A class-action suit against the long-running practice of Canadian mobile operators to charge unadvertised additional fees has just been certified by a judge in Saskatchewan.

Any Canadians that would like to join the class action can do so here. (Roland, that means you!)

Here is Michael Geist (Canada’s answer to Lawrence Lessig) on System Access Fees:

“Emboldened by limited competition, [Canadian] providers have not hesitated to pad their prices by adding the deceptive “system access fee.” Contrary to popular belief, the fee, which adds nearly $100 per year to every wireless phone bill (MTS Mobility in Manitoba just increased its system access fee to $107.40 per year), is not a government-mandated charge but rather a slick method of camouflaging higher prices.”

Jeff

Jobs is known for being cheeky – but check this out, then imagine the cursing going on in the boardrooms of Apple’s operator partners after today’s launch of the iPod Touch:

• Jobs: “Wi-Fi, as you know, is not only faster than 2.5G, but it’s faster than any 3G network”.
• Song playing on the iPod Touch: “Cellphone’s Dead – Beck”
• On the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store: “We’re gonna do something else, too: we’re gonna bring it to the iPhone”

What Apple has done is make the carrier networks look old and stale. They are saying, remember the iPhone? Of all the things you loved about it, none of them were enabled by your operator. Just the contract. Here’s one without the contract.

And reading between the lines: Oh, but you want voice? Stay tuned.

Cellphone’s dead indeed.

Blast from the recent past: “When asked about a give-and-take leading to the Apple-Cingular partnership, [Cingular CEO] Lurie said, “I’m not sure we gave anything.” Later, he commented, “I think they bent a lot.”

Jeff

From the Toronto Star via Engadget Mobile:

[RIM Co-CEO Balsillie] is also intensely critical of what appears to be an effort by Apple to wrest control of the customer experience in the consumer market. For example, the iPhone is being sold through Apple’s own stores, instead of strictly through AT&T Inc., which signed an exclusive U.S. deal with the computer maker. The phone is free of AT&T’s logo and software and is tied closely to Apple’s iTunes music store, which is where subscribers will need to go to activate their phones and browse rate plans.

“It’s a dangerous strategy,” says Balsillie. “It’s a tremendous amount of control. And the more control of the platform that goes out of the carrier, the more they shift into a commodity pipe.”

This post could alternately be titled “Blackberry CEO Whispers Sweet Nothings in Operators Ears”.

This is really about trying to drive a wedge between Apple and its current and potential mobile network partners. Of all the big mobile device manufacturers, RIM has the least to gain if the industry moves to a more open mobile market with weakened operators, and enjoys a very comfortable position in the current operator-dominated environment. Unlike most mobile device manufacturers, RIM derives a large chunk of their revenue from service subscriptions. They sell into the least price-sensitive segment of the mobile market – business and government users. They have gotten their current market position by providing internet services on networks with poor data capabilities.

But all of this is changing. RIM’s centralized email relay infrastructure is becoming dated and their services like push email and calendaring are in danger of becoming commoditized by copycat devices and internet cloud services.

I love my Blackberry Pearl and it’s a great device. But I expect I’ll be even happier as an iPhone user when it arrives in Canada…

Jeff