I'm surprised you don't prefer verite' to the enhanced stuff. In some cases I think the suped up product is closer to the experience of being there than what the camera can capture, but through my eyes it can also rob a photo of authenticity. It's like what some photographers used to do with lens filters.
I'm glad you finally had success setting up the "PEI Plan" from Bell Alliant. It's the exact plan my mother has and it's fair deal with decent performance. She would never been able to navigate the maze you went through so I suspect she was either extremely lucky or more people knew about the program internally at that time. The lack of bandwidth caps is he most surprising and useful part of the service (we use allot of bandwidth in the summer).
The complexity and costs of mobile data in plans in PEI is the very reason she has yet to get an iPhone.
Linda Lowther
|
Saturday, September 29, 2012 - 12:02pm
Just wanted to note that indeed there are very good and caring employees. I cannot say enough good things about Connie who tried very hard to get something hooked up for my ageing aunt who is deaf. I think our good experiences tend to be with the locals. It's when it is faceless and far away that the experience sours.
I confess that when I wrote it was actually my understanding of what it could mean, but I simply refused to believe that there still existed such practices and worst that they actually can still consider to be legal by any communications provider... Amazing Peter. Happy to you changed operator, who haver has such a practice doesn't really deserve to be in business.. I'm petrified hehehe.
Peter Rukavina
|
Friday, September 28, 2012 - 8:40am
"Call display" is the name telcos here, both mobile and wired, give to the display of the calling number on the phone/device for incoming calls. It's also sometimes called "caller ID". Although there seems to be a migration away from this practice, it has long been the case that this "extra feature" is billed at an exorbitant fee -- $8/month on my old account. I presume, other than the cash from the fee itself, it has been priced so high as a disincentive for customers: if you don't know who's calling, you have to answer every call, and thus pay for every call, which is good for telcos, at least mobile operators.
Peter Rukavina
|
Thursday, September 27, 2012 - 8:57pm
It's possible to sign up for mobile Internet service from any of Telus, Bell Mobility, Virgin Mobility or Rogers. They all basically offer the same thing: $150 to $400 up front for hardware (less if you sign a contract for 2 or 3 years), and a sliding rate schedule based on usage (which takes us back to the psychology of dial-up, which isn't somewhere we should be heading), starting around $20/month.
Beyond the up-front cost, the danger of these plans is all the usage-based billing and the possibility of enormous bills if you don't closely monitor your usage. That's not real Internet, it's a cash cow for mobile operators and a digital prison for users.
The special plan the PEI government leveraged from Bell did away with all the bad parts: no up-front cost, no usage-based billing, no contract.
Peter Rukavina
|
Thursday, September 27, 2012 - 8:51pm
I agree that something is wrong.
There are some excellent, helpful, caring individuals in the company, right from the folks climbing poles through customer service and sales. They are, however, adrift in an oddly-stitched together marriage (Bell, Bell Mobility, Bell Aliant), encumbered by information and customer service systems that aren't doing their job, and without any sense that doing right by the customer is not only the right and human thing to do, but also, ultimately and especially in a post-monopoly environment, best for the bottom line.
I think this can be fixed, and I think we have a responsibility, as citizens and consumers, to help fix it by offering feedback and guidance.
As far as I can tell my mother has this service but did not have to go through the ridiculous process you did. I believe she called the mobility number. Speed and latency is fine, good enough for clear Skype video calls.
Linda Lowther
|
Thursday, September 27, 2012 - 7:30pm
This exactly replicates some of my experiences over the last number of months for land phones, for mobility, for Internet and for Bell TV. I have spent at lest 25-30 hours on hold in that time period. There is something wrong with this company.
Tim Hortons should model their service and cup designs after Starbucks and McDonalds. After diplomatically trying to reason with them, have decided not to open wallet again for this relatively unfriendly and unpleasant company with several outlets in downtown Vancouver. Several other competitors anyways.
I'm a flight attendant, and I've figured out how to get a single phone number that allows my family to contact me at home or abroad, and includes the use of a Telestial SIM card.
Michael Fagan
|
Friday, September 21, 2012 - 9:32am
Peter,
Thank-you for your well written and historically informative post on the sale of equipment from our offset press shop.
We are indeed still printing for the Province of Prince Edward Island as per the Queen's Printer Act, but the offset press work skillfully printed by our dedicated staff is now out sourced to the private sector on PEI.
We have utilized digital printers for color and black printing for many years and we are able to offer many unique custom services to our government. Although the printing world is undergoing rapid change through technology advancement, the Queen's Printer and the Document Publishing Centre in Charlottetown are well positioned to provide high quality print materials for the province of prince Edward Island.
regards,
Mike Fagan
Trans Union of Canada, Inc. offers credit and information management solutions to businesses and consumers internationally. It offers marketing services, fraud and identity management, risk management, collections management, data compromise assistance, and online application solutions for businesses. The company also offers electronic data transmission solution, a Web-based delivery process for consumer credit file updates. It serves automotive, banking and credit card issuers, collections, credit unions, government, mortgage lending, retail finance, and telecommunications and utilities industries. The company was founded in 1989 and is based in Toronto, Canada with consumer relations offices in Burnaby, Charlottetown, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, Laval, and St. John's, as well as sales offices in Laval and Toronto. Trans Union of Canada, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of TransUnion, LLC.
www.tuc.ca
Key Executives for Trans Union of Canada, Inc.
Mr. Ken Porter - President and General Manager
Mr. Sam Stravato - Chief Information Officer
Mr. Tom Reid - Director of Consumer Solutions
Mr. Derrick Breau - Vice President of Sales & Marketing
Las Vegas Printer
|
Thursday, September 20, 2012 - 2:57pm
a lot of printers are going thru the same transition. Here in Las Vegas, we have seen several printing companies either close their doors completely because they couldn't transition with new technology, or they have changed from millions of dollars in printing equipment to millions of dollars in digital equipment.
Peter Rukavina
|
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - 12:00pm
I agree: the web interface to Netflix is the most feature-rich, both for the reasons you describe, and also because it allows search by actor, director and genre, which the Wii and iPad apps do not.
Andrew M
|
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - 11:32am
I've found the best way to manage Netflix is on the laptop interface where you can say not interested. If you are proactive in keeping up with new additions you can make the stuff you don't want to see mostly disappear from your feeds. It is a bit of work at first slogging through the hundreds of awful movies on there and saying not interested but once complete it makes Netflix even in its impoverished Canadian state a better service.
During their heydays in the late 60's, a handful of people like Charles Bluhdorn and James Ling (LTV) and Hal Geneen were in the headlines almost everyday, making buy-out offers on public companies in diverse industries. Those were the days of conglomerates and corporate raiders, mergers and acquisitions. Even with the recent anti-trust court case against Microsoft, its chairman had nothing over the likes of Bluhdorn and Ling. Many MBA candidates at the time must have aspired to be like them. Of course, these people were at times disparaged as being greedy and heartless. But they did scare the daylights out of many other companies' directors and officers into attempting to enhance value for their own stockholders (boosting stock value to make it more 'difficult' to be bought out).
Re: "why oh why can’t CBC encode Compass for iOS?" -- they can, and do.
Somewhere out there, sitting on an Akamai-owned RTMP server, there are bunch of files that contain episodes of Compass, and they're named like this: Charlottetown-16_59_51-2012-09-13.mp4
These files are downloadable, but it's a pain in the neck. For more, see http://www.jmcardle.com/?p=2525
Nokia Lumia 800 Camera
I'm surprised you don't prefer verite' to the enhanced stuff. In some cases I think the suped up product is closer to the experience of being there than what the camera can capture, but through my eyes it can also rob a photo of authenticity. It's like what some photographers used to do with lens filters.
Internet in Green Meadows
I'm glad you finally had success setting up the "PEI Plan" from Bell Alliant. It's the exact plan my mother has and it's fair deal with decent performance. She would never been able to navigate the maze you went through so I suspect she was either extremely lucky or more people knew about the program internally at that time. The lack of bandwidth caps is he most surprising and useful part of the service (we use allot of bandwidth in the summer).
The complexity and costs of mobile data in plans in PEI is the very reason she has yet to get an iPhone.
Internet in Green Meadows
Just wanted to note that indeed there are very good and caring employees. I cannot say enough good things about Connie who tried very hard to get something hooked up for my ageing aunt who is deaf. I think our good experiences tend to be with the locals. It's when it is faceless and far away that the experience sours.
An Outbreak of Good Service
Can I safely assume that when I move to Düsseldorf and sign up for Vodafone service, there will be no such charge ;-)
An Outbreak of Good Service
I confess that when I wrote it was actually my understanding of what it could mean, but I simply refused to believe that there still existed such practices and worst that they actually can still consider to be legal by any communications provider... Amazing Peter. Happy to you changed operator, who haver has such a practice doesn't really deserve to be in business.. I'm petrified hehehe.
An Outbreak of Good Service
"Call display" is the name telcos here, both mobile and wired, give to the display of the calling number on the phone/device for incoming calls. It's also sometimes called "caller ID". Although there seems to be a migration away from this practice, it has long been the case that this "extra feature" is billed at an exorbitant fee -- $8/month on my old account. I presume, other than the cash from the fee itself, it has been priced so high as a disincentive for customers: if you don't know who's calling, you have to answer every call, and thus pay for every call, which is good for telcos, at least mobile operators.
Internet in Green Meadows
Corrected. Apologies to Bruce and Brian for the switcheroo.
Internet in Green Meadows
I believe the Aliant representative you refer to in paragraph 2 of your post is Bruce Howatt, not Brian Howatt. :)
An Outbreak of Good Service
Peter, what's "call display"?
Internet in Green Meadows
It's possible to sign up for mobile Internet service from any of Telus, Bell Mobility, Virgin Mobility or Rogers. They all basically offer the same thing: $150 to $400 up front for hardware (less if you sign a contract for 2 or 3 years), and a sliding rate schedule based on usage (which takes us back to the psychology of dial-up, which isn't somewhere we should be heading), starting around $20/month.
Beyond the up-front cost, the danger of these plans is all the usage-based billing and the possibility of enormous bills if you don't closely monitor your usage. That's not real Internet, it's a cash cow for mobile operators and a digital prison for users.
The special plan the PEI government leveraged from Bell did away with all the bad parts: no up-front cost, no usage-based billing, no contract.
Internet in Green Meadows
I agree that something is wrong.
There are some excellent, helpful, caring individuals in the company, right from the folks climbing poles through customer service and sales. They are, however, adrift in an oddly-stitched together marriage (Bell, Bell Mobility, Bell Aliant), encumbered by information and customer service systems that aren't doing their job, and without any sense that doing right by the customer is not only the right and human thing to do, but also, ultimately and especially in a post-monopoly environment, best for the bottom line.
I think this can be fixed, and I think we have a responsibility, as citizens and consumers, to help fix it by offering feedback and guidance.
Internet in Green Meadows
As far as I can tell my mother has this service but did not have to go through the ridiculous process you did. I believe she called the mobility number. Speed and latency is fine, good enough for clear Skype video calls.
Internet in Green Meadows
This exactly replicates some of my experiences over the last number of months for land phones, for mobility, for Internet and for Bell TV. I have spent at lest 25-30 hours on hold in that time period. There is something wrong with this company.
Internet in Green Meadows
Good for you Peter
Tim Hortons Cup Sizes: Canada vs. USA
Tim Hortons should model their service and cup designs after Starbucks and McDonalds. After diplomatically trying to reason with them, have decided not to open wallet again for this relatively unfriendly and unpleasant company with several outlets in downtown Vancouver. Several other competitors anyways.
The Island Hymn Triptych
This set is stunning, I love the mix of font sizes. I would love a set.
Telestial Passport SIM Review
I'm a flight attendant, and I've figured out how to get a single phone number that allows my family to contact me at home or abroad, and includes the use of a Telestial SIM card.
http://victoria-hawkins.com/archives/915
Queen's Printer Stops Printing
Peter,
Thank-you for your well written and historically informative post on the sale of equipment from our offset press shop.
We are indeed still printing for the Province of Prince Edward Island as per the Queen's Printer Act, but the offset press work skillfully printed by our dedicated staff is now out sourced to the private sector on PEI.
We have utilized digital printers for color and black printing for many years and we are able to offer many unique custom services to our government. Although the printing world is undergoing rapid change through technology advancement, the Queen's Printer and the Document Publishing Centre in Charlottetown are well positioned to provide high quality print materials for the province of prince Edward Island.
regards,
Mike Fagan
The Many Ineptnesses of TransUnion Canada
Here you go people....
Trans Union of Canada, Inc. offers credit and information management solutions to businesses and consumers internationally. It offers marketing services, fraud and identity management, risk management, collections management, data compromise assistance, and online application solutions for businesses. The company also offers electronic data transmission solution, a Web-based delivery process for consumer credit file updates. It serves automotive, banking and credit card issuers, collections, credit unions, government, mortgage lending, retail finance, and telecommunications and utilities industries. The company was founded in 1989 and is based in Toronto, Canada with consumer relations offices in Burnaby, Charlottetown, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, Laval, and St. John's, as well as sales offices in Laval and Toronto. Trans Union of Canada, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of TransUnion, LLC.
Detailed H.O. Description
325 Milner Avenue,Suite 1501
Toronto, ON M1B 5N1
Canada
Founded in 1989
Phone:
416-609-2070
Fax:
416-609-1994
www.tuc.ca
Key Executives for Trans Union of Canada, Inc.
Mr. Ken Porter - President and General Manager
Mr. Sam Stravato - Chief Information Officer
Mr. Tom Reid - Director of Consumer Solutions
Mr. Derrick Breau - Vice President of Sales & Marketing
Queen's Printer Stops Printing
a lot of printers are going thru the same transition. Here in Las Vegas, we have seen several printing companies either close their doors completely because they couldn't transition with new technology, or they have changed from millions of dollars in printing equipment to millions of dollars in digital equipment.
Netflix Canada vs. Netflix USA
I agree: the web interface to Netflix is the most feature-rich, both for the reasons you describe, and also because it allows search by actor, director and genre, which the Wii and iPad apps do not.
Netflix Canada vs. Netflix USA
I've found the best way to manage Netflix is on the laptop interface where you can say not interested. If you are proactive in keeping up with new additions you can make the stuff you don't want to see mostly disappear from your feeds. It is a bit of work at first slogging through the hundreds of awful movies on there and saying not interested but once complete it makes Netflix even in its impoverished Canadian state a better service.
Gulf + Western
During their heydays in the late 60's, a handful of people like Charles Bluhdorn and James Ling (LTV) and Hal Geneen were in the headlines almost everyday, making buy-out offers on public companies in diverse industries. Those were the days of conglomerates and corporate raiders, mergers and acquisitions. Even with the recent anti-trust court case against Microsoft, its chairman had nothing over the likes of Bluhdorn and Ling. Many MBA candidates at the time must have aspired to be like them. Of course, these people were at times disparaged as being greedy and heartless. But they did scare the daylights out of many other companies' directors and officers into attempting to enhance value for their own stockholders (boosting stock value to make it more 'difficult' to be bought out).
Netflix Canada vs. Netflix USA
Re: "why oh why can’t CBC encode Compass for iOS?" -- they can, and do.
Somewhere out there, sitting on an Akamai-owned RTMP server, there are bunch of files that contain episodes of Compass, and they're named like this: Charlottetown-16_59_51-2012-09-13.mp4
These files are downloadable, but it's a pain in the neck. For more, see http://www.jmcardle.com/?p=2525
Netflix Canada vs. Netflix USA
I must post this link to Huffpost.ca story, in which Netflix calls Canada's web infrastructure 'Third World'...
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/15/netflix-canada-internet-third-world_n_1887114.html?utm_hp_ref=canada