For the second time in less than a year, Canadians have run smack into the digital divide. In the past that chasm has been solely economic: those who could afford computers, cellphones and Internet access, and those who had to spend all their money on food, shelter and car insurance. Now it’s also geographic.

Six months ago Apple launched the iPhone in the U.S. Since then it’s become available in the UK, Germany and France. But a Canadian iPhone? Maybe in early 2008. It’s not really clear what the hold-up is, but the smart cash is on the lack of an unlimited data plan from Rogers. Browsing the full web on an iPhone using a capped, Canadian wireless plan is like driving over to Ted Rogers’ house and burning your money in his hibachi. Add to the cash-grab data plan the reality that Ted Rogers and Steve Jobs must get along as well as wet cats in a trashcan.

Unfortunately, Rogers is the only carrier in Canada that can deliver the iPhone, due to the type of network (GSM) it uses. Some folks are “unlocking” their phones so they can be used outside the AT&T stranglehold, but that’s a technological cops and robbers game that most consumers won’t have the desire or ability to play. So, even wealthy Canadians can’t get the latest tech toys.

And, just last week Amazon introduced the Kindle, its new electronic book reader. The e-book’s killer feature is “free” wireless access to the amazon.com bookstore via a cellular service that sits on top of Sprint’s EVDO high-speed wireless network. While that wireless service is available in most of the continental U.S., Canadians are, once again, out of luck. You could buy a Kindle and use it in Canada, but it would a very limited device that would need to be tethered to your PC to get any content.

Once again the geographic divide yawns open.

Now, in both cases, I don’t care all that much personally. The iPhone will only be interesting to me when it can access high-speed wireless networks economically.

The Kindle looks like a mash up between a chiclet keyboard and spacelander prop from a Stars Wars fanboy video. Plus, it uses Digital Rights Management (DRM) to lock up its books and it can’t read simple PDFs. Amazon appears to be nickel and diming folks who want to read blogs on the device, charging them access fees for content you can get for free online. So, it’s not envy that has me concerned, it’s what the geographic digital divide portends.

In both cases the gap is the result of a partnership with a cellular carrier. Apple made a deal with the Devil when it locked itself and its phone to AT&T for five years. Amazon is piggybacking on Sprint’s network. Either way, the useful footprint of a portable device is being limited to the range of the wireless network it depends on. None of us should feel good about that. Hands up who likes their cellphone company. I thought so.

But there’s an even bigger geographic divide in the wings, maybe. In a few weeks time we’ll know whether or not Google will be making a multi-billion dollar bid for the 700 Mhz spectrum in the U.S. This is what most of us call UHF television (channels 52-79). It’s a swath of bandwidth that’s come free because television in the U.S. is moving to digital delivery. This is kickass spectrum with the power to penetrate dense materials like thick walls. And, there’s plenty of carrying capacity for whoever wins the bid.

The thinking is that Google will bid on the spectrum and âe” if it wins against the likes of Verizon Wireless and AT&T âe” will use it to roll out a U.S. wide wireless network. That could supply the data needs of cellphones using, say, the Android operating system I discussed a couple of columns ago. It will also allow Google to deliver its own high bandwidth content (like You Tube).

One of the reasons Google has suggested it’s interested in the spectrum is that it doesn’t trust the existing broadband carriers to play fair with non-carrier content (an issue I raised last week). Translation: It doesn’t want a Comcast deal with NBC or Universal to throttle Google’s ability to deliver You Tube HD over Comcast bandwidth.

So, what’s this have to do with the new digital divide? Google’s spectrum plans won’t include Canada or anywhere else in the world, at least not at first.

So, there’s a chance that, once again, Canadians and the rest of the world will be left on the sidelines as U.S. citizens and companies reap the benefits of technological innovation that gets stopped at the border.

You could argue that there’s not a lot of overarching competitive advantage to being able to wireless download a John Grisham novel onto a plastic shingle with an Etch-a-Sketch screen. You can’t argue, however, that a nation of knowledge workers with access to a high-speed wirelessly networked uber-smartphones isn’t a bit of a global leg up.

Canada’s already getting a bad rap for having lower productivity than the U.S. and many other nations because of a lack on innovation. The potential, and I stress potential, Google-powered network is exactly the kind of innovation we need to be participating in and learning how to use. We don’t want to be setting up bleachers north of the 49th.

So, it’s important, when we see things like a lack of a Canadian iPhone or an e-book that doesn’t work cross-border, to pay attention. They signal an important technological shift, disguised as something you might think only nerds with disposable income should care about. For now, itâe(TM)s just a couple of expensive tech-baubles that are tantalizingly out of reach. In five years, a lot more may exceed our grasp.

wayne

Wayne MacPhail

Wayne MacPhail has been a print and online journalist for 25 years. He was the managing editor of Hamilton Magazine and was a reporter and editor at The Hamilton Spectator until he founded Southam InfoLab,...