Archive for the 'opinion' Category

Rogers iPhone 3G Pricing: Lube Not Included

Published
by
Brendon J. Wilson
on June 27, 2008
in opinion and technology
. 11 Comments

Rogers has unveiled its pricing structure for the iPhone 3G in Canada, and it can be summarized in one syllable. Unfortunately, this is a family-oriented website, so I’ll have to use a different syllable:

Ouch.

First off: there’s absolutely no unlimited data plan. Rogers may claim they have tried to make the plans slightly less ridiculous, but they failed bigtime - it’s business as usual, continuing the time-honoured tradition of having Canadians pay through the nose for meager amounts of mobile data. The cost of data plans range from $60 for 400MB of data transfer to $115 for 2GB of data transfer. This stands in stark contrast to the simple, affordable AT&T iPhone plans in the US, which feature unlimited data, Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll-over minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling for every plan - and the cheapest plan is $59.99.

The differences are staggering. The cheapest Rogers plan only include 75 text messages, versus 200 for the AT&T plan. To match the capabilities of the AT&T plan, you’d have to spring for the $100 a month plan with Rogers. For $60 with Rogers, you get 150 minutes of talk time, versus the 450 minutes you get with AT&T for $59.99. That’s right - 3 times the talk time, and it’s 1 cent cheaper.

But wait! There’s less!

Rogers “Value Packs” are required for things like Caller Display, additional text messages, and Call Forwarding (which appears to be billed on a per minute basis, which strikes me is really odd). All of these “Value Packs” are noted with “Wireless Essentials Included” - really? I have no idea what that means, but if they’re included, why the hell are they an extra charge on top of the main plans?

By all appearances, the Rogers iPhone 3G  plans are optimized for complexity and designed to milk the consumer dry. Way to go Rogers, you’ve exceeded my expectations, but not in a good way.

Viewing Multi-Citizenship as an Asset

Published
by
Brendon J. Wilson
on June 21, 2008
in opinion
. 0 Comments

Boing Boing pointed me to Kevin Kelly and Brian Eno’s “Unthinkable Futures” list, which included a disaster scenario that fired some neurons (it’s Saturday morning before ten, this is unusual):

People begin leaving the U.S. Many arrivals to the US keep resident status but choose not to adopt citizenship. The world sees more people without allegiance.

Whenever people ask me “where are you from?” I’ve always had difficulty answering the question. I was born in Australia, grew up in Canada, and hold Irish citizenship and US Permanent Residence status. Technically, I’m from somewhere around 30 countries.

I’ve always viewed multi-citizenship as an imperitive in an increasingly interconnected world. The ability to easily move and work in another country has always struck me as a logical complement to my highly transportable skill set as an engineer. While international treaties, such as NAFTA, typically simplify the process of moving between countries for highly-skilled workers, citizenship reduces the complexity even further.

In fact, one might even view citizenship as a new asset class. Not only is it an easily transportable asset, but it also can be passed on to descendants in most cases. When Ashley and I have kids, they could have as many as four citizenships: Canadian, Irish, Australian, and US.

That said, I, as many others, are wary of US citizenship. The primary reason for this fear is the draconian US tax law, which demands its citizens file taxes on their world income regardless of whether they are in the country or not. The US always wants its share in exchange for the benefit of citizenship. Other countries, in contrast, generally don’t require you to file taxes unless you’re actually in the country for a significant portion of the year.

I could see this becoming a liability for the US, leading to the outcome that Kevin Kelly and Brian Eno predict. US citizenship is only an asset so long as the US is a highly desirable labour market, and supports a high quality of life. In the absence of those attributes, the asset of citizenship is outweighed by the liability of onerous over-taxation.

Of course, in the long-term this hopefully becomes a non-issue as international borders and nation-states become increasingly irrelevant. Maybe.