Roland Tanglao's Weblog

After 12 hours with a borrowed Rogers N95 8GB NAM, my conclusion is still to get an unlocked one!

In short, the Rogers N95 8GB NAM is:

1. The Multimedia creator phone that N series users the world over have learned to love. Great camera and great video!
2. The S60 interface we have come to love/hate which is hard to use as all N series aficionados know.
3. Rogers has put their bogus "deck" in the web browser and Vision software on their version of N95 8GB NAM and it's just as suspected, unusable and totally superfluous. Change the home page and don't use the Vision app; none of it's any good!
4. It's the Rogers Data plan that we have all come to love. Danny who set up the phone, was told by a Rogers CSR he could get a 1GB data plan for $100/month which contradicts the $65/month 1GB PC Card plan that Alec Saunders got from Rogers. Inconsistencies 'r Rogers! Or is it a deliberate attempt to confuse customers by telling different customers different stories about data plans?

My conclusion remains the same: get an unlocked N95 8GB NAM and a $65/month PC Card plan. You'll be a lot less frustrated!

Some more details after the jump

It would be cool if somebody actually implemented a system where we could move GSM SIMs to CDMA phones and vice versa so with one SIM or R-UIM you could use mobile phones from CDMA or GSM suppliers or networks but the odds of that happening I'd imagine are the same as the odds were of Betamax winning over VHS :-) ! [And yes I know that CDMA technology is used by 3G GSM!]

FROM Removable User Identity Module - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia via email from David

QUOTE

Removable User Identity Module (R-UIM), a card developed for CDMA handsets that is equivalent to the GSM SIM and 3G USIM except that it is capable of working in both CDMA and GSM phones and networks. It is physically compatible with GSM SIMs and can fit into existing GSM phones as it is an extension of the GSM 11.11 standard

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EMAIL FROM David:

QUOTE

It seems that not only are R-UIMs the equivalent to SIMs, according to the Wikipedia article they're actually compatible with SIMs and can be placed into GSM phones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removable_User_Identity_Module

It can actually store provisioning information for both types of networks:

http://www.china.org.cn/english/BAT/109251.htm
http://www.cdmatech.com/products/ruim.jsp

Technically, the R-UIM is basically kind of like of an extension of a SIM card that is defined in the "GSM 11.11" standard:

http://www.ttfn.net/techno/smartcards/gsm11-11.pdf
http://www.3gpp2.org/Public_html/specs/CS0023-0.pdf

Perhaps the CRTC should simply say that all providers in Canada (regardless of the underlying network) must use R-UIMs?

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I am unencumbered by knowledge when it comes to R-UIMs on CDMA phones. Are they really the CDMA equivalent of SIM cards (which allow people to switch phones).? If so, it seems logical (but unfortunately nothing is logical in the 'krazy' world of the mobile bandwidth oligopoly) to make their use mandatory and to make R-UIMs work across different Canadian CDMA carriers so people can switch carriers just as easily as they can switch numbers. Have any other CDMA carriers around the world done this? I'm guessing no and I'm guessing this is yet another reason why CDMA will continue to lose market share world wide.

FROM Telecom Trends: Looking forward to Videotron wireless:

QUOTE

A new entrant on this market would be a nice thing. But beside a 4th entrant, maybe the CRTC should mandate first the Bell, Telus, Virgin Mobile and other CDMA operators to let customers port their CDMA handset. So that to really complement the MNP of March 14th.I find this situation where to benefit from the services of one operator you have to buy "one of his phones" and you can't use he same phone on another CDMA network. The case with Virgin Mobile which operate on the physical infrastructure of Bell doesn't allow one to buy say a CDMA smartphone from Bell and activate it with Virgin Mobile is abusing for me. I am used to the european market and maybe porting CDMA phones from one operator to another is by far an efficient way to bring competition and innovation in this market. R-UIM technology have been around for years but operators still hold back the customer's freedom to choose the best offer. I don't see where a customer will benefit from a 4th operator.

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