I’m a fairly tech-savvy person, but I like to think this comes with a duty to think critically about personal technology use. So yes, I’ve known about Facebook for ages, I just choose not to adopt. Partly because I’m not interested in formalizing and quantifying my social network, but partly because I don’t like my personal data sitting on a server I have such little control over. My data. Mine.

But I finally broke down earlier this year and bought a cell phone– well, a data device type thing I can use as a phone, but more often use for text, chat and email (voice communication– nonsense!). There are lots of reasons I haven’t had one I have to now repress (environmental impact, data security, brain cancer), but one of the big ones is that Canada is just a backwater when it comes to cellular technology, largely due to the bastardishness of its telcos (this tends to happen during public to private ownership shifts that leave formerly government controlled industries with legacies of tight-fisted controls and anti-consumer attitudes– yeah, AC, I’m looking at you too!). I would never sign a contract with any of those jerks, and am doing quite nicely on pay-as-you go (which is NOT more expensive…a myth the telcos like to perpetuate) and free wifi, on a phone I bought outright.

However, I still think that the lack of real competition in the Canadian cellular industry is a huge embarrassment, and a real testament to how little power everyday citizens really have versus the mega-corporations. So I’m pleased to see this petition supporting a bill to ban some of the more egregious shady practices in the Canadian industry. Although I have to say, what really boggles my mind is why other Canadian technology providers who want to sell content for mobile access don’t band together and start kicking some ass on this front (your CanWests and whathaveyou…oh wait, they’re all owned by the same people). Canadians want mobile devices and content, and will pay for it, but cannot afford to access it. This is why we are resorting to desperate letters to Steve Jobs and any other powerful name we can think of that might be willing to take on the madness which is Canadian mobile wireless.

As an illustration: when our internet went down a few weeks ago, I needed to load the webpage of our network provider on my phone to get the phone number. That single webpage, on my phone, via Rogers Communications, cost SEVEN DOLLARS. Which is why I NEVER, EVER use anything other than wifi if I can at all help it.

Anyhow… that’s my rant. It’s time for pitchforks and torches, because this helpless apathy is pathetic.