Possible Prelude to CDMA iPhone in Canada?

[brockm]

I'm not big in reading into things. But today, I came for my regular afternoon work-from-Starbucks ritual in downtown Toronto, along with my iPod Touch.

I have a Bell HotSpot account (which is the Starbucks Wi-Fi partner in Canada).

When I connected to the hotspot_Bell SSID as I normally do, and then opened my browser, I was greeted with a login screen that is completely catered to the iPod Touch/iPhone.

I found this particularly interesting considering the previous login screen design worked perfectly fine with the iPod Touch. Why would Bell Canada go out of it's way to design an iPhone-friendly login screen at their Wi-Fi hotspots, considering the company has no chance at striking a deal with Apple as a CDMA carrier, unless...

This is not the same page displayed on my laptop. It is clearly an iPhone-friendly formatted page. Look at the blue border around the options, etc.

 

[neoserver]

Perhaps their CSS automatically scales the site to the width of the screen? Have you tried loading this page in a regular browser and adjusting the width of the window?

EDIT: On a side note... I certainly hope that we DO NOT get a CDMA version... I want the portability of GSM... which means I want Rogers to pick it up.

 

[brockm]

Perhaps their CSS automatically scales the site to the width of the screen? Have you tried loading this page in a regular browser and adjusting the width of the window?

EDIT: On a side note... I certainly hope that we DO NOT get a CDMA version... I want the portability of GSM... which means I want Rogers to pick it up.

Yes, I'm sure. On my laptop, the login page has plenty of legal information, etc. It looks completely different. This is more than CSS. The webserver is serving a completely different page based on browser version.

I personally like CDMA. EV-DO has lower power usage than the GSM 3G (HSDPA) alternative. Not to mention that coverage is generally better with CDMA in North America than GSM. I never travel to Europe so I'm not too worried.

We should also consider that we know Apple has been negotiating with Japanese carriers. And we know that Japan is all CDMA-based. There's no GSM carriers in Japan. So do the math.

Rogers Canada reportedly had short talks with Apple that went nowhere. Apple apparently stopped talking to them. There are two major CDMA carriers in Canada (Telus and Bell). For Apple, they need the ability to play carriers off each other to get the best deal. Rogers, as the only GSM carrier, had nothing to gain from agreeing to Apple's terms.

Bell, on the other hand, has been losing marketshare to Rogers and Telus for years. If Apple did have a CDMA iPhone up their sleeve, it would most likely be Bell (the company with the best coverage, and declining customer base) for which they would be most likely to strike a deal most advantageous to Apple shareholders.

Also, what's the point of GSM portability in Canada when there is only one GSM carrier? Am I going to threaten Rogers with getting a SIM card from an overseas or American carrier?

 

[neoserver]

Interesting... do you know the URL of the site? I'd like to do some poking...

as for why you prefer CDMA... all valid reasons, if theres a CDMA version, there had better be a GSM version for us travellers...

 

[brockm]

Interesting... do you know the URL of the site? I'd like to do some poking...

https://secure.boldstreet.com:443/BellHotspot/Welcome.aspx

 

[neoserver]

hmm, doesn't seem to work... I can't find a route to the site... are you sure thats right?

 

[brockm]

hmm, doesn't seem to work... I can't find a route to the site... are you sure thats right?

Yes, I am 100% sure. It is possible that the site is only available over some sort of VPN from within the Bell HotSpots themselves.

It's probably very likely. I assume from a security perspective they would want to limit the exposure to their login page from the open internet, and limit it to within the hotspots themselves.

 

[neoserver]

Yes, I am 100% sure. It is possible that the site is only available over some sort of VPN from within the Bell HotSpots themselves.

It's probably very likely. I assume from a security perspective they would want to limit the exposure to their login page from the open internet, and limit it to within the hotspots themselves.

looks like it... The site seems to be redirecting firefox to http://www.bsi-redirect.ca

Which doesn't exist at all. Safari doesn't know what to do with it, and if i connect with telnet and manually use HTTP, i get told that they don't support me... I'll dig a little deeper, and if I come across something, I'll let you know

 

[neoserver]

Just doing some thinking here... but perhaps they redesigned the page for the iPod Touch? Seems to me they use the same browser, so it isn't necessarily just for the iphone... but the idea is intriguing nonetheless.

 

[brockm]

Just doing some thinking here... but perhaps they redesigned the page for the iPod Touch? Seems to me they use the same browser, so it isn't necessarily just for the iphone... but the idea is intriguing nonetheless.

Well, I thought about it, as I alluded to, I don't know why they would go through the hassle as the old page worked fine. The penetration of the iPod Touch is not exactly that great.

It's a possibility, but I'm trying to see what the business logic behind catering specifically to the iPod Touch on the part of Bell would be.

 

[neoserver]

Well, I thought about it, as I alluded to, I don't know why they would go through the hassle as the old page worked fine. The penetration of the iPod Touch is not exactly that great.

It's a possibility, but I'm trying to see what the business logic behind catering specifically to the iPod Touch on the part of Bell would be.

I'm not sure what it would be either... but I can't see Apple developing a CDMA phone, just for Canada, when all the other models use GSM. Just seems a bit weird, but if you're right about it, it would certainly floor me.

 

[brockm]

I'm not sure what it would be either... but I can't see Apple developing a CDMA phone, just for Canada, when all the other models use GSM. Just seems a bit weird, but if you're right about it, it would certainly floor me.

Well, like I said: there's the Japan-factor. We've heard rumors that Apple has been in negotiations with DoCoMo in Japan, which is a CDMA carrier as far as I know.

A CDMA phone would allow them to roll-out in Japan, Canada, and potentially China (which has quite a few CDMA carriers now).

 

[neoserver]

Well, like I said: there's the Japan-factor. We've heard rumors that Apple has been in negotiations with DoCoMo in Japan, which is a CDMA carrier as far as I know.

A CDMA phone would allow them to roll-out in Japan, Canada, and potentially China (which has quite a few CDMA carriers now).

Very true. I hadn't thought of Japan. So it could very well possibly be in the works. I'd be disappointed if it were true (as of the lack of GSM), but I think I could convince myself to buy one anyway

 

[Corvillus]

As was said before...the CSS is probably just resizing to fit the screen. However, even if it is an iPhone version of the page, that's not surprising, and certainly no reason to assume that Bell is getting the iPhone. Rogers, Bell and Telus are all members of the same hotspot alliance, so if you pay for hotspot access on any of their plans, you get hotspot access on ANY of their access points. So Bell and Telus supporting iPhones on their access points would not be surprising, because it's supposed to be the same network.

As for the iPhone in Japan, NTT DoCoMo does support UMTS/HSDPA on some of their handsets now, which is also the spec that the 3G iPhone will have to support since that's the 3G GSM spec. The only difference is that DoCoMo doesn't typically use SIM cards for authentication, they have their own proprietary system (but they might be able to work around that by simply providing one with the iPhone).

 

[TEG]

Both major 3G forms are CDMA. EV-DO come from the original CDMA while HDSPA comes from GSM. The EV-DO or CDMA2000 systems do not use sim cards, HDSPA or W-CDMA do use SIM Cards. A 3G iPhone will probabily use W-CDMA to access the UTMS/HDSPA networks that most current GSM providers are installing, and are backward compatible with GSM/EDGE.

TEG

 

[brockm]

Apple would not be averse to CDMA

Lots of people seem to have the impression that Apple would be averse to using CDMA, because it's a closed-standard owned by Qualcomm. Which begs the question: what makes anybody think Apple cares about carrier portability of the phone? By all accounts, in the iPhone story I read at wired.com, Jobs approached Verizon first (a CDMA carrier).

CDMA is a superior technology, and despite it lacking SIM card technology, I highly doubt Apple chose GSM to give their users "freedom" of any sort, since they so intentionally locked down the phone.

 

[neoserver]

I don't think people are expecting Apple to choose GSM because its more "open." I think people are simply stating that if the phone isn't GSM they won't buy it because they like the SIM card system which allows them to use any GSM phone on any network (assuming they have a SIM card for that network).

At least thats my standpoint on the issue. Apple and any CDMA carrier in Canada would have to have a great deal to get me to go from GSM to CDMA... its just a logistics issue for me, I'd love to have an iPhone, but I have quite a bit of travelling in my next few years, and I need to have a phone that can work anywhere, without me having to pay stupidly high roaming charges (by simply swapping in a local SIM card.) And yes, that would make me a member of the iPhone unlocking crowd if I got my hands on one....

EDIT: I see that HDSPA uses SIM cards whoops... however, that eliminates Bell as a potential carrier, as they are a CDMA only carrier... as in EV-DO... If I were to get an iPhone it would have to be from Rogers, so that it is HDSPA/GSM... Otherwise I'm not buying... a canadian model anyway...

 

[TEG]

Apple only went with GSM in iPhone v1 because GSM is a world standard, and therefore they would only have to build one model for worldwide distribution.

I also read something yesterday that both Bell and Telus are looking at either switching to GSM(or W-CDMA) in the near future to give Rogers a run for it money, and hopefully drive down the prices by raising competition. Much like Shaw and Bell did in the Television sector.

TEG

 

[neoserver]

Apple only went with GSM in iPhone v1 because GSM is a world standard, and therefore they would only have to build one model for worldwide distribution.

I also read something yesterday that both Bell and Telus are looking at either switching to GSM(or W-CDMA) in the near future to give Rogers a run for it money, and hopefully drive down the prices by raising competition. Much like Shaw and Bell did in the Television sector.

TEG

I can only hope...