Wirelessnorth.ca

An announcement was expected as early as this week [National Post
BCE and Telus in 3G network pact], but apparently the spell checking and t crossing on the PR release is taking a little longer. The cat is pretty much out of the bag however, they may as well tell us the full news.

What might an HSPA announcement mean? For one thing they will be among the first to roll out a “naked” HSPA network. Most other carriers globally moving to HSPA are upgrading or overlaying on top of existing 2G GSM/EDGE etc. services. Bell and Telus (and probably other new entrants as well) will be rolling out without the benefit of an established/reliable (if slower) network to fall back on when out of HSPA range.

It also means that Rogers will still retain all the roaming revenue from foreign (2G) GSM phones roaming in Canada. When it comes to 3G services, Rogers may have the advantage in reliability and coverage for a while until Bell/Telus new networks can can catch up in density and maturity. Even the new entrants may do better as they’ll have the advantage now of falling back to the Rogers network as well as the Bell network for roaming and reliability. (A little extra competition on the wholesale side for HSPA roaming probably can’t hurt their cause either).

What else will be the consequences of managing a frankenstein CDMA+HSPA network? What will happen to all those 3 year EVDO contracts? We shall see, and we await word from Bell and Telus. Meanwhile if you have theories, drop us a comment.

WirelessNorth.ca originally broke the story on Bell /Telus going GSM-HSPA back in July.