Alec Saunders SquawkBox

For the last couple of days I've been travelling on Via Rail, Canada's national passenger carrier.  It's a pretty comfortable way to travel.  I've been sitting here listening to music on my Nokia N81, while cranking out emails and blog postings, writing product requirements documents, and even staying in touch with folks on Facebook.   Via has done a phenomenal job of making business travel by train a good experience by making filtered power available at every seat, and WiFi available in every car.

The WiFi is adequate, but not great.  Speeds and latency are certainly an issue, as this snap from the internet SpeedTest shows.

In practical terms, there's a noticeable lag when loading a site, and the VPN back to the office is only useable for short periods of time.  Impaired, but definitely useful!

Now if only they could do something about the tables… 

The practice of burying hidden fees on bills, and how it rips consumers off is gaining some visibility:

Broadband Reports: companies are "taking business expenses and breaking them out as below the line fees, so they can misleadingly advertise a lower rate".

MSNBC: "Those $5 and $10 charges really add up. Even with these limitations, Americans told us they lose $946 to sneaky fees every year, enough to stock a sizable retirement fund."

Michigan Telephone: "People, please, stop just putting up with corporations stealing from you.  Would you let someone walk into your home and smile as they carted off your possessions, or took a few bills out of your wallet or purse? Heck, would you let your kids do that? Then why do you let big corporations do it to you, without a word of protest??"

Here in Canada there's one wireless fee that grates on everybody's nerves.  It's the "system access fee". There isn't a carrier that doesn't charge six or seven bucks a month under the line item called system access, so you can't even switch carriers to avoid paying the darn thing!  When you ask about it, you get a shrug along with the comment "everybody charges it". 

Mention it the next time you talk with your carrier.  I always do, and I always force the CSR to explain what it's for to me.  Then I ask them to remove this non-service fee from my bill.  Every time I talk with them, though, they politely refuse. It costs the carrier $25 to $30 per call to receive my call.  Three or four calls per year asking about what that "system access fee" is on my statement will wipe out any profits they make from nickeling and diming me.   It's a little subversive, but it's just the sort of thing that appeals to the Canadian in me.  And perhaps if enough people did the same, the bean counting MBAs who work in product management at Canadian carriers  would see the logic of discontinuing this practice.  

The rumour mill was working overtime yesterday, spinning new yarns and hyping up speculators everywhere.

Venture Beat reported that Facebook was planning to acquire Plaxo.  Shortly after, TechCrunch shot that rumour down, saying that "Facebook grows a new Plaxo every six days".  From a customer experience perspective, the combined feature set makes sense.  But there are so many other hurdles to overcome that this deal is probably a long way from being consummated.  We'll be discussing this on this morning's Squawk Box in a little over an hour.

RBC Capital Markets is fanning the "iPhone in Canada" flames this morning, with analyst Mike Abramsky speculating that there may be an announcement at MacWorld today.  Given recent speculation that Telus may cut it's losses on CDMA and become a GSM carrier, perhaps Rogers felt that it was finally time to pull the trigger and announce a deal. 

As a nation, we Canadians aren't party animals.  According to the paper this morning, just 6% of us will be going out for the all-out New Years party this evening, and fully 40% of us aren't planning to party at all… not even at someone's house!  Me, well… I'll be hosting our fabulous North America wide New Years Countdown call… with a glass of champagne in hand. 380 people have RSVP'd across 3 time zones.

Hope to see you there!

Buckingham Palace has decided to create a YouTube channel.  The Queen's Christmas Day message will be available after 3PM GMT on YouTube, to the world.  In addition, archival footage dating back to Queen Alexandra is also available, including Elizabeth II's first televised Christmas message, and her coronation.

In her 1957 Christmas message she expresses the hope that the new medium of television will allow her to be closer and more familiar to her people in an age when the monarchy had become more and more distant.  And here we are 50 years later, airing that now familiar Christmas message not just on television but on the internet. Who says the Monarchy can't adapt?

We'll be watching it via YouTube, as I suspect that the cable station here in Cape Cod won't be carrying it.