Why Does Sasktel Hate Android?

Any flatlander who lives between the 102 and 110 degrees longitude West, and between the 49th and 60th parallel North, sees many, many TV ads featuring Little Red Riding Hood proclaiming the how great the smartphones from Saskatchewan's government owned telco, Sasktel.

Sasktel gives smartphone users two choices, Blackberries or Windows Mobile.  While Blackberries are still hugely popular, they are not everybody's cup of tea.  While Windows Mobile sticks out like the math league, chess team, glee club geek at the senior prom.  So far, the king of the smartphones the Apple iPhone is still only available on Rogers in Saskatchewan since Telus has not been able to offer their new line up of phones because they don't actually own their own network, they just piggyback off of Sasktel.  Since Apple refuses to even consider the thought of a CDMA iPhone because of the cost of paying licensing fees to Qualcomm, and the limited shelf life of CDMA in the United States there will not be an iPhone on Sasktel as long they stay on CDMA.

Other popular smartphones like the Palm Pre (Exclusive to Bell) and Pixi (Exclusive to Telus with HSPA coverage) pass right by and are not even available in The Land of the Living Skies.  The biggest rising star of smartphone operating systems, Google's Android can be found in Saskatchewan, but just like the iPhone it's only available on Rogers.  It's not like Sasktel can't offer an Android smartphone because of competing network technology, There are CDMA Android phones out there.  There is Motorola's Droid that is offered by Verizon in the United States, Sasktel chose to ignore it, and Telus grabbed the Droid's GSM/HSPA cousin the Milestone and is now the exclusive carrier for that phone across Canada even if they can't offer it in Saskatchewan or Manitoba.

Google's own Nexus One is coming out with a CDMA version in April with service in the United States provided on Verizon Wireless.  Since Canada's last two CDMA carriers have to let go of their we only activate the phones we sell before the CDMA Nexus One can be made available in Canada.  There is an economic incentive for Sasktel and MTS to do this, With the Nexus One the end user pays the whole cost of the phone, not the cellular service provider. HTC offers the Hero and Eris models running Android on CDMA.  Neither of these phones have a found a home with a Canadian carrier yet, if there's somebody listening to what subscribers want, then both Sasktel and MTS need to provide one of these HTC models a home on the prairies in order to prevent the kind of subscriber defections to Rogers to get an Android phone just like the migration to the iPhone that caused the subscriber loss that Sasktel has faced in the past two years.

Google Android Phone, Coming To Canada

Google and HTC recently launched the G1, the first smartphone to use Google's Android operating system. Once again just like the original iPhone before it Canadians have to ether stand on the sidelines or order an unlocked phone on places such as eBay. Unlike the original iPhone there will be multiple manufactures making Android powered smartphones. This of course could lead the way to having both CDMA and GSM Android phones in the market. Out of Canada's cell phone carriers who is most likely to offer Android phones, let's see.

Rogers/Fido: The honeymoon between Rogers and Apple hasen't even ended yet, while Rogers still sells Blackberries and Windows Mobile phones, it isn't very likely that Rogers will take on the most hyped competitor to the iPhone.

Bell: While Android would be an excellent opportunity to attract customers back from Rogers and the iPhone they haven't exactly carried the most trendy phones in a very long time. Bell's recent reputation of lame phones comes from carrying the same lineup as Sprint. If Sprint doesn't pony up the money to provide Google Android to subscribers then Bell won't ether.

Telus: Most of the time Telus carries the same phones offered by Verizon in the states, if Verizon gets the first CDMA Android phone then Telus will be the first Canadian carrier to offer it.

New Carrier (Yak,Videotron,etc.) Canada's new hopeful cell phone carriers will need a high profile type phone as a way to attract customers away from the established cell phone carriers. Billions spent on spectrum licenses and building networks will be need to be recovered. Will a Google Android phone help them, stay tuned.