia. However, this info is surprisingly mysterious. Ok, maybe no one really cares about it? Prove us wrong!

The NorthGeek HowTo Series: Ice fish like a Canadian

Clearly, Canadians are a little insane.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper sings The Beatles with Yo-Yo Ma

This actually happened. Yes, he’s still Stephen Harper, but nice to see the human side. He does get a hearty audience laugh for the line “I need somebody to love.”

How to tether on your Fido iPhone OS3.1

Has your iPhone stopped being able to tether (ie. connect your laptop to your iPhone data network) on Fido since you upgraded to OS3.1? Are you pissed about that? Please enter your comments on this below or at Fido customer complaints (like we did)! We’ll keep you up to date what we hear. This is an outrage!

Dear Fido,

I am an owner of a Fido iPhone 3G. When I purchased the iPhone and signed a 3 year contract, the best data option was 500MB as the 6GB promo was not available at that time. Up until updating my iPhone operating system to 3.1, tethering with my iPhone was an important feature for me. However, now with OS3.1, I am unable to tether, unless I change my data plan to one greater than 1GB. I am perfectly happy with paying for my 500MB plan for both iPhone browsing and tethering. I am not interested in changing the plan I chose under a 3 year agreement for a later added feature which excludes a 500MB plan for absolutely no apparent reason. 500MB is sufficient for my usage, and when I signed my contract, I was not told there would be any difference with a larger or smaller data plan other than data usage.

Please consider allowing people with a 500MB or any data plan to use tethering, until at least December 31, 2009, at which point you have announced changes may take place.

We have paid for the usage, we have signed contracts to do so, and should not suffer for choosing an appropriate plan before tethering option was defined later.

Thank you,
Noah Bloom
Fido customer since 2001
(This letter and replies may be documented at NorthGeek.com)

Saturday’s Surreal Vancouver sunset

A gorgeous Saturday on Canada’s West Coast was followed by an eerie, almost apocalyptical sunset. As a bonus, it was followed by the annual fireworks competition. This time lapse is taken from the often frequented KatKam.ca webcam near the Burrard Bridge. Please forgive the terrible music!

Here are some stunning photos captured during the sunset:

via KatKam.ca

via KatKam.ca

Google Maps Street View car caught in the wild in Montreal!!

Great news!! Montreal’s Plateau area will be included in Google’s Street View!! I spotted the car in the wild, on Duluth and Hotel-De-Ville, not too far from the NorthGeek headquarters… Unfortunately, the car was parked and the camera was covered, so I will not be in Street View. I know you were all wanting that pretty badly. So was I.

Here she is, in full (sort of…) HD:

More disappointment for mobile telecom in Canada: Bell now owns all of Virgin Mobile

Just when you thought things were getting exciting in Canada with more MVNOs, Bell Canada goes and buys the remaining stake it didn’t own in Virgin Mobile Canada. And the CWTA, for some incomprehensible reason, lets them. In their statement, Bell said that their mobile outfit Bell Mobility has bought the remaining 50% of Virgin Mobile Canada that it didn’t already own for $142M CAD ($122M USD).

Image from Engadget

And if you’re wondering what that acronym (MVNO) in the previous paragraph stands for, it’s Mobile Virtual Network Operator. But if you are a mobile consumer in Canada, you might not even know what that is. You see, in most other countries (about 360), there are companies (about 400) that offer mobile services to their customers without actually owning cell towers and expensive networks! You ask, how’s that possible? These companies piggy-back on the big networks, but can still offer some sort of differentiated service or customer experience. Sounds great! And it still brings competition to a market, which means: new services, faster networks, and cheaper prices.

The preeminent global MVNO is Virgin. They’ve got lots of subscribers in the UK, USA, Australia, etc. There’s also Tracfone, Blyk, etc.

Well, back to Canada. MVNOs were great to bring some competition to the otherwise monopolistic market. Companies came along, even if many like Solo and Amp’d were cloaked as arms of the big guys, but now we’re watching them disappear. Bad bad CWTA. Letting the competition get eaten up by the big dogs is not good for Canadian consumers. NOT GOOD!

So here’s to the winners of the recent spectrum auction (Globalive, Quebecor/Videotron, Shaw) in Canada to bring potentially some fire into our market!

What do you want to do before you die?

I believe that what you’ve done makes good stories, but what you seek to do with your life and the things you want to accomplish define you. These guys set out to cross off their lists, document it, and help people out along the way.

It looks like they’ve created something very powerful in the process. It’s called The Buried Life. These four guys from Victoria, BC, Canada have signed their show to MTV. We’re looking forward to seeing more!

Why is Qik so great for Blackberry video streaming? Ontario drivers parking!

Today I was presented with a wonderful opportunity to make fun of Ontario drivers. Granted, Quebec drivers get our fair share of criticism, but does anyone have proof like this? The video below demonstrates a driver from Ontario, along with his (or her) assistant, getting out of a not-so-tight parking spot. They were there for a solid 25-30 minutes – no joke.

Oh, but my point: why is Qik so great? Many reasons – for starters, it’s a fairly light application. It streams video “live” as you are recording it, and it gives you the option to add a title and description right from your device. The Qik website (qik.com) is also a great video sharing site, in my opinion. But maybe the best feature of all, which was recently released in a software update, is the ability to upload previously recorded videos to the Qik website. Great stuff all around – I highly recommend it!

Enjoy the video!

The Canadian electric car you haven’t heard of

Did you know there’s a Canadian car company? Oh and it’s electric. Spread this great news.

But this is a funny story, a funny sad (and controversial) story, because, despite this gorgeous (well, gorgeous in the environmental sense) car being manufactured entirely in Canada, it’s not actually legal on the road in Canada!

They’re called ZENN, as in Zero Emission No Noise. You will hear sounds of nature when you drive this car. Not the engine. Woah.

It’s a Canadian success story, and I’d like to see these on the road across Canada now.

Have you seen the gas tank is an electric plug? Yeah, plug ‘er in. You’ll pay a penny a mile, and the energy used is equivalent to 245 miles per gallon. It takes 8 hours for a full charge and 4 hours for 85% charge, just like your cell phone. As CEO Ian Clifford said, “Your biggest carbon footprint as an individual is probably the car you drive.” Consider that…

Here’s an 8 minute product tour with CEO Ian:

So as Canadians, this makes us even more compelled to spread the word about this car, which retails for $12,000 to $15,000 USD.

Illustrious TV show host and comedian Rick Mercer brought his classic Canadian mix of satire and reverence to his tour of the factory:

I would definitely drive this car. Would you? Well, gonna have to do something about that backing up buzzer, golf car style. Yikes.

The drawback with this car is that it’s maximum speed is 40km/h. But coming soon is the cityZENN with a maximum speed of 125km/h and 400km range on one charge. Or will it…

That would make it a real competitor to the big car companies, and if that project gets hidden under the rug like Who Killed the Electric Car?, many Canadians may never hear of ZENN. That project is dependent on some mysterious battery advancements coming out of a very private Texas Company called EEStor Inc. CEO Ian has (majority) propriety rights to this controversial technology — a unique energy storage system (shall we say, ultra capacitor) that can charge a car in 5 minutes to go 400 kilometres. Wowya! Or can it? Watch GM play dumb: