[KBoards Admin]

So far, Amazon has not announced plans to release Kindle outside of the U.S.

Is this a WhisperNet restriction? I'm wondering if there is an international roll-out planned - or at least an expansion to Canada...?

 

[galinda_1]

You would think it could go at least to Canada, because mobile Internet is available in Canada. Not sure though what else might be involved.

Don't know much about Whispernet... is it a USA-only service?

 

[Sandpiper]

Any newer info about Kindle in Canada?  I know one Canuck (and probably more) who is very interested.

 

[Mike D. aka jmiked]

The Sprint EVDO (aka Whispernet) service is only available in the US (and not everywhere here, by any means). To use another wireless service such as 3G, the Kindle hardware would have to be changed, not to mention the providers would have to buy in on the unlimited service that Amazon gives here in the US.

There are also copyright issues. Publishers frequently only have the rights to sell a work in specific countries. For instance, Scholastic is the exclusive US publisher for the Harry Potter books, the English publisher can't sell the Potter books in the US, not can Scholastic sell in the UK. As you can see, the publishing rights can be complicated and have to be negotiated. There are export restrictions on hardware that might be involved, also. Some pieces of hardware cannot be legally sold/sent outside the US.

So it's not as if Amazon made some arbitrary decision to only sell in the US on order to punish everyone else. I'm sure they would love to be able to sell world-wide.

 

[Leslie]

There was a news item that came out from the Frankfurt Book Fair two weeks ago that they are working on an international roll-out of the Kindle. They had wanted to debut it at the fair but couldn't work out deals with all the European cell carriers in time. Unlike the US, apparently, there are lots of carriers -- it wasn't a simple issue of making one deal with Sprint. Anyway, they are planning on international availability sometime in 2009. I imagine that Canada won't be far behind when that happens.

L

 

[Sandpiper]

Thinking of Canada . . . .  Amazon doesn't ship Kindles to Canada?  But if you had one up there, couldn't you get books / use it via a computer?  Because of billing address, would Amazon know location of book purchaser and therefore would not sell a Kindle book to that Amazon account?  But if a Canuck had a Kindle that was linked to a U.S. account, then . . . .  That should work, huh?

 

[Leslie]

Thinking of Canada . . . . Amazon doesn't ship Kindles to Canada? But if you had one up there, couldn't you get books / use it via a computer? Because of billing address, would Amazon know location of book purchaser and therefore would not sell a Kindle book to that Amazon account? But if a Canuck had a Kindle that was linked to a U.S. account, then . . . . That should work, huh?

You can't buy Kindle content if you don't have a Kindle registered to your account. If you try, it comes up with a message that says, "Hello, X, it appears you don't have a Kindle registered to this account."

Canadian customers usually buy through amazon.com.ca. That division of Amazon doesn't sell Kindles. You can only buy a Kindle from Amazon.com and their policy is that you need to have a US based credit card and US address to do so.

There have been huge, lengthy discussion on the Amazon boards by various international folks who have tried to come up with workarounds for international purchase and use. Because I was maintaining the FAQ, many of them asked me if I had suggestions for what they could do. My position was to refer them back to the Amazon policy. If they chose to buy a Kindle from eBay, I just reminded them of caveat emptor: buyer beware. They might very well have an expensive electronic device for which they would be unable to purchase content from Amazon (of course, they could always get free books and books from other sites that do not have international restrictions).

Like I said in my other message, I think that Amazon is working hard to develop agreements so that the Kindle can be sold internationally. I suspect, but have no hard evidence of this, that international use is a higher priority than version 2 right now.

L