The Jaded Tech

So there was this article on the Internet recently about how ad blocking is devastating to sites that you love. You may have read it and there’s a good chance that you participated in the frank and lively discussion that took place afterwards.

One of the things we learned from all of this is that not all people who use ad blockers are actually out to block our ads, and that many of you didn’t realize that blocking ads hurt us and the other sites you love. Many care deeply about their privacy, personal information, and the well-being of their computers. Many were more than happy to unblock Ars, but many others had difficulty doing so due to the complicated nature of many ad blocking solutions. Dozens of you asked for help, so here it is.

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So, ever pushing to learn more about technology, and getting slightly bored and annoyed at a 500MB data limit on my cell phone plan, I decided to do something about it.

In Canada we are getting screwed. There is a whopping 2 cell phone providers (Telus is kinda 3rd but utilize either Rogers of Bell’s towers for some portion of their services). This means little competition. Sure you’ll see names like Solo (Bell) or Fido (Rogers), even Koodo and Virgin Mobile. All these guys use existing infrastructure and get marketed differently. Everyone knows that Cadillac is build by GM, hell many of the parts are no different that what you might find on a Chev or Buick, but the marketing has gotten you to believe that it is 100% different and better. Badge engineering at it’s finest folks!

So, with the monopoly of cell phone providers (2), they make fierce claim to their turf. It seems that Telus is tolerated oddly enough.

Last year the Canadian Gov’t put up a section of wireless spectrum for auction. Guess what, some company out of nowhere wins the bid. Wind Mobile (http://www.windmobile.ca/).  Yeah!  Finally some competition and hopefully better plans/pricing.  After the win is approved by the Gov’t (certain restrictions and blah, blah, blah) they move onto the next phase.  But wait!  what’s this?  The CRTC wants to ‘review’ it?  Hang on….what kind of roadblock is this?  You mean they didn’t check it out before hand?  Riiiiight.

Ok, it seems like there was no big deal and now Wind Mobile is in business after all.  Sheesh, it’s nice to see a company that pushes hard enough for a more free and open market and has the resources to stand with it.

So I hope on board because their Unlimited Data Plan seriously appeals to me.  While having less talk time is kinda annoying, I’ll work around it.  This convenience does not come without some growing pains.  Wind is smart in that they have a ‘network builder’ link where you get to report issues and problems online.  I have been using this more and more because the oddest things happen.  For example, my phone will suddenly be showing Roaming when I haven’t left my house.  Or I’ll not have any connections and ‘my SIM card does not allow me to register on this network’ message when I try but eventually it does register.

For those who don’t like such things, stick with the well established guys.  For those who want to help bring in some real competition and aren’t hung up on 100% reliability, get on board!

We should all live by this!