Droid, Milestone facts for Canadians

Motorola's Droid smartphone on Verizon Wireless has to be the most advertised smartphone since the original iPhone a little over two years ago.  Motorola is putting out two versions of this smartphone the Droid the one that is already well known, that runs on Verizon's CDMA network and the Milestone that runs on GSM/HSPA networks.  Telus Mobility has already announced that they will be the exclusive carrier for the Milestone on their new HSPA network.

In some areas of Canada, Rogers is the only GSM/HSPA network available with the other cellular network available from a regional incument carrier such MTS or Sasktel who will be choosing to stay on CDMA for the forseeable future, people in these areas are out of luck when it comes to the Droid/Milestone since Telus rents the cellular network infrastructure in those areas where they don't own their own.  Exclusivity agreements similar to what Motorola has with Telus prevent offering the CDMA based Droid in areas where Telus doesn't offer HSPA service.  Palm makes a GSM version of the Pre for the European markets but is prevented by exclusivity agreements with Bell Mobility and Sprint from offering the GSM version in North America.

Former customers of Alltel (a former regional cell phone carrier in the United States) used to complain about the poor selection of phones until they got bought out by Verizon. For regional carrier subscribers in Canada, not having access to the latest selection of smart phones is just the price of subscribing to a regional carrier.