I’ve been surfing a lot of the iPhone forums these days, reading so much cell hacking technology technobabble that would make a Japanese School Girl drop her cell and take up snail mail communication.

Trying to stay focused, I’ve been looking at articles pertaining to the iPhone and Canada. Getting past the “It will happen in September/October/Spring2008” fatboy shoutings*, here’s what I’ve found:

Not gonna happen any time soon.

That’s the readers digest version. The long form is that to get the iPhone into Canada, Rogers will have to relinquish some of it’s profit margin to accommodate the cost of data transfers. Currently Rogers is one of the highest charging telcos in the free world. To accept the iPhone/Apple into Canada without adjusting their rates would make a monthly bill somewhere in the vicinity of …oh… $500. Of course I’m pulling that number out of my butt, but it’s not too far off considering Rogers does not have an unlimited data transfer option. A couple YouTube videos and you’ve probably exceeded your monthly limit no matter what plan you choose. I can’t imagine Rogers adjusting it’s charges to established Blackberry/Treo/etc customers for this new product that would only pull in a small percentage of the market. Why would they do that? It would be like asking Perez Hilton to stop talking about Lindsay Lohan for only an eighth of a day. But Rogers has a history of not really listening to customers when they complain.

Meanwhile, as that is being debated in the boardrooms at One Mount Pleasant Drive (Is it even an issue? Are they actually discussing this?) Apple needs to clear up that whole Comwave “We have the iPhone!” issue. I bet the dollar-eyed execs at Comwave are sitting ’round their receptionist’s desk jumping up and down like a kid on Christmas morning, every time the phone rings:

Riiiing.

“Is that Steve Jobs calling? Is he willing to buy the name from us?”

“No, it’s the landlord. The rent cheque bounced again.”

I’m keeping dim hope. Meanwhile, isn’t there some sort of monopoly law in Canada similar to the one that killed big Bell in the 70s? Would this not pertain to the GMS service Rogers has? To quote someone on one of the forums: I’d love to see Virgin swoop in and steal this opportunity from Rogers.

Amen, Richard.

*This post over at Hackintosh made me laugh. I think it was written by the same guy who sent me my online inquiry response. Note the spelling:

I am a Rogers employee and there has been no word as of yet on the realse of the iPhone with Rogers. Stay tuned for future information.