While it's true that Fido doesn't carry Treos and Blackberries and such, the thing with Fido is they really seem to be Roger's "fun, consumer-oriented" brand. Rogers is stodgy and business-y, Fido is consumer. The iPhone is consumer, IMHO. People complain that it doesn't do this or that the a BB does, but I don't think that's the point of the iPhone. Regular humans don't buy BB's. They don't care. They can wait to get home to check their email. iPhone seems to be aimed at normal humans. Fido is a normal human brand. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the iPhone available through Fido.
As for the integrating networks, that sounds about right. I went into a Rogers store around Christmas because their selection of phones is a bit more extensive than what Fido offers, and I asked if the phones worked between the networks and the guy said no, they are still locked to each individual network even though they're the same company. Both Rogers and Fido people have told me they may be owned by the same parent company, but they still run them as two separate entities. That being said, when the iPhone was launched, I emailed Fido customer service (as you may have guessed, I'm a Fido customer), and I got this response:
Interesting how they lumped themselves together with Rogers in that sentence even though they always act like they are their own company still. The unfortunate thing would be if the iPhone came to Rogers and not Fido, since, as mentioned, they still lock their phones to their own networks. If that happens, we'll just have to see how the unlocking industry gets on with it. 🙂
It would be awesome to see Fido get the iPhone, but Rogers really limits its Fido brand for phone selection now, for a very long time the RAZR wasn't even being sold by Fido, and even now it's only V3 (no iTunes meaning). If Fido had never been purchased by Rogers, we may have seen a different path and possibly Fido would have been a good choice for the iPhone.
Fido phone selection:
http://www.fido.ca/portal/product/product.do
Rogers phone selection:
http://www.rogers.com/phones
There's many consumer based phones on the Rogers site that Fido should get, but sadly probably won't get. Per second billing still makes Fido > Rogers and same with some of the plans. The response from Fido is the same old generic cut and paste message that Rogers/Fido always gives out, but there IS one more GSM carrier in Canada, although it's only a local carrier, called [
http://www.icewireless.ca/]Ice Wireless[/url]
😀 Imagine if they got the exclusive rights to the iPhone, that would suck for Rogers-Fido customers.
It will only be a matter of time until
someone finds a way to unlock the iPhone, I know someone will be able to unlock it, it will just take a while for it to happen.
I might buy an iPhone if:
1) It doesn't require a
3 year contract, a 2 year I can live with
2) Rogers doesn't find a way to remove the Wi-fi feature on it
3) Doesn't require a data plan.
However, as I probably said before, Rogers requires a 3 year contract on simple stuff such as plans now, if you change your plan, that usually requires a renewal of the contract, such as if you want Unlimited Local Incoming Calls and 6PM Nights/Weekends.
