Technology News and IT Business Intelligence

Qualcomm subsidiary FLO TV, the company responsible for the MediaFLO mobile content delivery system used in Verizon V Cast Mobile TV and AT&T Mobile TV, has launched its first piece of branded hardware, the FLO TV Personal Television.

The device looks almost exactly like a smartphone or a touchscreen media player, and has the specs to match. The main difference, of course, is that the FLO TV Personal Television is built with the single purpose of watching subscription FLO TV streams. The $249.99 TV is made by HTC, has a 3.5″ capacitive touchscreen, and built-in stereo speakers.

This is the first time the company has released its own exclusive hardware, but more items are expected to follow soon. Last year, Qualcomm showed off its prototype in-car entertainment system which later went into production through a partnership with Audiovox. While still not available in retail, these solutions are expected to show up under the Audiovox Advent brand before the fourth quarter of this year is out.

FLO TV broadcasts its digital signal over the “white space” freed by the DTV transition which occurred earlier this summer, and streams 320 x 240 QVGA at 15-30 frames per second. Currently, the service has 15 channels which broadcast 24 hours a day, including CBS Mobile, CNN Mobile, ESPN Mobile, Fox Mobile, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, MSNBC, and CNBC.

The main drawback right now is the service’s contractual commitment, which can cost as little as $8.99 per month, but requires a massive three-year contract. One-year contracts are also available, but FLO TV did not disclose their price today. The same service on Verizon Wireless costs either $13 or $15 per month, and on AT&T either $15 or $30 per month. Both of these packages, however, are also tied into mobile data service plans.

If last weekend’s unsolicited posting of about 10,000 supposed Hotmail addresses and passwords to a legitimate developers’ Web site did not contain some addresses that were fake, the theory that a hacker may have obtained those addresses through an attack on Microsoft’s servers might continue to hold water. That theory lost ground today, after more addresses from major services other than Hotmail — including Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Earthlink, and Comcast — appeared without warrant on Pastebin.com, a site for developers to share debugging information.

In what could be the first publicly shared forensic report on the original Hotmail list, security researcher Bogdan Calin with server security software maker Acunetix reported that of the 10,028 entries that appeared in that list (which was apparently partial, including usernames that only began with A and B), 185 of the entries actually had blank passwords. That in and of itself could not have come from a server’s own list of valid passwords, thus lending much credence to the theory that the responses came from a phishing scam.

But not a very sophisticated one, Calin goes on. Without revealing information that would have compromised anyone in particular, he reported that the most commonly repeated passwords he saw in the list, coupled with the nature of the remaining passwords, leads him to conclude that they were obtained from members of the Hispanic community. The password alejandra, for example, appeared 11 times in the list — once more than 111111 — and alejandro appeared 9 times.

From time to time, many sequences of password characters appear almost repeated, except with varying capitalization. “What most probably happened, is that the users didn’t understand what was happening, and they tried to enter the same password again and again, thinking the password was wrong,” Calin wrote. An unsophisticated phisher might have accepted every attempt at repeating a password in sequence; meanwhile, the unsuspecting victim is trying to log in, thinking, “Didn’t I capitalize the O?”

Paul Dixon, who maintains Pastebin.com, told the press yesterday he’s had to take his site down to address the problem more directly, saying, “Pastebin.com is just a fun side project for me, and today it’s not fun.” This morning, the site was operational.

Though Dixon’s site bears a strong resemblance to Pastebin.org, which has the exact same purpose, users of the latter site — which was not involved in the list-posting incident — began complaining to Dixon last month about problems they were having with that site, not knowing the two were not connected. In a blog post at the time, Dixon wrote that Pastebin.org “seems to have been compromised in other ways, with extra advertising banners and popups…I’m not responsible for that site.”

Possible confusion over the two sites’ identities could play into the motive for the unknown party posting these apparent phishing entries onto a site that otherwise has perfectly legitimate purposes.

As of yet, there is no evidence that anyone — the original poster or any downloaders — has attempted to use any of the partial lists posted to Pastebin.com in a security compromise operation directed at password holders. However, the possibility exists that these lists were posted as evidence of the existence of more complete lists, for inspection by underground sources willing to bid for them. After Bogdan Calin’s analysis, the bidding may not be all that high.

Nearly ten weeks after Microsoft issued a proposal to the European Commission for a mechanism to let Windows users and installers choose the default Web browser they want to use during setup, the EC issued a statement this morning saying it likes Microsoft’s basic idea, but will give the rest of the market an opportunity to weigh in with its opinions.

The EC statement admitted for the first time that Microsoft had submitted at least one “improved” version of its ballot screen concept since last July. “The improvements that Microsoft has made to its proposal since July would ensure that consumers could make a free and fully informed choice of Web browser,” reads this morning’s statement. “Microsoft has in particular agreed to present users with a first screen explaining what Web browsers are. ‘Tell me more’ buttons for each browser would also enable users to learn more about the web browser they may wish to install. The user experience would be better and the choice screen would better represent competing browser vendors. Finally, the proposed commitment would now be subject to a clause allowing the Commission to review it in the future to ensure that consumers would continue to have a genuine choice among browsers.”

The new version of the ballot screen would be offered to all European users of current versions of Windows — meaning XP, Vista, and now Windows 7 — for a five-year period. This would apparently not mean that Microsoft would have to ship a unique “Windows 7 E” version for Europe, which was the company’s original plan. But beginning with Windows 7 and on into the five-year period, OEMs would be given full options to install competitors’ Web browsers and uninstall, or not install, Internet Explorer.

The revised version of Microsoft’s Web browser ballot screen proposal to the European Commission, dated October 6, 2009.

The revised version of Microsoft’s Web browser ballot screen proposal to the European Commission, dated October 6, 2009.

The EC admitted today it likes Microsoft’s idea. But rather than simply give the company the go-ahead, it has decided that in the interests of ensuring competition among IE’s competitors, it will be “market testing Microsoft’s proposal in light of these requirements.” Microsoft itself released a copy (PDF available here) of the EC’s Market Test Notice, which opens up a one-month period starting today, during which, “the Commission invites interested third parties to submit their observations on the proposed commitments…Interested third parties are also asked to submit a non-confidential version of their comments, in which commercial secrets and other confidential passages are deleted and are replaced as required by a non-confidential summary or by the words ‘commercial secrets’ or ‘confidential.’”

“Interested third parties” presently include many of IE’s competitors which have signed on to participate in the case, including Opera Software, Firefox maker Mozilla, and Chrome maker Google.

Microsoft made copies of its improved pledge to the European Commission this morning. The crux of the pledge is actually not about the browser screen, but a pledge to consistently provide interoperability information about the protocols used by its key software — not just Windows and IE, but also .NET Framework, Exchange Server, SharePoint, and Office (especially Outlook). Although the interoperability pledge was supposed to have been on a different track, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said today, the company is willing to implement this enhanced interoperability pledge the moment the EC signs off on the Web browser commitment.

“Microsoft’s proposed undertaking will ensure that developers throughout the industry, including in the open source community, will have access to technical documentation to assist them in building products that work well with Microsoft products,” said Smith. “Microsoft will also be required to support certain industry standards in its products and to fully document how these standards are supported. Microsoft’s proposed undertaking will make available legally-binding warranties that would be offered to third parties.”

Also included in that pledge is a promise to support “open, public standards” in its software, to the extent that it can. Here’s how the company defines that:

“Microsoft shall provide support for applicable standards by either (i) implementing the required portions of the applicable standard that relates to functionality of the implementing product, or (ii) completely and accurately documenting instances where required portions of the applicable standard are not implemented or are implemented with variations. Microsoft shall make this documentation publicly available in a Timely Manner.”

The newly proposed ballot screen does feature some obvious tweaks: First, it contains a bar of language selection buttons now familiar to many European residents. The selection of browsers is now in alphabetical order by manufacturer, so Apple Safari appears first and Opera last. There’s also a notice saying, “Please Note: The Browser Ballot update unpinned Windows Internet Explorer from your taskbar,” which indicates that this screen applies to Windows 7, but also that the update — which arrives on users’ computers through the Windows Update mechanism — takes initial steps unilaterally to unregister Internet Explorer as the user’s default browser.

But at least in this mockup, there is one element which may continue to prompt criticism from the EC’s market testers: the fact that the ballot screen appears in Internet Explorer, complete with its logo in the upper-left corner — which some have said implies a preference on the part of Microsoft. In its revised pledge, Microsoft states, “Nothing in the design and implementation of the Ballot Screen” can be construed to favor Microsoft, although it’s arguable that since one needs a Web browser to see the ballot screen, it’s impossible to turn off the “Internet Explorer-ness” of IE.

The Ballot Screen Update would be flagged as “Important” on Vista and Windows 7, and “High Priority” on Windows XP. Once downloaded, it would give the user an opportunity to execute it now or later; and if the user chooses later, it will install a shortcut on the desktop.

While only five browsers appear in Microsoft’s proposed design, the company acknowledges that number could rise: “The Ballot Screen will be populated with the 12 most widely-used Web browsers that run on Windows based on usage share in the EEA as measured semi-annually by a source commonly agreed between Microsoft and the European Commission…In addition, if a browser’s usage share is among the top 12, but that browser is no longer actively offered by its vendor, that browser will not be included in the Ballot Screen.”

In his statement this morning, Brad Smith concluded, “As we’ve said before, the steps described above will require significant change within Microsoft. We believe that these are important steps we should take in order to resolve the Commission’s competition law concerns. Today is an important day. Although the European Commission has not made its final decision, today’s news is a major step forward, and we’re hopeful this will help move us towards closure to the past and the building of a new foundation for the future.”

The EC’s call for a market test comes just one day after something resembling an alternative ballot screen emerged from Google Labs, ostensibly as a response to a marketing video depicting ordinary folks as ignorant of the difference between a Web browser and an operating system.

For the second time in three months, Amazon has dropped the price of the Kindle 2 e-reader. The device which began shipping in February for $359.99 begins October at $259.99.

Since debuting, the Kindle has dominated e-reader mindshare in the United States, but has faced serious competition from senior e-reader maker Sony, which not only makes the lowest priced product, but also the most feature-packed product as well. Sony’s Daily Edition Reader has 3G wireless from AT&T, a touchscreen interface, and the ability to borrow e-books from participating libraries.

But the Kindle may not be exactly the thing some potential buyers need. As someone who has spent a considerable amount of time in airports in the last 2 years will tell you, the Kindle is very popular among travelers. Unfortunately, the device’s Sprint-friendly CDMA connectivity is all but useless overseas. Users who have taken their Kindle to another country and want to obtain new content have no wireless options. To address this, Amazon today has also unveiled the “US and International Wireless” Kindle for $279.99, which can be used on the 3G networks in more than 100 countries.

And travelers appear to be the main group targeted in this device launch, rather than actual international markets, since Amazon’s Kindle Store still deals almost exclusively in English language literature. There are a handful of products in other languages, though, and Amazon pointed out today that a number of international periodicals are available for subscription, such as La Stampa (Italian), El Pais and El Universal (Spanish), O Globo (Portuguese), Le Monde (French), and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (German). However, there are major limitations preventing the device from use in other languages.

Principal among these limitations is the fact that international fonts remain problematic. Though the Kindle store displays symbols such as (ç, ß, etc,) there is still no way for the user to enter these characters in search queries. Furthermore, other scripts are not supported, and installing other international fonts (Cyrillic, Japanese, Chinese) requires a Unicode font hack. We’ve sent an inquiry to Amazon today to see if the company has plans to address this.

Yesterday, Neowin’s Tom Warren discovered a list of what appeared to be Windows Live Hotmail account credentials, posted last weekend to a location where you wouldn’t expect such a list to appear: a collaborative debugging code sharing site for low-level software developers called pastebin.com. Warren reported the news to the world at the same time he reported it to Microsoft.

Still, Microsoft acknowledged the problem late yesterday, but attributed the source of the problem to “a likely phishing scheme.” If such a scheme does exist, then its first victim today was poor pastebin.com, whose proprietor Paul Dixon (LordElph) was forced to take the site offline due to the sudden surge of activity.

“Pastebin was created as a tool to aid software development, not to distribute this sort of material,” Dixon wrote today, on a blog which itself has seen so much activity that its page refreshes were agonizingly slow. “As a result of the interest this story is generating, pastebin.com is experiencing huge levels of activity — as a result I’ve taken it offline while I ensure all the offending material has been removed, and that the abuse filters prevent re-occurrence.”

Members of the site offered support; one member offered to mirror pastebin’s legitimate content to help ease the load. As of this morning, the site was only occasionally visible.

Individuals who saw the list reported that it appeared to contain the first 10,028 username/password combinations in a much longer list, sorted alphabetically. Only usernames beginning with A and parts of B were shown.

Microsoft’s take on the incident is that it was probably a demonstration by someone who had acquired the credentials by way of a phishing scheme — for example, a fake message that appears to be from Microsoft or a partner that asks users to “sign in using your Windows Live ID” to gain access to an e-mail solicitation. The other possibility — one which Microsoft did not raise — is that the list was obtained by a hacker who was able to snag servers into spilling the list through some administrator-level command or script.

In either event, Microsoft is taking the easier approach for mitigation: advising Live ID users to change their passwords, and to continue to do so every 90 days.

It’s the same technology that was at the heart of a news-making patent suit against Microsoft: the patent held by Eolas Technologies that defines how a Web browser plug-in can activate functionality. A trio of Eolas patents was upheld under scrutiny in 2005, resulting in a battle in the nation’s higher courts over whether Microsoft owes someone else for the right to use what could essentially be described as an “on-switch.” It was a battle that brought a premature, if welcome, end to the marketing push for ActiveX.

But the final round of that fight never played out, as Eolas and Microsoft settled for an undisclosed sum, just as Microsoft won the right to argue the invalidity of Eolas’ patents anyway. Since those arguments were never made, the 2005 decision upholding their validity stood.

Today, Eolas is using that decision as a platform to press forward with a colossal patent suit against a parade of new defendants, all of whom have something to do with the triggering of active functionality through a Web browser — from Mac maker Apple, Flash maker Adobe, and electronic retailer Amazon to Frito-Lay, JPMorgan Chase, and Playboy Enterprises.

“All we want is what’s fair,” reads a statement to Betanews this morning from Eolas chairman Dr. Michael Doyle. “We developed these technologies over 15 years ago and demonstrated them widely, years before the marketplace had heard of interactive applications embedded in Web pages tapping into powerful remote resources. Profiting from someone else’s innovation without payment is fundamentally unfair.”

The showdown will take place where all great US patent lawsuit showdowns take place nowadays: federal court in Tyler, Texas. The lawsuit itself contained merely boilerplate text, listing all the defendants, citing willful infringement on the part of each one, and pleading for damages.

“As a direct and proximate consequence of the acts and practices of the Defendants in infringing and/or inducing the infringement of one or more claims of the ‘906 Patent and one or more claims of the ‘985 Patent, Eolas has been, is being, and, unless such acts and practices are enjoined by the Court, will continue to suffer injury to its business and property rights,” the lawsuit reads.

The complete list of defendants is as follows: Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Argosy Publishing (publisher of The Visible Body), Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, GoDaddy, J. C. Penney, JPMorgan Chase, “transactional” adult entertainment provider New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises, Rent-a-Center, Staples, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Yahoo, and YouTube.

Touting the high value of the portfolio it’s defending in a statement to Betanews this morning, Eolas lead counsel Mike McKool said, “What distinguishes this case from most patent suits is that so many established companies named as defendants are infringing a patent that has been ruled valid by the [US] Patent Office on three occasions.”

A massive energy bill that has already passed the House, and is currently before the Senate, would create new government programs that would not only encourage the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by utilities and energy companies, but set limits over time as to the quantity of that reduction over the next several years. The US Chamber of Commerce (USCC), a private business federation that is not affiliated with the federal government, went on record last August as being skeptical of any legislative or regulatory effort that assumes greenhouse gasses truly endanger human health. Late last month, the Chamber voiced its opposition to that bill.

Today, Apple Inc. joined a growing list of companies including General Electric, athletic apparel maker Nike, and even energy companies such as PG&E and nuclear power plant operator Exelon, in terminating their membership in the Chamber.

The move is Apple’s latest in a campaign to change its public image with regard to environmental friendliness, both in its design and its manufacturing practices. Back in January 2007, CEO Steve Jobs found himself in hot (but purified) water after he publicly responded to activist group Greenpeace’s inquiries into Apple’s manufacturing practices by suggesting that the group “get out of the computer business [and] go save some whales.” Now, the company takes an aggressive stance toward improving what it calls its “environmental footprint,” and has dedicated a portion of its Web site to the subject.

Apple is also in favor of efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency — newly reconstituted under President Obama — to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Last August, USCC threatened to take the EPA to court, to force it to publicly prove that greenhouse gasses are harmful to human health, and to face scientists from the opposition. Describing such an event as a 21st century “Scopes monkey trial,” USCC Vice President Bill Kovacs is quoted as having said at the time, “They [EPA] don’t have the science to support the endangerment finding. We can’t just take their word for it.”

In a June 24 letter to members of the House of Representatives (PDF available here), USCC Executive Vice President Bruce Josten advised lawmakers that the energy bill (HR 2454) should go easier on existing energy providers. “Carbon-based fuels are and will remain for decades to come the backbone of the US energy system,” Josten wrote. “HR 2454 must do a better job of ensuring that cost effective and reliable renewable and alternative energy sources are developed and deployed to smooth a transition to a low-carbon energy future.”

Josten also suggested in that letter that the burden for clearing up greenhouse gas emissions would be hardest on oil refineries, which would be stuck with 40% of the job. “Because oil refiners will be forced to pay for credits, the price of gas will rise significantly for consumers. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that cost impacts could be as much as $.77 per gallon for gasoline, $.83 per gallon for jet fuel, and $.88 per gallon for diesel fuel, all ultimately borne by the consumer.”

The Josten letter itself made no reference to the Environmental Protection Agency, or to any allegories dealing with creationism versus Darwinism. But in a September 29 statement that referred to the letter in renewing USCC’s opposition to the bill now before the Senate, Chamber CEO Thomas J. Donohue dragged up the EPA matter once again: “We believe that Congress should set climate change policy through legislation, rather than having the EPA apply existing environmental statutes that were not created to regulate greenhouse gas emissions,” Donohue wrote. “This is also the stated position of the President and Congressional leaders. If determined to proceed on its own, EPA should publicly present its finding and answer questions on the limited studies it cited, in keeping with the President’s pledge of transparency.”

For many, that was the last straw. Nike resigned its membership in the Chamber the next day, and now Apple has followed. “As a company, we are working hard to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions by relying on renewable energy at our facilities and designing more energy-efficient products for our customers,” reads yesterday’s resignation letter to USCC from Apple Vice President for Worldwide Government Affairs Catherine Novelli. “We have undertaken this unilaterally and without government mandate, because we believe it is the right thing to do. For those companies who cannot or will not do the same, Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us in this effort.”

USCC has also been on record as supporting “clean coal” initiatives — another sector of the energy industry that would be hardest hit by new federal regulations. A similar exodus of member companies has been ongoing from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, most recently by Duke Energy, after allegations emerged that the group’s public relations firm forged letters from “concerned citizens” to congresspersons, in opposition to HR 2454.

Recently, USCC has been seen on the public airwaves and cable news in opposition to health care reform legislation, alleging that the entire cost of reform could be passed on to the consumer. “Tax increases to pay for a public plan, employer mandates, and minimum coverage will do more than devastate the private insurance industry — they could bankrupt our economy,” reads a Web page for a petition for congresspersons to oppose the current health care reform bill HR 3200.

With the US Chamber of Commerce taking hard, political, and even questionable stands on behalf of its members, it’s difficult to imagine many of those members not wanting to stand aside.

Oftentimes in the case of Google, small actions are the seeds for something much greater. In the case of a marketing video released this morning, we spotted something that looks like one of those Google seeds.

Last June, as part of a Google Creative Lab project, a Google employee named Scott Suiter produced a video with two colleagues. In that video, Suiter interviewed about 50 people one afternoon passing through Times Square in New York City, asking them the simple and nondescript question, “What is a browser?” Many of the folks who appeared in the video tended to confuse a browser with a search engine with a Web site with an operating system, making common mistakes that ordinary folks make, but giving another class of more Internet-active ordinary folks new targets for their unending streams of vitriol.

This morning, a Google associate product marketing manager named Jason Toff responded to Suiter’s video with a video of his own, and a site to go along with it, named whatbrowser.org. It’s an instructional video which uses crayon-like drawings to explain to complete novices just what a Web browser is, in comparison with the other major components of modern computer software. It’s how the video ends that caught our attention: Although a YouTube video typically is not interactive — and this one is no exception — the final frame shows crayon-ized renderings of the icons for the four leading brands of Windows-based Web browsers, along with “chain-link” icons in the lower-right corner — icons that typically signal, for interactive videos, clickable links that take the viewer someplace else.

A frame from a Google video entitled ‘What is a browser?’ that looks suspiciously like a possible EU-compliant browser screen.

One explanation for these link icons could be that Toff’s video could be a prototype for a Flash presentation that takes the viewer into a further explanation of what individual Web browsers do. (Google, after all, did just join Adobe’s Flash developers’ promotional group.) It would only make sense, however, that such links could lead viewers to downloads of the browsers themselves — including Google’s own Chrome, of course, but the others in the top four just to be fair.

It might therefore follow that Toff’s prototype could depict a theoretical alternate Web browser selection mechanism — a vendor-neutral concept that might satisfy the European Union’s interests for Microsoft to offer Windows users and installers a “ballot screen,” letting them choose their own Web browser without the appearance of favoring Internet Explorer.

Microsoft’s proposed ‘Web Browser Ballot’ as presented to the European Commission July 24, 2009.

Microsoft’s proposed “Web browser ballot,” as presented to the European Commission last summer.

Except that it might not be all that neutral: “A Web browser is the most important piece of software on your computer,” Toff explains to novices in his closing to the video, “because every Web page runs through it. So a faster Web browser means you’ll save time on every Web page you open. Installing a new Web browser is free, and only takes minutes. So take a moment to choose a Web browser that you like best today.”

As Betanews tests continually confirm, Google Chrome is the fastest of the stable Web browsers for Windows currently in production. Planting the seed in novices’ minds that faster is better could lead them to try to find the answer to “Which one is fastest?” within the presentation, or to look for the answer online. Given people’s responses from Suiter’s video, they’ll probably use Google for that search. After all, Google has the only browser whose manufacturer’s brand is listed in the video. (One wonders which link would be more attractive, “Safari” or “Apple Safari.”)

The Opera Web browser was excluded from the Toff video. UPDATE: However, the WhatBrowser.org site does provide a link to this selection page that does include Opera. That page then contains links to manufacturers’ respective download pages for browsers.

Google declared itself a participant in the European browser debate last February, when its vice president for product management, Sundar Pichai, posted to his company’s policy blog his view that Internet Explorer had an unfair advantage over its competitors due to being tied to Windows. “We learned a lot from launching our own Google Chrome browser last year and are hoping that Google’s perspective will be useful as the European Commission evaluates remedies to improve the user experience and offer consumers real choices,” Pichai wrote at the time. “Of course, creating a remedy that helps solve one problem without creating other unintended consequences isn’t easy — but the more voices there are in the conversation the greater the chances of success.”

AT&T has announced that it will now allow Voice-over-IP services to run on its wireless data networks, reversing the carrier’s prior stance on the technology.

Reportedly, AT&T has been considering VoIP over 3G for weeks, but has continued to limit VoIP mobile apps to Wi-Fi networks up until even yesterday, when popular digital voice service Vonage released its own iPhone app, crippled to fit AT&T’s and Apple’s existing guidelines.

Today’s announcement has not come as a surprise, since an unnamed source at AT&T this week told the Washington Post that executives were close to allowing VoIP.

AT&T previously cautioned that VoIP would strain the company’s already congested wireless data networks, and blocked voice messaging software Skype from use on the iPhone, the device thought to be the principal bandwidth hog on AT&T’s network.

In an official statement this afternoon, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega said, “iPhone is an innovative device that dramatically changed the game in wireless when it was introduced just two years ago. Today’s decision was made after evaluating our customers’ expectations and use of the device compared to dozens of others we offer.”

In separate and very brief announcements this morning, Bell Canada and Telus — Canada’s #2 and #3 wireless service providers — said they will be adding Apple’s iPhone 3G and 3G S to their lineups this November. The move will mean the exclusivity deal between Apple and #1 provider Rogers Wireless, announced in October 2007, was probably a two-year agreement and is due to expire next month, even though Rogers only began selling the iPhone several months later.

Telus’ and Bell’s announcements were the talk of all Canada today, as news of the increasing availability of the world’s most praised handheld gadget dominated the afternoon’s headlines. At issue: Will this mean iPhone prices will come down, including for service; and will call quality go up? Neither new carrier made any promises this morning, and Apple is adding nothing to the discussion.

As it stands now, Rogers Wireless’ reputation as the Canadian iPhone supplier is almost parallel to that of AT&T in America. It’s getting hammered, especially since August when Rogers began raising rates for data service packages by $5 per month or more. But it was only last year that Bell Canada and Telus began a joint effort to move away from their CDMA legacy platforms, and toward LTE as their 4G platform, but through GSM — the iPhone’s native protocol.

As independent analyst and Betanews contributor Carmi Levy — who is based in London, Ontario — told us this afternoon, “Bell and Telus worked very closely last year, launching a partnership to build up the [GSM] network together, figuring that their consolidated resources will be able to result in a more comprehensive, broadly available network than would otherwise be the case if they had proceeded to build them individually.”

Just how much of the country these two providers will be able to reach through the iPhone, may only be determined for certain by Canadian iPhone users themselves. “We haven’t seen the coverage maps of this new consolidated Bell/Telus network yet,” Levy told us, “so it’s still hard to tell. But it’s likely an easy conclusion that it’s not as extensive as the competing 3G network that Rogers has had for a number of years.”

This week in the US, #1 carrier Verizon Wireless launched a competitive ad campaign focusing squarely upon the iPhone and its connectivity problems, openly mocking Apple’s slogan while touting its network quality at the same time, using the phrase, “There’s a map for that” (YouTube video here). (Microsoft might want to take a cue.) Perhaps the longest-lived grievance that iPhone customers in North America have had, has been the quality of their network.

The area of Canada served by 3G service at the end of 2008, according to CRTC estimates.

The area of Canada where 3G service was available at the end of 2008, according to CRTC estimates.

“Canada has always had network coverage issues simply because we have a geography that roughly parallels that of the US in terms of overall size in square miles, but we have a population that is only one-tenth as large,” Levy reminds us. “So economies of building out to support that population just aren’t as favorable to carriers in Canada as they are in the US. So in many cases, carriers have had to choose where they focus their coverage, and where they choose to let it lapse.”

The legality of deals giving a single carrier exclusive access to a certain phone, even for a limited time, has been questioned by the US government. It’s also been the subject of a parliamentary inquiry by the CRTC, Canada’s equivalent of the FCC.

“Canadians as a people are very friendly and very accepting,” said Carmi Levy, “but at the same time, we bristle at the prospect of monopolies. So any time anyone mentions the word in conversation with a Canadian, expect the temperature of the room to drop by at least five degrees. We are very, very wary…of lack of competition in the market; and Canadians for a very long time have looked rather jealously toward other…wireless markets, and have questioned why they [themselves] seem to have less coverage, higher prices, more limited device availability — why they can’t get the latest and greatest wireless devices, while Americans can. So Canadians…have wondered if the lack of competition was a huge driver of this.

“They can look to an announcement like this,” he continued, “as a sign that monopolistic freeze is beginning to thaw, that the market is becoming more competitive, that you are able to get more devices from more carriers, that devices for data and voice plans will begin to come down…and that over the next 12 to 18 months, the three carriers that have pretty much owned this market up until now, will be joined by a virtual flotilla of competitors by virtue of last year’s spectrum auction.”

That auction to which Levy refers took place in July of last year, and was conducted with rules that intentionally granted new spectrum in each service region to two or three carriers that had never done business in that region before.

Openness…what a concept. But what exactly does Apple want with it — the company whose iPhone marketing plan originally hinged upon a one-carrier-per-country code? Levy told us today he thinks maybe even Apple hasn’t answered that question just yet, but it’s hoping that Canada can help it come up with one.

“I think that to a large extent, Apple saw breaking exclusivity in Canada as almost like an incubator for the process,” he said. “In other words, execute the process in Canada of moving from one exclusive carrier to a number of non-exclusive carriers, learn from the experience, and then apply those lessons to the much larger, more lucrative American marketplace when the time is right. So from where I sit, Apple is learning some very important lessons as we speak; and when it comes time for AT&T to give up its exclusivity with the iPhone, those lessons from Canada will come into play in the US as well.”