Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

When Things Go Well

Today I had to make two phone calls one was to Northwestel, about my cable and Internet. The other to Rogers to cancel my iPhone, which does not work up here in Yellowknife.

I decided to phone NorthwesTel first as it was going to be the easy call and I was quite honestly afraid of what the Rogers people might say to me. After waiting on hold for only about 5 minutes I got through to a NWTel representative. I wanted to find out what my plan was. The plan itself is 5 years old and because I was out of town over September first when NWTel changed there plans I was unsure as to what I had anymore. Down south I was using about 30gb of my 60gb bandwidth limit, needless to say I was downloading a lot and watching hours of TV shows, so when I came back to Yellowknife I was a slight bit scared my heavy internet usage would kill my wallet. You see I originally thought my plan only had a 20gb limit and I was correct in thinking this, but when September came around and NWTel upped all the plans, my 20gb limit became 60gb. When the representative told me this I was highly relieved, as already in October I was at 21gb (The rest of the family uses it). So one down, one to go.

When phoning any big service company you normally have to enter in all these key codes to get the department you want, and that is exactly what I did.  And I was exactly where I didn’t need to be. So after waiting on hold for 10 minutes and speaking to the first Rogers rep who took all my information and why I was calling, determined she couldn’t help me, she transferred me to the next. The next rep, who I had a slight hard time understanding due to his accent, got me a little closer to my goal. They were all in good spirits and understood my situation, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to use Rogers, it was that they don’t have service in Yellowknife. He was able to verify everything and hand me off to the 3rd and final rep who quickly checked my account and told me that my phone would cancel after 30 days and all I would need to pay for was for the month of October, which was understandable. Once we finished I thanked her very much for her service and she once again apologized for the lack of service in the area.

There you have it the two calls that I thought would end up costing me even more money. I’m in a very good mood because of it. Cheers guys.

iPhone Multi Mode Network Chip

While listening to MacBreak Weekly I found out some good news for our hopes of getting an iPhone on a CDMA (Bell) network.

Nowadays chip manufacturers are making multi mode chips for phones. Before we knew about these chips we all assumed it would take Apple a lot of work to create a completely separate iPhone for a CDMA network but now it shouldn’t.

What they can do is solely use this one chip and program half of them as GSM and half as CDMA. This one chip also supports all the proper frequencies for all the providers on CDMA & GSM there for only creating slightly more work.

The negatives about this chip are only minor but I wouldn’t care! First, because the chip supports multi modes you can expect it to cost slightly more than a normal one. Possibly an increase of $10-$15. Second and also because it is multi mode the battery life may not be as good as it is now, that is unless Apple can come up with an even more efficient battery and processor.

We are getting closer folks, soon enough we will have an iPhone available here in Yellowknife. Whether it is Rogers or a CDMA supported iPhone!

My iPhone Plan

If you live up here in Yellowknife and are any type of Apple fan you know that you can not have an iPhone up here on Rogers because there is no Rogers service up here.

Well I’m going south for the next 9 months and than again for another 8 after a short stint at home. What does this mean, well it means I could get an iPhone. I will be in an area that has Rogers service and am trying to make the decision about whether or not it is a good idea to actually get an iPhone.

See I could get one and get a 2 year plan which is roughly the amount of time I would be down there. Everything could be hunky dory. I would be able to do all the amazing things that it is capabile of doing. E-mail, Youtube, Music, Movies, Video Camera, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

The problem is the in between. I will be home for summer which is about 3 months and would have a useless phone. The one and only option I need to look into is calling up Ice Wireless, the only GSM network up here, and ask them what their roaming fee is (if they even support it). If the roaming fee is more than reasonable (which I’m will to bet it would be) I may see about getting a pay as you go sim card from them. I don’t know if they have them and I don’t know if I would have to jailbreak my iPhone to make it work.

I would also still be paying the monthly charge from Rogers while up north. As you see I still need to do some research to figure out if it is worth it. I hope it is because I would have so many uses for an iPhone.