March 26th, 2008Secret: Your hacked iPhone won’t work on Canada’s new spectrum?
Looking forward to a better data plan on that prized grey-market iPhone of yours? Don’t count on the spectrum auction to come to your aid. At least not directly. One of the items not talked about too much with the AWS spectrum is that it requires new wireless chipsets to work. Any phone that you do get from one of the new carriers, depending on the model, will be likely to work and roam on other GSM bands (lets assume the new entrants go GSM/HSDPA). However, we have word that the compatibility won’t necessarily work the other way. If you do try to sign your existing GSM phone up with one of the new entrants, you’ll end up roaming on the Rogers network anyway.
Thank goodness for mandated “in-teritory roaming” rules in the spectrum auction? It depends how the commercial roaming agreements work out between incumbents and entrants. The regulators set up new rules for tower sharing and to help out new entrants during the rollout phase – but not so much so to discourage entrants from building their own inftrastructure at all. If you’re not ready to buy a new phone, you may actually end up better off sticking with your current carrier.
In any case, it all sounds like good news for Rogers on yet more roaming revenues from their new competitors.
Will the next, much rumoured, 3G iPhone, or next-gen blackberries for that matter work in the AWS bands? We shall see.
Much is up to distant firms like Infinion and just a few others who actually make the little silicon radios that toil away quietly under the covers of all your favourite handset brands.
Fortunately, the AWS spectrum has been haltingly on its way to rollout in the US for some time already, so everybody should be seeing growing availability and selection of AWS-friendly equipment soon.
