@nathan: I doubt a direct answer for such question can be given over an open forum like this. I'm guessing it's something along the lines of "We understand how important the NA market to us and are continuously trying to attend to our customer base in NA with all of our new products and services."

http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/News/...ject_n900.html
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According to this Veep, don't worry about NA because Nokia isn't planning on selling very many of these phones anyway.
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I'm starting to get flashes of NIT deja 'vu.

Nokia makes very few (any?) CDMA smartphones. Up until last year RIM, a NA company, launched every flagship phone on GSM. Apple has yet to announce and launch an iPhone on CDMA. It's a secondary market worldwide, no matter how it dominates the US.

Honestly, *any* sales Nokia is able to make will likely double its market share in the U.S. If they can get the device out quicker/easier on T-Mobile than with AT&T, by all means, I support the decision. Nokia's market share in the U.S. is so low, specifically with smartphones, that *any* sales are better than what they've been doing.

Carrier customization is annoying. Yet the masses who buy direct from the carrier don't seem to care (in the U.S.). They often want the cheapest, preferably free, phone that will be an improvement over what just broke or got destroyed. Nowadays it almost has to have a qwerty keyboard of some kind due to texting volume.

I hide the AT&T icons for Music, Graphics, Tones, Games on the BBs I set up for my users. In the past I tried deleting the service books only to have them return. I did find what I thought was a policy item that would suppress the icons but haven't fully tested the success of this setting. And it is annoying to have my personal cell phone include hardcoded apps/icons I can't even hide, much less remove. A result of my choice though, not buying an unlocked phone I suppose.

I bring this up because I imagine that carriers make money by way of these customizations, often because customers are often blind and don't monitor their cell bill enough. (my users certainly don't, and then they deny making said "purchase" or refuse to pay for it) Everyone thinks "hey, because it's accessible on my phone and I didn't have to give a CC#, it's free". Yet it bills back to their wireless # through the carrier, even if from a 3rd party source. I believe more and more of these offerings now have legal disclaimers to accept, but again, what typical consumer reads them?

So since the N900 won't be offered in customized flavors to carriers, who says the carrier can't provide links to push OTA apps which DO offer these exact same services to N900 buyers? Why not have a web page/site dedicated to augmenting gimmick sales such as wallpapers, ringtones, etc. that is specific to the N900? I guess that's a choice carriers won't likely make, but has it been suggested at all I wonder? Maybe Nokia needs to develop and demo this to them. I mean why can't there be some form of signed installation package for these carrier apps that transmit to an IMEI through OTA and the user clicks once on the N900 to accept it?

Meanwhile the rest of us who grasp file system basics and understand the drag and drop concept can get our tones, wallpapers, etc. for free as we always have.

I agree Nokia makes very few CDMA -- world wide CDMA is somewhere in the 20-30% so yes as I stated before GSM makes much more sense for the world wide market and the bands they choose are the largest supported. However NA based, CDMA has over 60% of the market.

Because Apple has saturated the AT&T market, it would be in their best interest to add CDMA. I'd be willing to make a wager that an Apple CDMA phone will come VERY (VERY) shortly after the AT&T exclusive is done to both Verizon and probably Sprint (Might be an exclusive with Verizon for the first 6 months). Apple wants ITunes users; they need and want to increase that market share. The Apple Lock-in is aesome for apple so if they can get you on their phone; you might stay for a really long time.


That is my fear -- and so far no responses from either is in imho confirming it. I can't see any reason why that can't say < 6 months; unless it is not true; which means don't "talk" about it.

It was worth a try to see how open they would be about this market. ;-)

Nathan.

There may at least be a glimmer of hope for Canada supporting the 3G frequency that N900 will initially use.

Rogers bought enough 1700/2100 spectrum for the entire country in 2008. They paid about $1B for it so I am pretty sure they will use it as some point, after all, no sense in spending a Billion dollars and not doing anything with it.
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/a.../21/c6305.html

A few other interesting notes:
Cingular, now ATT, purchased a huge chuck of this spectrum that covers about 200 million people.

Verizon Wireless also purchased a large block of 1700/2100 that covers the eastern US. One has to wonder why they spent nearly $3B for that?

And finally another organization called Spectrum Company bought enough of those licenses to cover the entire US, reaching nearly 270 million people.

http://www.cdg.org/news/events/cdmas...20Overview.pdf

Maybe Nokia knows a lot more about what is happening with the carriers and 3G (or at least the AWS band) than the rest of us. The unfortunate thing most of us do know, these things will TAKE WAY TOO LONG, even if/when they do happen.

So, anyway we can order them in Canada directly?

When I read things like these I'm really happy that I do not have to use US carriers for my mobile phone experiences (although T-Mobile here in Germany has different data plans for the iPhone than it has for non-iPhone customers and it is a first that you have to pay for tethering your device to an iPhone here in Germany).

I really do hope that that was a slip and our market here doesn't get americanized.

I have a data plan which is completely unrelated to my phone plan (although it is from the same carrier).

Edge only? Sorry, but no way. Ever. There is a serious dearth of free wifi spots around here, with a metro population of well over a million. I've literally never run into one unless someone's home connection is unlocked. And that's increasingly rare. In fact, I read (on this forum I think) that free wifi in general may soon be extinct.