Though it's a common practice in the US, charging customers for incoming text messages isn't terribly common up in Canada. Don't worry though, Canadians -- your days of being chronically undercharged are drawing to a close thanks to suspiciously closely-timed announcements from Bell and Telus that they'll start chalking up 15 cents per inbound message for anyone not on a messaging plan starting in August. The country's industry minister is none too pleased about the change (the dude must get like a thousand texts a day, after all), sending out letters to Bell and Telus' head honchos requesting meetings before the new charges take effect. We'll see where this goes, but we certainly wouldn't get our hopes up.

Read - Bell, Telus customers to pay for incoming text messages
Read - Ottawa moves to forestall texting revolt [Via Smart Mobs]

Though the Sprint version is the most well-scooped CDMA variant thus far, Telus is actually becoming the first carrier 'round these parts to announce the Touch Diamond imbued with a little EV-DO for your data-consumption pleasure. The phone will run $149.99 CAD (which is just about a wash in US dollars) on a three-year contract, accompanied by data plans ranging from $15 for email and instant messaging to $30 for email, IM, and web browsing. Sprint, Verizon, we anxiously await your press releases.

We're hearing that Telus will be ushering in a whole new age of Texter's Thumb before too long with the launch of the curiously-named "KEYBO," a rebrand of the enV2 found on Verizon in the States. EV-DO data, a media player, and a 2 megapixel camera make this a solid choice for SMS maniacs who want something just a little sexier and fancier than the Rumour (itself a rebrand of Sprint's Rumor). We understand where the name comes from -- sort of -- but that doesn't mean it's right.

Just days after Telus picked up the attractive LG Venus, the carrier has officially started offering up the Motorola Mike i877. The half-rugged, half-sleek looking flip phone was designed by Pininfarina and features integrated Bluetooth, a multimedia player (MP3, AAC, WMA), microSD expansion slot, miniUSB port, 1.3-megapixel camera, VibraCall, a digital voice recorder and the obligatory push-to-talk support. If it floats your boat, you can snag it now sans contract for $349.99, or anywhere between $149.99 to $299.99 if you're cool with signing the dotted line for varying lengths of time.

[Via MobileInCanada]

Strong work, Telus! First you guys are pretty much on the ball with your release of the BlackBerry 8330 Curve and the Motorola Q9c, and now you've become the first Canadian carrier to offer the LG Venus -- and you're clearly reveling in it, too, since you point out on your product page that this is actually LG's first touchscreen phone in all of Canada. $99.99 CAD (about $100) of your customer's hard-earned savings is going to net them a 2 megapixel camera, QVGA primary display, microSD slot, GPS, EV-DO, and stereo Bluetooth, so we'd say you've done good -- for the moment, anyway. Keep up the strong work.

[Thanks, Jesse]

There are certain phones that seem to have the uncanny ability to unite a fabulous cross section of carriers across North America, and these two are clearly headed in that direction. Telus way up there in Canada has launched the Motorola Q9c and announced the eventual availability of the BlackBerry Curve 8330, giving it a power pack of smartphones embraced by a good number of CDMA cousins to the south. Both devices offer EV-DO data and Bluetooth; the Curve offers up GPS and a 2 megapixel camera, while the Windows Mobile 6-based Q9c makes do with a 1.3 megapixel sensor -- but offers the key bonus of being available immediately for $149.99 CAD on a three-year deal. No release date or pricing for the Curve has been announced.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read - Motorola Q9c
Read - BlackBerry Curve

As expected, Telus has rolled out its young, fresh, "fat-free" (their words, not ours) Koodo Mobile brand this week, targeting Canadians looking for a no-frills way to get wireless on the cheap. In light of all the unlimited action we've seen stateside as of late, we're not necessarily blown away by the offerings -- but $65 CAD for 1000 minutes plus unlimited incoming calls, 50 text messages, and per-second billing is alright... we guess. The phone selection is positively barebones, too, reflecting the mantra of the company itself; buyers can choose from a Samsung U410 for $75, a Motorola KRZR for $200, and a W385 -- also from Moto -- for $125. Any Canadians want to chime in here? Is this a blessing, or a Telus-backed fleece?

[Via Howard Chui]

It looks like our friends to the north are getting hooked up with another wireless choice later today -- sorta. Just like Fido is little more than a discount outlet for daddy Rogers, it seems that "Koodo Mobile" will be launching under the Telus umbrella offering plans as low as $15 CAD per month, per-second billing, and at least some contract-free offerings. Oh, and Koodo's catchy tagline? "Good call." How creative!

With the 8130 and the 8830 already in Telus' BlackBerry lineup, the natural next step for any CDMA carrier to take is to launch the recently-spied CDMA Curve, of course. Indeed, it looks like Telus is stepping up to the plate and doing the right thing here, thanks to a sharp-eyed HowardForums member who captured a shot of Telus' site showing the 8330 on sale for $199.99 CAD (about $203) on a three-year contract. 'Course, like a mirage, the mysterious 8330 vanished into thin air -- its time hasn't come yet -- but we expect it'll be back in the mix in short order now.

Separately, we've heard from another tipster that both the Curve and a Samsung U720 can be found in metadata associated with Telus' media player. What's the U720, you ask? We're not sure, but they're calling it the "Flipper" and it looks suspiciously like Verizon's U740, alias "Alias." No word yet on when exactly the Canadian carrier will commit to putting these new pieces up on its site for keeps.

[Thanks, Tal and John]

We still don't know whether Telus will be so hasty as to decommission its existing CDMA network in favor of UMTS / HSPA ahead of the long road to 4G, but it any rate, it looks like the Canadian carrier's next-gen technology of choice is darn near locked up. A job listing for a Senior Switch Engineer details CDMA and EV-DO experience as part of its requirements, naturally -- but here's where it gets interesting: they want "knowledge on UMTS, IMS, and LTE evolution" as well, without any mention of UMB or WiMAX to be found. In other words, if we wait around long enough, we'll be able to call Telus a GSM carrier, which should make the Rogers monolith just a little uneasy.

[Thanks, Justin Y.]

The clever souls at PhoneNews seem to have cobbled together info from dcd's posts at XDA-Developers and other places on how to get gpsOne -- this technology uses both satellite and your provider's network to determine location -- up and running on CDMA HTC Titan sets. Once your handset -- including PPC-6800, XV6800, Mogul, P4000, and likely others -- is tweaked, applications like TomTom, Google Maps, and other GPS tools will be available for your navigational enjoyment. This hack will require that you unlock your handset, update the device's software, and then update the baseband radio firmware to get at the goods. Instructions and all the files you'll need -- software updates are listed for Alltel, Sprint, Verizon, Bell, and Telus -- are available by hitting the read link. Of course, this'll likely blow your warranty away, so fiddlers beware and if you're even a little concerned, it may be patience will pay off as a provider update could bring this in the future.

Update: Fixed credit for the work, thanks everybody for clarifying

Ah yes, ye olde we're-going-to-switch-our-network-technology story surfaces again, seems we can't have a quarter without this type of story raising it's head. We heard this same tale back when Bell Canada was involved in all that sale / merger / rumor business, but this time Telus is the center of the fun. It seems that Telus may be set to abandon its 'Betamax" network and is now ogling the hundreds of millions of dollars in roaming revenue that the GSM carriers enjoy by considering a move to tap into it. Of course, this is merely speculation, but the story does seem to be gaining traction and Rogers shares actually suffered a 2.6 percent drop on this news yesterday. The Olympics are in Vancouver in 2010, we're thinking if Telus really was going to go for it -- and shell out an estimated half billion dollars -- that would be a prime time to roll out a hybrid EV-DO / HSDPA network.

T-Mobile launched its myFaves service back in October of 2006, a service that's proven popular with customers -- and apparently, it's gaining popularity with other carriers 'round the world, too. In Canada, Telus unveiled a program whereby five numbers of your choosing get unlimited calling and texting in May of this year; sounds familiar, right? Yeah, it is -- same deal as myFaves, actually -- and that probably wouldn't have riled up T-Mobile. The Deutsche Telekom division doesn't deal much with Canada, after all, and a little international copycatting never hurt anyone, right? Indeed, we figure Telus probably would've gotten away with the promotion had they not decided to call it... wait for it... "My Faves." Now yes, we understand that the "M" is capitalized and they've used two words instead of melding them into one, but come on. Needless to say, T-Mob is less than pleased with the branding and has filed a trademark infringement suit in federal court up in the Great White North with the intention of getting Telus to go with something a little less familiar (say, "Fy Maves," for example). For what it's worth, Telus jumped on the Canadian trademark for its service a month before T-Mobile did, but we're pretty sure the whole prior art concept might apply here.