… when my lovely new iPhone 4, untainted by carrier locking, arrives in a beautiful FedEx box directly from the Apple factory in Shenzhen, China.
My first legitimately-unlocked iPhone… and I already have a microSIM for it so I’m ready to go.
I will probably be too busy playing with it to post for a few days 
Yesterday, SaskTel launched its 3G+ HSPA+ network in Saskatchewan.
This is of minimal significance to a lot of people, but as a person who likes GSM and its 3G successors, it’s music to my ears. You see, until now I’ve had two choices for data connectivity at the cottage: dialup Internet at about 45kbps (not bad for data from a rural location, really), or 2G Rogers coverage. Well, 2.5G because it’s EDGE… but that’s still limited to about 100kbps most of the time . At times (when the fictitious Becky that my brother-and-law and I talk about, across the lake in Regina Beach, is on the phone) I get about 15-20kbps. And the latency is pretty bad.
So today, I signed up for SaskTel’s 3G data service (I already have an unlocked data stick) and I’ll give it a try at the cottage. $25 a month plus service charges (about $33 all in) for a gigabyte of data. Not as attractive as my Rogers flex plan, but not bad. I suspect that a gigabyte should be plenty for most purposes.
iPad plans are apparently coming (they call them “tablet” plans because Apple presumably won’t let them use the word “iPad” yet). I ordered this on their web page… we’ll see what comes of it. Actually, 2.5G EDGE isn’t terrible on the iPad, but for some applications the extra speed of 3G is pretty noticeable. Plus, in a few months the SaskTel network will have a much larger footprint than Rogers’ network. (Right now SaskTel’s is a little smaller than Rogers’, at least in the GSM arena.)
Rogers, if you read this… if you would upgrade all of Saskatchewan to 3G and add a few towers in targeted areas (Waskesiu, Kenosee, Cypress Hills Provincial park… that would be a nice start) you would be a lot more competitive. You’ve had a hardware advantage on SaskTel for a few years now, since you switched to GSM, but now you’ve lost it. With the economy booming year, the last couple of years would have been a great time to be upgrading your network, and I hope you haven’t lost your window of opportunity. Upgrades please!
My iPhone plan is up in a year… if we don’t see some upgrades on Rogers here in that span I might well move it. SaskTel has an interesting plan that includes US roaming at a very reasonable rate…