I came across an interesting article on the Telegraph about how some folks are using the Google Earth service to at least get a chance to know what to expect before booking a trip abroad.  Of course, Google is getting a lot of competition right now on the satellite map / aerial views of the world, from other sites such as Multimap and MSN Virtual Earth.

But it is interesting to see the growth in usage of these tools.  The articles mentions a Hitwise stat about traffic in these sites being up 26% year-over-year, and that one in every five people leave a map site to go to an online travel agent.  So this could become a natural extension to sites such as Hotwire, Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc.

Here's what I was talking about when I meant that the Canadian consumers get at best a so-so deal in terms of pricing for broadband, TV and LD.  Yannick Laclau (hat tip: EuroTelcoblog) mentions that Free (the broadband service provider that everyone is talking about in France) has reached 1.3 million ADSL subs (of which 900k are on unbundled lines).  This is good for a 17% ADSL share (43% when only counting unbundled lines). 

For a monthly fee of 30 Euros (about Can$45), Free offers 20 Mbps ADSL2+ access, unlimited local and national telephony (recall that in Europe, the "impulse" for local calls is often charged), 80 digital TV channels (with an option to get 200) and a selection of digital radio stations.  All of this delivered via a box that plugs into a user's TV, can also be hooked up to a stereo sytem and has built-in Wi-Fi to talk to a computer system. 

We can only dream as consumers to get a deal like this in our current competitive telecom landscape.  But alas, to make us feel a bit better, Yannick does say that Free's offer is much further ahead of those available from other providers in countries such as the UK, Germany or Spain.  But why settle for the lowest common denominator instead of shooting for the stars?  The CRTC has a key role to play to establish the type of competition that would create the need for having such offerings in Canada.