Recently, T-Mobile in the United States released their Sidekick iD to go alongside the Sidekick 3. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the device, a previous version, the Sidekick 2, was carried by Fido as the Hiptop2, but was discontinued shortly after Rogers took over the operation of Fido. It had also gained publicity when Paris Hilton had her Sidekick hacked. The device offers simple e-mail, IM and web browsing capabilities with a full QWERTY keyboard.

The great thing about this device is the price of data: T-Mobile charges between $20-30 per month (depending on if you are a monthly or prepaid customer) and Fido used to charge $20 for unlimited data.

However, about a year ago, Fido/Rogers discontinued the Hiptop2, thus effectively axing the unlimited data portion. There were rumors that the Hiptop3/Sidekick 3 would be coming to Fido, but a lot has been said on HowardForums about how that's not happening now. If this is true, this business move would be extremely short-sighted.

The Sidekick devices are very popular among young people, primarily teens, in the United States. I've seen Sidekicks on  the TV shows "Heroes" and "Entourage", as well as the movie "Accepted". There's no denying that they have become a part of pop culture. This device would allow Rogers, through Fido, to gain even more market share with the youth and potentially keep them when they start earning more money once they are done school.

Take the following example: Johnny enters grade 9 and receives a Hiptop3 with some voice minutes, text messaging and unlimited data. He uses the device for all of high school and college/university. Upon graduation, he lands a respectable job.

After about 8 years of using data services, it's hard for him to go back or justify downgrading his plan when he is now making more money, so he'll either be inclined to stay where he is, or, more likely, will increase his spending. That is where the wireless carriers can make money: Get Johnny for lots of money with more "grown-up" data services like Blackberry data.

And it's becoming clear that teens are willing to spend money on mobile communications. A study found that Japanese teens are now giving up smoking in favour of cell phone usage.

T-Mobile in the United States has already begun following this model to some extent: For monthly post-paid users, unlimited Sidekick data is only $20, but unlimited Blackberry data is $30. There is also an option to allow unlimited Blackberry data while roaming internationally. In comparison, $40 will get you (at best) 4 MB of Blackberry data in Canada.

My point here isn't that data is overpriced in Canada (which I believe it is, but that's another story), but that offering a specialty, but popular item with low data costs would help create the market. And I'm not a Hiptop/Sidekick "fanboy" myself (I played around with it at the store and found it too clunky and awkward for my use, not to mention security issues with the way it handles its services which make it useless for me), but I think it would help promote mainstream data usage, thus promoting innovation and revenues for the carriers.