What Tim Hortons and the TTC reveal about Canada’s mobile future

It’s crazy enough navigating the subway station at Yonge and Bloor St. in Toronto without having to get around a large upright banner that’s bigger than most human beings and a pair of obviously bored volunteers. Leave it to the TTC to decide that the best way to make people aware of its new wireless service is to use the face-to-face approach.

I shouldn’t complain, I guess. The TTC Connect program, which will continue to roll out to other stops over the next few years, followed close on the news that Tim Hortons will be allowing customers to pay for their Double-Doubles with their mobile phones. If mobile computing is extending into these uncharted territories, Canada must be doing something right. Right?

When you consider that even airplanes are now beginning to offer Wi-Fi on flights, there can’t be too many places left where mobility hasn’t made headway. I asked Steve Van Binsbergen, Vice President of Business Segment at Rogers, where he thought the gaps were.