Torontoist » telecommunications

Polling Booth: No Gabba Gabba

Effective Monday, October 26, it will be illegal to operate any handheld device while operating a vehicle in Ontario. Following years of studies demonstrating that holding a phone to your ear while driving shows a similar level of impairment as driving drunk [PDF], the province has banned any handheld electronic device that takes a driver’s [...]

Rogers Kills System Access Fee, Makes Up For It By Charging You More

In a move clearly meant to stem the bad PR continually building against the ludicrous $6.95 monthly System Access Fee, as well as the pending debut of increased competition in the marketplace, Rogers Communications has announced that the despised fake tax is about to disappear. But not really, because a new “government regulatory recovery fee” [...]

Pay Us More to Annoy You Less

Nothing our call log couldn’t have told us more effectively. While we think it’s really sleazy to force customers to pay extra for a connection they’re already paying for, we have to admit that Rogers surprised us when they enabled the tethering option of the iPhone at no extra charge this month (tethering allows you [...]

Text Bomb

Photo by Marc Lostracco/Torontoist. When it comes to holding customers in seething contempt, few corporate entities do it with more blatancy than the Canadian telcos. And they know customers hate them—that’s why Koodo (a brand owned by Telus, though you’d never know it) mocks the industry’s despicable practices in their advertising. But when three biggies [...]

Put A Ring On It

More good news from the TTC: the dream of cellphone service on the subway is now on its way. The Post reports that the transit system will have a plan for providing service within the next six months. “It’s not a matter of ‘if,’” Adam Giambrone told the paper, “it’s a matter of ‘when.’” The [...]

Hanging Up on System Access Fees

The bogus, made-up System Access Fee that Canada’s mobile phone providers use to intentionally and despicably dupe their customers may soon be history. With our telcos basking in some of the highest rates anywhere on the planet, don’t go thinking it’s out of the goodness of their hearts, though. It’s because of new competition entering [...]

Keeps On GOing And GOing And GOing…

Rogers Finally Changes iPhone Upgrade Policy

In yet another significant change of policy following customer outrage, Rogers appears to have changed the rule that prevented existing customers who had changed their phones over the past year from upgrading to an iPhone. According to a forum thread on ehMac.ca (sent to us and confirmed by reader K. Robson), existing Rogers wireless customers [...]

Missed Connections 3.0

The legions of cyber Romeos and Juliets who are slaves to Craigslist’s Missed Connections in the hopes of being wooed by a mystery someone can now declare their insta-infatuation via text message with MobileMoment.ca. The Toronto-based website, which had its soft launch Wednesday, hasn’t seen much action yet, but we’re pretty sure that the ability [...]

Rogers Bans Some Existing Customers From Buying iPhones

As we've pointed out many times before, Rogers boasts an exceptional brand of contempt for its non-business wireless customers, but the launch of Apple's desperately anticipated iPhone has exposed a whole set of new lows for the Toronto-based company. Due to a breathtakingly boneheaded policy in place by the company's National Planning Department, existing customers currently under a Rogers contract and who have upgraded their handset within the year are prohibited from purchasing an iPhone. At all.

Spectrum Space Sold, Tenants Temporarily Turfed, Doughnuts Deliciously Dangerous

The wireless spectrum auction being held by Industry Canada to sell off 300 spectrum licenses has closed, with 40% of the spectrum licenses being set aside for new competitors in the wireless industry and $4.25 billion in revenue going to the Feds. The Financial Post speculates that competition will increase and prices will decrease, and [...]

Cell Phones Apparently Safe, Toronto A Little Less Safe, Exploding Building Not Safe At All

Get little Timmy and Cindy-Lou on the horn, stat! Health Canada has contradicted last week’s warnings from Toronto Public Health that children should reduce cell phone use, saying that the science doesn’t support the conclusion that your kids’ brains will mangled and cancerfied by cell phone heat and radiation. Well, except for this study. And [...]