I worked at a notorious Canadian call center in 2004 providing Comcast internet support. It was part of the call center culture to share the annoying and stupid calls with our coworkers. I don't think for a minute that the same culture doesn't exist inside the CRA call center. Lets face it - some of the people that we are forced to deal with in customer service positions are .. well, stupid. Some of the other calls are downright hillarious - like the one-armed man that kept dropping his phone while his windows 98 ocean theme kept making toilet-like bubbling noises in the background. You can't make this shit up.

I totally agree with you. The other advantage is that by using a single infrastructure approach, we can limit (and standardize) wireless frequencies so we have less towers in our back yards. The two fundamental problems are: #1 - This gives the government complete access to the communications of the country. Even if they claim not to be monitoring it - how do we know? #2 - Governments are notoriously BAD at efficiency and innovation ... so while they could run it to solve one problem - they'd be creating at least two more in the process. Point #1 I can live with .. but point #2 would be hard to live with. On the other hand .. if they distributed the task and made each municipality responsible for designing, implementing, and managing their own communication network that may work. State/Provincial governments could mandate peering arrangements and dispute resolution within their jurisdiction and the Feds could mandate the states/provinces. This would eliminate both points .. as it would make the people of each municipality responsible for getting on their local government's backs to upgrade and improve the systems ...

SHAW is no better than Time Warner in this regard. They whined and whined that they cannot keep up with the data needs of streaming video and then pushed through their new data caps. So we ended up paying the same amount as before - but now its capped. SHAW aggressively pushes their cable service and their On-Demand service. But its an obsolete business model - they need to get with the times. Lets asy I wanted to catch Game of Thrones on Shaw's On-Demand service.. I can't just subscribe to it - I have to pay for their Digital service .. then pay for the Movie Central service .. THEN pay for the On-Demand service. So $80/mo later I am able to pay the premium on-demand rental price which happens to be the same amount that I'd pay by renting from iTunes, Playstation, or XBox stores. Furthermore - I'd bet the farm that the only people that are being pestered about their data usage are the people using Netflix and competing services. Its Greed - plain and simple.

I think their timing is perfect. The explosive leaps in mobile phone specifications has started to taper off. People are starting to get bored with Apple and Google ... and having another offering may be attractive to some for a personal phone. For businesses - whether you like it or not - I think its going to be a neck in neck race between Microsoft and BB - Microsoft has an edge with its existing server install base and Office integreation - but I think Blackberry is going to have an edge with its experience in the IT room and its understanding for what IT departments want. I like this link. Its impressive to say the least and shows one of the strong suits of BB10 that really does matter. http://www.cnet.com.au/blackberry-10-browser-beats-every-desktop-browser-339342636.htm