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The news that Industry Canada will set aside spectrum in the upcoming Advanced Wireless Spectrum auction next year to allow new competitors entry into the wireless market is timely and welcome.

Kudos to Quebecor’s Pierre Karl Peladeau and MTS Allstream for their efforts to win the set aside which will prevent the big three, Bell, Telus and Rogers, fromreaching deep and blocking out any upstarts - which would have resulted in the business as usual collusion of the wireless cartel.

As consumers of wireless services who have been made to pay dearly for the privilege of using our cell phones, we’re about to get a break - at least we should.

PK and his alliance said we needed competition because most Canadians can’t afford to use iconic Canadian inventions like the BlackBerry.

And he’s right. Let’s hope he puts his money where his mouth is when this finally plays out and everyone get their spectrum. We’re about to enter a new age of wireless communication in Canada one in which we won’t be gouged for data rates or voice plans or even the services we’d like to access with our mobiles.

Of course, I think PK ha another agenda and that’s to use a mobile spectrum licence to expand his media empire by offering low cost content from his newspapers, magazines and TV channels over wireless.

Consumers get low cost or even free content with ads, Quebecor Media gets to expand it’s audience and deliver a better spectrum and of deomgraphics and larger audience to advertisers.

But then, I’m a cynic.

For more on this and how it will impact Smart Phone sales in North America, see my story in TQ magazine.

You know, when it comes to reinventing the wheel, you gotta hand it to Toronto Mayor David Miller.

After whacking the suburbs with a $60 per vehicle surtax and slapping a land transfer tax on sales to make up for his inablity to rein in spending, he’s now looking to spend $700,000 on reinventing the street meat cart.

He wants Torontonians to be able to eat a more diverse diet of ethnic and healthy foods and those ubiquitous hot dog carts and chip trucks just don’t cut it.

Instead, he wants to fund research and design into something that would work.

Dear David. Get a grip! We just got back from Italy where we sampled street food all over the place in the form of Panini wagons. They like mini buses whose sides open up and have a cold case which slides out. The driver’s seat area is usually occupied by a coffee machine. They serve hot and cold sandwiches as only the Italians can - with style!

The bread is fresh as are the ingredients and there’s lots to choose from: Ham, chicken, cheese,tomatoes, grilled peppers and other grilled entrees. It’s delicious and reasonably priced. A beer and a pannini cost me $6 Euros. A couple of them had whole pigs on them, cooked and ready for carving.

But then I forgot, we can’t be trusted to drink beer on the streets  of Toronto and God knowns the Italian panini wagons probably won’t meet the Toronto health standards.

Baloney!

Why reinvent the wheel? Just import a couple of those wagons, lease them to a a couple of willing entrepreneurs and see what happens. I’ll betcha itll cost lot less than $700,000.

Mangiacake!

In this issue of TQ (Tech Quarterly) magazine published in the Globe and Mail I have a feature story on the challengers RIM’s BlackBerry faces as more handheld devices arrive in the market with identical features - though there are differences in the back end obviously.

The point of the story is not to knock BlackBerry - heck, they invented the segment - but to point out that when you’ve got a good thing, everyone wants in.

But there’s also a recurring theme here and that’s Smart Phones will not take off until we get some real flexibility in data pricing. Nor will the Mobile Web. Aside from challenges of screen size and punching in web addresses, the cost of downloading a page only to find you need the next page and perhaps the page after that starts to add up when you’re paying by the Kb.

That said, I’ve been running a little experiment for the past month or so and when I get my next Rogers bill I’ll see how it went. Since, I’m only out of the office a two or three days a month it’s not worth it to me to sign up for a large dataplan at $60 a month on top of the nearly $100 a month my phone costs me now.

While digging through the Roger’s web site I stumbled across an offer for 5 mb of data a month at $5. So I signed up since you can cancel at any time. It sounds like nothing (the data) and it is. But what I’ve also done is only configured one email account, my main working account, and I’ve limited each email to 2 Kb. That way when I get 20 emails and 18 of them are SPAM I’ve used a mere 40 Kb out of the 5 Mb. I get close to 100 or more emails a day on that account….close to 300 on all my accounts but the majority are SPAM and go straight to delete. And I’m rarely out of the office all day unless I’m on the road and even then I usually have WiFi or Web access in my hotel room through my laptop. Over the three or even four days a month I need to check my email while mobile - clients often have last minute editing questions and usually use email as a communication channel - usually it’s only for a few hours at a stretch in the middle of the day. I figure I will probably use 500 kb of data or less - even if I reply to a couple emails and opt to download full messages if they are larger than the filter of 2 kb. Obviously, I won’t be downloading those funny/strange 2 Mb video clips my friends send me until I get home.

That will  even leave a few kbs left over to let me surf a couple of WAP pages I’ve configured into my handheld (iPAQ6955)so I can check soccer scores on the fly.

Yes, there had to be a soccer angle in there somewhere didn’t there? 

We’ll see how it works out, but as long as there are no surprises - and I’m steeled against the “hidden” costs - it sounds like a half-way solution for someone like me.

But that doesn’t change the bottom line. Data prices are still too high!

I’ve always felt that Canada’s Big Three telecoms are in collusion. Can’t quite prove it but like the gas companies, there’s something smelly here.

So here’s a tidbit from this morning’s Globe and Mail: Robert McFarlane of Telus warns Rogers it is getting too greedy. Only take your “fair share” of new wireless subscribers or face the consequences, he says in effect.

Rogers apparently is signing up 46% of new customers while Telus is getting only 36% according to Telcom Reporter Catherine McLean on B15 of the ROB this morning.

“Should those trends continue,” she reports. “Mr. McFarlane warned ‘you’re going to have quite a price war out there. ‘ But if Rogers is “prepared to have a fair share in the industry, then there will be more rational pricing.”

I’m sorry but this sounds like collusion to me. We already have the wireless market conveniently divided by thirds and organized in a very comfy boys club arrangement. Prices have not shifted for years - except upwards.

For Telus to say publicly, toe the line on market share or we’ll rock the boat, sounds like a cartel washing it’s linen in public.

And this is exactly why we need ATS Allstream and Videotron and anyone else as new carriers in the Canadian market. If the Minister of Industry hasn’t been swayed thus far in deciding to create a special category to allow new entrants into the wireless spectrum auction these comments should be the tipping point.

The government is about to set the rules for the auction of Advance Wireless Spectrum - the next gen of networking which will again change the way Canadians work rest and play - but the fear is the big three will simply use their deep pockets (lined with the proceeds of their afore mentioned arrangement) to block out any upstart and then, as they did last time, simply divvy up the pie between them and sit back and do…..nothing.

Why invest in infrastructure or get aggressive about winning customers when there is no real competition, only an “arrangement?”

Days 3 to 14: No time to write. Too busy. We’re in constant motion. Maybe it’s the espressos.

It’s warm enough for shirtsleeves but all the Italians are bundled up in coats and scarves, the latter worn in a tie just so. Only the crazy Canucks are walking around in T-shirts. After the initial nervousness about being a stranger in a strange land, a couple of glasses of wine, some espresso and a couple of grazias! we’re lulled into the false sense of belonging.

And who doesn’t identify with Italy. Root of the Roman Empire, a land of rich farmland which has probably never seen a famine. Food is plentiful here and the culture embraces it with gusto. Eating isn’t something you have to do, it’s something you immerse yourself in. Shops and businesses begin to shut down at noon, not to reopen until 2 p.m. sometimes 3 p.m. or later. Even the cafes close. The restaurants, though pop open, only to close themselves after the lunch trade and open again that night at 8 p.m. for the supper business. Sunday everything closes, including many restaurants.In Italy, it seems, life is lived at a commonly agreed pace. Not too fast, not too slow. Just right.

Unless of course you are driving. I’m doing a buck-thirty on the A1 and suddenly this Mercedes is right up my tail. Italians may not be an overtly homosexual culture but they love to come up your arse on the highway. He blows by me at a 150 Kmh. The speed limit is posted 110 kmh but we think it’s just a suggestion.
The cities are all different but somehow the same. There’s always a 13^th Century church somewhere in every village, town or big city. “Look, there’s a Timmies,” Tina says, pointing to an ancient structure, as in Tim Hortons. Like Timmys there’s one on every corner. And that, of course, gives Italy its sense of permanance. Things have been here forever and they will likely remain like this forever, give or take. Why hurry? The piazzas are also everywhere, with outdoor seating for the cafes and restaurants, an invitation to unhurried dining. And the food just keeps coming. You have to eat. It’s expected. All courses. You can’t just have one. It’s not done. What are you? Americans? Antipasti, primi, secondi, dessert and then coffee. Espresso for me. Just a shot of dark liquid, almost black with a caramel brown foam, the crema, on top. One sugar, a methodical stir and straight back in two sips. One to test the temperature, the second to drain it. Then the rush of caffeine. Forget heroin or cocaine. I’m hooked on espressos and start to crave them every couple of hours, even before bed.

We slept right through to shake off the jet lag then hit the streets. Sadly it was Sunday which meant pretty well everything was closed but we headed to the Duomo again and made a point of going inside to check it out, something we didn’t do on Saturday because there seemed to be a line up. This time we got right in and there were church services going on.

It has these magnificent bronze doors with sculpted figures all telling one story or another from Christianity and inside the vaulted ceiling seem to soar up 100 feet. What’s more interesting is that it is still an everyday church for the people of

The effect is ethereal as you’d expect. Aside from the grandeur and gravitas of the architecture the ambience combines to give it an awesome solemnity. Along the sides people were lighting candles and offering personal prayers to the shrines while on the walls stone sculptures and the sarcophagi of long dead bishops, leaders and sundry stared down at us. As I said, I’m not big on churches but when you realize that people have been worshipping and praying here for 600 odd years it really is impressive and sends a little tingle your spine.

However, despite all that I’m not about to rush and study the catechism at the seminary and join the priest hood, though my mum, was a Catholic for a while at least.

From there we walked around the area which despite being very touristy had some very interesting features. We stopped in for lunch at a little restaurant and ordered tagliatelle a fungi and a margharita pizza with wine which was very good. Funny thing about the Italians, they do Italian food very well. Okay, that wasn’t so funny, but what is funny is that there’s a dearth of other foods here. As we would discover, Italians pretty well go for Italian food and while there were a few sushi restaurants in Milan, McDonalds’ and Kebab places, there wasn’t much else in the way of “foreign food” but more on that a little later.

From there we headed off to the Sfrozella Castillo (CheckSp) which dates way back to before the 13^th century though most of what survives was built from about the mid 1400s. It was only a couple of subway away and again a very impressive structure which it’s main tower, massive brick walls and battlements, complete with those one foot by one foot slots for shooting arrows at the enemy. And over the years there were quite a few battles between the Hapsburgs and Napolean and the odd despot who invaded northern

For a mere E3 each we gained admission to the castle which is a giant museum and we wandered through the salons which were chock-full of art and artifacts. Again it’s not something we would do back in Toronto probably but then you don’t get this kind of history in

The paintings were great though they were a bit heavy on the blood and guts with lots of depictions of people being executed in horrible ways, like Sebastien who was dispatched by being tied to a tree and shot with arrows, becoming a martyr in the process. So, that’s St. Sebbo to you. I know this because there were at least five or six versions of the same scene all done by different artists over the years. Other multiple renderings including a guy getting his head slip open with a machete which writing “credo” in his own blood which my rudimentary knowledge of romantic languages translates as “I believe” while others were gored to death, stoned or had their throats slit.

Still, the art work was inspirational especially one 16^th century depiction of Christ in which the effect of renaissance technology was clearly apparent. The face of Jesus jumped out from this black background into this amazing splash of light. The eyes were incredibly detailed and the artist – I should have written his name down, shouldn’t I? – also managed to capture the finest fly away strands of hair as highlights. They really were so real you almost wanted to touch them, which of course you wouldn’t do because that would have shaken the security guards from their armchairs along the sides of the gallery and made them put down their iPods and rush over to arrest you.

All this in a painting which was really only about two by two feet and placed at a height which if you squinted made you think you were standing face to face with the Son of God.

The rest of it was also an eclectic collection of stuff from the 1500s through 1800s, including armour, armaments, ceramics, brassware and, to me, the fascinating collection of musical instruments. From cellos to guitars, to lutes, to harpsichords and pianos

I found it all fascinating, including to no one’s surprise I’m sure, the guitars. Some were really strange with wildly carved sound holes that went all the way down to the base of the box while others had this outrigger style of bass strings which gave you two guitars in one. I suppose the technique would be to pick the bass strings with your thumb, as we do now playing classical or Spanish style, but instead of having just the EAD there are also the BGD on the outrigger structure giving you a total of nine, sometimes 10 strings.

To cap off a long day of walking we went out for dinner only to find the city was shut down. Funny thing about Italians. They don’t like to work Sundays. We did find a restaurant in the basement of a nearby hotel where we noshed quite well. I had the Breseola – thin sliced beef with chaved cheese and oil oile and Tina had the fungi and pasta…with a caprese salad to start. We nailed that with an orange which had been peeled whole and then drizzled in candied rind and syrup and a few grappas……wow.

Day One

Arrive in

It took about 40 minutes on the bus which was packed with travelers and as we slipped into the city from the highway, the morning sun broke through, lifting our spirits.

It was a Saturday morning and the city was in full weekend mode. People were walking, riding bicycles, talking, smoking and hanging out at cafes and storefronts.

Around us cars, scooters, motorcycles, cyclists and pedestrians zipped in and out of the traffic. None of the roads are straight – as you’d expect for a city laid out in the 12^th Century - and one circular path led us to the next.

And then, in a moment, we arrived at the Stazzione Central , a magnificently massive building of white stone, imperiously presiding over a large piazza with characters and horses carved into its façade.

We hailed a cab to take us to the Hotel Mythos which looked to be nearby judging from the map we downloaded when we booked it on online. Turns out it was only a block and half but with the luggage and crude directions we were better off paying the E5 fare.

We checked into a lovely room, fairly recently renovated with a high ceiling and small stone balcony which overlooked Via Carlo Tenca. It wasn’t large by North American standards, about 15 by 15 with a king sized bed, but it was perfect for us as we quickly showered and freshened up ready to take on

We walked around a little then settled on a little corner restaurant where Tina had some Pasta Arrabiatta and I wolfed down some Pasta Al Fourno – backed pasta with cheese and ham. Both were delicious, served with hot little rolls which steamed when you cracked open their biscuit like crusts and washed down with red wine and beer.

Noticing many of the stores were closed because it was the mid day break which usually stretches to 3 p.m. Tina graciously consented to going back to the hotel room so I could catch the second half of the Arsenal-Manchester United game on the TV (in Italian). The game ended in a 2-2 tie after Ronaldo put ManU in front and the Gooners equalized in the last minute after a goal mouth scramble.

After that we fell asleep for an hour! We were quite tired and the little bit of exploring had taken whatever energy we had. The hour long cat nap was worth it and we set off around 3:30 p.m. or so to the Duomo – the marvelous church which took 500 years to complete in the heart of the historic district.

We opted to get a two pass Metro ticket which cost us E5.50 and allowed us to jump on and off the subway system whenever we liked. Our hotel was three minutes away from the station and within eight minutes we were walking up the stairs to the Piazza Duomo where the spectacular building was light up in the afternoon sun in full glory.

Now, I’ve been to many great cathedrals and temples in my travels and they are all unique. Whether it’s Notre Dame, Westminster Cathedral or the

The Duomo was first started sometime around 1300 – I’ll look up the fact later and insert them here – and through successive sponsors, architects, builders, building styles and purposes, it took five centuries to complete. And they’re still working on it  - now to restore and repair the damage done by time and traffic pollution. Sounds like a lot of public works projects even today!

The impact of the building though is amazing. There are 135 odd spires and towers rising up from the main building, all constructed from marble and stone. A top the highest spire is a copper statue of Mary which has been gold plated. As the sun hits it and lights it up it seems to radiate light – which I suppose is exactly what its designers intended.

The Duomo mixes several styles since it was built over such a long period. There’s the gothic, renaissance and bits of this and that. The overall effect though is wonderful and the carved stone details look like lace.

After a bit of a walk about we hit the Ferrari store which is just what it sounds like, a store where you can buy all things Ferrari – except for the car, though they had a couple of F1 cars on display. You could even have your picture taken in an F1 if you bought two items.

Aside from the usual hats, caps, shirts, mugs, Teddy Bears, model cars and other bits and pieces, you could also buy the odd chunk of a Ferrari. An exhaust manifold, for example, was a mere E6,000 – that’s nearly $9,000. A piece of front wing was only E799. Andrew wanted us to bring him back a Ferrari steering wheel but after looking at those prices we didn’t even bother to ask.

From there we decided to head over to the San Siro Stadium because AC Milan were hosting Torino that night and there was a good chance we could get tickets. It was about 5:30 p.m. when we got there and already the crowds had started to gather. Large European football games are like a carnival atmosphere and the supports – the Russo Brigade – were in full chant. We found the ticket booth and then got hit on by a guy who was either scalping or looking to dump some tickets he’d obviously acquired for free. I checked them out and they looked genuine so I agreed to pay E50 each – about E75. They were in the second tier of the stadium which holds about 80,000 or more people and seemed to have good enough sightlines. There was one catch – these tickets were issued to a specific person whose name was on them so we had to go around the front to another booth and have the name changed. Feeling like I’d just parted too easily with E100 we walked around to the front, checking out the Pannini wagons and merchandise stalls where all the scarves, hats, shirts and other paraphernalia were set out.

It turns out it was a simple thing to change the names. I lucked into a booth which wasn’ busy and the lady took out ID and issued some paperwork. Italians seem to love paperwork. It was close to 6 p.m. and kick off was 8:30 p.m. but instead of heading back to the hotel – which was only about 15 minutes by Metro -  we opted to hang out and have dinner alfresco.

The pannini wagon were our first stop. Think of a mini bus, sort of bigger than a mini van but smaller than a city bus. One entire side is a door which lifts up to make a canopy while a bank of glass fronted deli cases cantilever outward to create a counter. On the back wall you have fridges and coffee machines. The cases themselves are piled high with bread, cold cuts and cheeses which up top there’s often a griddle with onions and peppers sizzling away. Some even had a roasted pig from which they would slice fresh cuts to stuff into a sandwich. Each one had its own special style of offering which sort of explains why there were so many in some many different varieties. If

Pannini is simply fresh bread stuffed with goodies then put under a hot sandwich press but it’s the freshness and quality of the ingredients which make it come to life.

I had a ham and cheese while Tina went for a tomato and cheese. With  a couple o cold Beck’s beers it came to E16 – sounds like a lot but it was really E4 for each item – about $6 – and cheaper than it would have cost back in

After dinner we walked around the massive San Siro which rises 100 feet or more and dwarfs the Air Canada Centre by comparison and found a pub where we knocked back more drinks before heading into the stadium around 7:30 p.m. There were a bunch of young guys there from

The atmosphere in the stadium is just what I expected from watching Series A on TV. It was electric. To our left were all the Rosso Brigade, singing, chanting and whistling. To the right, way way up at the third tier were the

However the highlight of the night had to be Tina’s trip to the washroom at the stadium. Apparently Italians generally don’t seem to put much stock in public toilets, thus the women’s loo was a hole in the floor. Yes, there was a cubicle, but instead of a porcelain bowl there a porcelain thing which was more like a sink set into the floor over which you’re – or rather they – are supposed to squat and pee while simultaneously maintaining balance. Oh, and there was no toilet paper so apparently you  - or again they – have to wiggle their hips afterward while still keeping upright to, you know, shake off the drops.

As you can imagine, and I supposed you’ll have to since you weren’t there, the Princess was mortified. But more on that later, bathrooms are a recurring theme.

We dragged ourselves home and collapsed into bed exhausted!