Meanwhile, there are Canadian things we can't get here – lots of your yummy snacks (various flavoured potato chips) and chocolate bars (Wunderbar I particularly like) for instance, not to mention Canadian TV shows and films. I live only 5 hours from the Québec border, yet I've seen many more films from France, all the way across the ocean.

But getting back to the tech stuff, maybe you should consider yourselves lucky. Americans may have the iPhone and KIndle and other gizmos, and they also have extreme addictions to these items in many cases. Not all technology is as necessary as you might think…

I am currently waiting on my Kindle DX that I ordered with my AMEX card to a Gas Station just across the border. A hassle indeed, but necessary if you want to stay current.

I am a software developer and there are certainly times when I feel that living in Canada impedes my ability to keep up. I hope someone is reading these comments who can make a difference

It's been all a rave in the US for the past 2 years as I watch more and more parents talk about how great this insulin pump is through online forums. But here I sit poking my daughter 5 times a day with needles while I'm waiting. I've spoken to a Canadian rep about this after I bluntly told him that I wasn't interested in what he was trying to sell me, that I wanted the PING! He said, well, I heard that they're trying to get it in Canada and that we're waiting for Health Canada in order to proceed! That's just great! At the speed the feds work, my daughter will be full grown and out of the house by then! They're too busy planning on another election!!!

The first part is that the Federal Government currently issues "Monopolies" for things like the rights to lay cable in an area, Television and Radio channels, etc.

In the case of radio and TV they do this for two reasons, one of which is valid – to prevent two stations from broadcasting on the same channel. The other, which is invalid is to limit competition, because they've been told no one will build a station unless they are guaranteed a profit. If the spectrum was opened, I believe that many companies, and other organisations (universities for instance) would build stations.

In the case of Cable, they were told it wasn't economical to lay cable unless the company had a monopoly, and so only one cable provider is available in any one area. Needless to say, Canadian rate packages are not competitive with American rate packages.

The second part is that the copyright rules in Canada are a mess. We would actually be better off, if the Copyright act was stricken from the books and not replaced (note that attempts at "reform" like Bill C61 would have made things far worse). What has happened is that the corporate community is trying to maximise profit, at the expense of Canadians. If one company owns the publishing rights to something in the USA, and another company owns the publishing rights in Canada, the Canadian company can block importation, whether it's a physical or digital copy. This does not benefit the citizens of Canada (but it does benefit CTV, Global, Penguin, etc.). It also does not benefit the artists, who loose the benefits of sales into Canada.

In case you didn't notice their last report on copyright was rescinded, due to it being a close copy of an MPAA document. The MPAA document contained many questionable assertions. Michael Geist covered the Conference Board scandal on his website michaelgeist.ca

Effective competition means that if someone shows up with a GSM device, there should be at least 3 (I would prefer 5) national carriers to choose from as an outlet. We have one GSM carrier.

So, trust me on this – complaining to Rogers isn't going to help. Every carrier out there would prefer that there only be one device that everyone wanted. It would make inventory so much easier to manage! Otherwise, their preference leans towards fewer devices, not more devices.

Complaints might be too late. The time to fix this was during the last spectrum auction. The government reserved space for new players – but that is no guarantee of new behaviour. A better route would have been a spectrum requirement for customer device access – customers can bring their own compatible device and hook it up, just like they can plug their own phone in the wall outlet at home.

Pandora on-line radio is the other digital service I would really like access to. It sounds like that's strictly a rights issue and they would love to be able to tap into the Canadian market if they could.