I got a new cell phone this week: the Palm Treo 680.
This is a quad-band GSM phone (for Rogers Wireless or Fido. It also supports EDGE data speeds, which are quite a bit faster than GPRS. It's actually pretty zippy.
Initial impressions: I really like this phone. I still like PalmOS, but this phone has a much nicer screen than my Sony Clie PEG-TJ37, even though the screen is smaller. The quality of the phone is quite good. It has good-sounding audio (although slightly more obviously digital than my prior Motorola RAZR V3. I haven't given it a hard test under poor cellular conditions yet, but so far, so good.
My brother-in-law and a friend of mine both have the CDMA version of the Treo 650 and they both think that although it's a great PDA, it's a marginal phone. Steve Punter's review of the Treo 700wx seems to match their experience perfectly. However, the people I know with GSM Treos seem to be very happy with them. This might be a strong indicator that if you like Palm smartphones, you might prefer to use a GSM provider like Rogers, Fido, Cingular Wireless or T-Mobile USA rather than a CDMA provider. Of course, if you live outside Canada and the US, you are almost certainly going to be using GSM so the point is moot.
I'll report more later once I have more to say. So far, after 24 hours, I'm very happy with the phone.
Here is the news release about Access Digital Phone.
Access Communications has officially launched its Digital Phone product today. $24.95 a month including some bells and whistles but not all.
As previously mentioned here I've had it since last Friday and it works well. Now everyone can have it. Even the riff raff. :)
Be sure to tell them that you think Visual Call Waiting should be included. Call Waiting and Call Display are, but they don't work together if you're already on a call. That costs extra, and it shouldn't.
I'd link right to the news release but it isn't working yet. I'm sure you can find it.
So I got Access Communications' new Digital Voice service installed on Friday. So far I must say that it's working extremely well.
The quality seems to be very similar to SaskTel's landline service. Of course, because of its greater dependence on local power, it may be somewhat more unreliable during very long power failures, but I suspect that it will be quite usable. Let's be honest; almost everyone has cell phones these days (and I have more than a few of those :) )...
So here is what I like, and what I don't like, so far:
- sound quality is very good
- 10-digit dialling works - e.g. you can dial 757-7111 for time of day, or you can dial 306-757-7111 and it still works. For local people this is not of huge consequence, but when your friend from Toronto uses your phone to dial a local number, it is a nice feature. Torontonians (and many other people) have to dial an area code on every call, local or long distance, and dialling with 10 digits is a habit for them. SaskTel does not support this feature on their landlines (at least not as of a few weeks ago), although both SaskTel Mobility and Rogers allow it on their cell phones. (Rogers requires it when you are out of your local area code, in fact.)
- modems work! I don't know if the Internet would ever be down and phone service would still be up, but if it happens, you can use Digital voice to place a modem call. I got 49,333 bps yesterday with a USR V.Everything modem (admittedly one of the best modems ever made, probably the best, but also a modem that tends to connect on the slow side because of its conservative design). Latency was quite reasonable.
- You can't use dial-around long distance providers, which is slightly annoying but not surprising - Primus doesn't allow it either. (I've been using Primus TalkBroadband for more than a year, and still have it connected for the time being.) The thing that makes it slightly annoying is that Access uses Allstream as its long distance provider, and its proposed North American toll rate of 7 cents per minute is rather high. (Yak charges 5 cents as a dial-around service and 3.5 cents if you make it your long distance provider.) On the other hand, Allstream's toll rate to the UK is only 4 cents, which is exceptionally good. (UK mobiles are 29 cents, which is reasonable.) Solution: get a number at Grand Central, add your contacts to your GrandCentral phonebook, and call them using the web portal; GrandCentral will call you at the number you specify and then connect your call. This will cost you nothing at all within North America, at least while the GrandCentral testing period persists, and apparently the thought is that you will still get 500 minutes per month for free afterward. (Quality seems very reliable by the way; I've been using GrandCentral for a few weeks. I have a 213 Los Angeles number.)
- Access has decided not to include Visual Call Waiting with the service, even though it includes both Call Display and Call Waiting. This is pretty stupid. Unless Access is planning a large package of additional calling features for a low flat fee (similar to SaskTel's Residential Calling Features Package), I can't imagine anyone would want to pay four or five dollars a month just to get Call Display when they are already on a call. Access, please include this for free - you don't want to seem cheap when people are comparing you to SaskTel, and it seems like a nickel-and-dime feature to not include, because its being missing will be a surprise to everybody until they actually get the service. People will expect it to be included. I suspect it will generate a lot of complaints, and Access should be concentrating on creating a lot of goodwill right now.
Anyway, so far, I'm reasonably happy. There are certainly some things that need to be fixed (why isn't call forwarding included? ... why are the long distance rates so high? ... why isn't there an unlimited long distance package available at a reasonable price, similar to what SaskTel and Primus offer? ...) but it's a new product and it will surely evolve.
We're planning a vacation for next year and I've been thinking (among other things) about phone access. The last time I went out of the country, to Florida in 2003, I spent about $50 in roaming charges for a pretty small number of minutes of airtime. It was almost $2 a minute to receive a call and well over a dollar to place a local call... pretty obnixious. (I'm on Rogers, which is a GSM network, but Telus, SaskTel, Bell, etc. all have obnoxious roaming rates.
So I've done some digging... and some ordering. I've gotten some SIM cards for GSM prepaid providers in the UK (O2) and the US (T-Mobile). Both are cheap to run and cheap to keep up. O2's time is good for up to a year and you can top up your account to keep your prepaid time going. T-Mobile requires you to top up regularly but if you buy a $100 card first, you only have to add $10 every year to keep it going. O2's rates will be about 25 pence a minute for the first three minutes a day, and 5p after that, which is very reasonable; incoming calls are free (they cost the caller about 20 cents a minute, even from North America). T-Mobile costs about 10 cents a minute including long distance.
I also discovered that PagePlus is a very cheap American CDMA-based prepaid plan that works in Canada. It's about 10-20 cents a minute on Verizon towers, and 99 cents a minute on other providers' towers. The service works on SaskTel. I tried it. ($5 US and half a day... check out eBay for some reliable sellers.) Kind of expensive to use here in Saskatchewan, but great for an emergency phone, especially if your main phone is on Rogers or Fido and you want the big SaskTel coverage footprint... and it works very cheaply in the States. Just buy an old Verizon phone. :)Regina has a new telephone exchange... 306-908... owned by Globility. Undoubtedly for VoIP services. 306-205 is already assigned for Allstream.
I don't know if this means we have another VoIP provider setting up shop... but I'll keep my ears open.
I'm surprised at how few people know that we have VoIP in 306-land (Saskatchewan). I've had VoIP for almost a year, but if you believe what you read online I'm probably still using a cranked phone and asking the operator to place all my calls.
In case you were wondering, we have Primus Talk Broadband and SaskTel Webcall. Primus has only Regina numbers in Saskatchewan, but has numbers in much of Canada. Webcall has numbers in Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert, as well as in other major western Canadian centres. Each has some advantages over the other, so do your research ... and if you're good I might comment more on the issue here eventually.
I'm not sure VoIP is for everyone yet, but it's certainly getting more and more usable.