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Morning Brew: December 13th, 2007

Posted by Jerrold Litwinenko / December 13, 2007

13 Comments

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Photo: "Toronto Is... Ice. Blur" by blogTO Flickr pooler lepagejp (online sporadically).

Your morning news roundup for Thursday December 13th, 2007:

Here's a weird one: an undercover Toronto police officer investigating a murder pretended to have supernatural powers - and it seem that he was so convincing that he talked suspects into turning over a murder weapon and revealing details of the murder.

The province will announce today that $100million will be dedicated to improving transit service. Most of the funds will go to GO Transit, who recently got scolded by the auditor general for having serious service deficiencies.

We're so backwards that it's not even funny. City council passed a law to ban airport limos from picking up fares in Toronto (to make it fair to city cabs, that aren't permitted to pick up fares at the airport). Effectively the city is forcing all cabs going to and from the airport to drive without passengers. So much for working towards cutting air pollution.

The Conference Board ranks Toronto the second most attractive city in Canada in terms of overall health, housing, the economy, the environment, education, innovation and society. Calgary got top honours because oil is good for health, housing, the environment, education, innovation and society.

Speaking of Calgary... a Calgary man got a legit mobile phone bill from Bell Canada - for $85,000. He'd plugged his phone into a PC and was using it to download large files. Bell didn't let him know until the end of the month, then reminded him that this type of use is not intended, agreed to reduce the bill to $5000 as a sign of goodwill, and recommended a mobile different plan.

Discussion

13 Comments

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Diane / December 13, 2007 at 09:26 am
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Can someone who is a Bell cellphone customer comment on how much Bell charges for browser minutes?

(I'm on Fido, and I never use the browser because no one from Fido/Rogers can tell me what the charges are for that.)
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Jerrold / December 13, 2007 at 09:39 am
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The answer is... TOO MUCH. No matter how you slice it or which provider you use, you're being robbed blind for mobile data. I use Rogers and had them deactivate the feature on my account until the rates improve.
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Darlene / December 13, 2007 at 09:45 am
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@ Diane:

As a Fido customer, I can tell you that it's 5 cents per kilobyte of data transfered, or there are a couple of internet plans where you get 25 or 200 megabytes monthly...
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Mark Dowling / December 13, 2007 at 09:52 am
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That Bell thing bugs me. Time after time there are complaints that phone companies whack bills on their customers 10s if not 100s of times the standard - before it would have been chat lines or international calls, now it's internet usage. The phone company makes a settlement under pressure and moves on and next year it's a different issue.

They should be obligated to contact the user when a monthly bill is say 4x normal to check all is well, just as credit card companies suspend accounts and contact cardholders when they think a card might have been stolen.
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AC / December 13, 2007 at 10:48 am
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FYI, the link to the Airport Limo story is broken.

So am I to understand that the only way to get into the city from Pearson is now by bus...?!
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Jerrold / December 13, 2007 at 11:05 am
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680news must have yanked the story because that link WAS active and the story no longer appears on their site. Odd.

You can take a regular cab to the airport, but that cab isn't allowed to pick up a passenger AT the airport. This new law makes the opposite also true - airport limo cabs can't bring passengers to the airport. I'm looking for another news outlet with this story now...
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Edit / December 13, 2007 at 03:08 pm
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Actually they agreed to lower the bill to $3000. Just so you have the facts straight.
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Jerrold / December 13, 2007 at 03:38 pm
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Get my facts straight? The article I pointed to clearly states that the bill was sent for $85,000 but was later reduced to about $5000. Why don't you write the Calgary Sun if you want to argue over fact checking. :)

(I found a Globe and Mail article on this story and it states a reduced bill of $3,243)
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Diane / December 13, 2007 at 04:06 pm
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@ Darlene:

5 cents per kilobyte of data transfered? So that would mean it costs $150 to download a single 3 magabyte MP3.

I'm beginning to see how Mr. Calgary could have racked up such a bill.
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Brandon / December 14, 2007 at 11:37 am
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What I don't understand is how canada is so far behind on cell phone service. How is it 200km east of us you can get unlimited data and minutes for 60US on AT+T. Isn't bell and AT+T partners? Why is the richest man(Ted Rogers correct?) in Canada unable to make a better plan for the people, and not a better plan to make money. Foolish.
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rek / December 14, 2007 at 12:13 pm
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Brandon - He's the richest man in Canada because he doesn't make better plans for the people, he puts money before customers.
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K / December 16, 2007 at 12:31 am
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Ted Rogers is the fourth richest man in Canada, after David Thomson, Galen Weston and the Irvings.
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J / December 16, 2007 at 12:34 am
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Whether he the richest or the fourth richest doesn't change the fact that we pay too much for mobile data, does it?
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