The PowerMat charging station has 3 spots on it to charge 3 separate devices at the same time. Grab a PowerMat receiver for your device (a PowerMat enabled case for the iPhone and BlackBerry, for example), and then just drop the device onto the mat to charge it. One wire (charging station to wall outlet). Nothing plugged into your devices. And the geek factor? Through the roof.

I can only imagine that there will be a dozen of these charging matts available soon, and a standard to let them all interoperate with one another. This is a really cool product, and I cant wait to see wireless charging for laptops, or straight up wireless AC power for devices that require constant power (like desktop PCs).

What did I expect? I expected that if a developer has the gall to self proclaim their new construction project “New Downtown Markham” that it would have some aspects of downtown communication infrastructure. Copper and cable doesn’t cut it anymore. If you’re putting in over a thousand residential units, run fiber links to the community. If you don’t want to manage the links, let a third party do it – I drive by 6 companies on my way to work that would have been happy to provide voice and data services to this community. It would have cost the residents here less, we would have had better service, and best of all, we would have had choice. Giving me a choice between Rogers and Bell is like offering me the “choice” between two domestic light beers. They’re both going to be poor substitutes for what I really want, and I’m going to be disappointed either way.

What really gets me is that the Downtown Markham site for office leasing opportunities touts Markham’s “world class infrastructure”. Oh sure, the infrastructure in the city exists… But the way things are now, if a business actually wanted to use that infrastructure they’d have to pay to pull the lines in from the interconnects (rather than just pay to hook into the network that the development should be wired with already). The developer wants to attract fortune 500 companies to build their HQs here. Maybe if a few of them sign on, and the demand is great enough, Remington will pull their heads out of the sand long enough to sign a build out agreement with a local fiber owner. Even if that happens, I’m still stuck. Remington’s development of the future is already built – And it has last decade’s broadband technologies, and last century’s voice tech.

The enforced competitor access at fixed prices all stems from the source of funding for the networks. The government allowed a monopoly to be created, so they allowed competitors access to the monopoly-holder’s network to even things up a bit. The CRTC’s decision last December allows the incumbent telcos to set whatever prices they want for competitor access. As any company with any business sense would do, Bell and Telus will use this opportunity to push competitor rates for access to their network sky high. As the independent service providers die off because they cannot afford the access fees, Bell can raise prices for their own customers. After all, who are their customers going to switch to? When Bell decides not to replace aging infrastructure because it would be too costly and their customers suffer with slow speeds or service outages, customers will not have the option to “vote with their wallet” and leave for another company.

If this decision is not reversed, independent internet service providers and telcos will be forced out of business in a matter of months. In a country where we already pay more than other developed countries for fewer/slower services, we will find ourselves with unaffordable internet access that will never increase in speed or service quality. Our telephone and internet services will be regulated by a corporation, not our government. When the bottom line is profits, you can bet it won’t be the consumer who benefits.

I wrote to my MP, John McCallum (MP for Markham-Unionville) last week regarding the issue, and asked him what his position on the issue was, and what he was going to do to help reverse the decision. I am sad to say that Mr. McCallum responded to tell me that while he supported net neutrality, he felt that a network built by a company, and not the government, should be regulated by that company. The letter was written as if he understood the issue, but I have to question if Mr. McCallum actually knows the background here. So, Mr. McCallum, I’m calling you out. If your position is that a private network should be regulated privately, then how can you allow the networks that were built with our taxes to be regulated in the same fashion? Why do the taxpayers not get a say in a decision that will ultimately affect them so very negatively? How can the government pour dollar after dollar into a project and then refuse to ensure that project benefits their citizens?

I urge everyone to get involved with this issue. Write your local MP. write Stephen Harper, write the opposition leader and write industry minister Tony Clement. Write anyone you can who will pay attention. Check out CompetitiveBroadband.com for more ways to get involved. Do anything to get the word out – If you don’t, you may find your communication services are the next items on the chopping block when it’s time to cut back.