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October 10th, 2008It’s official, Telus and Bell announce HSPA

Posted by Editor in Uncategorized

At long last, Telus and Bell have come clean on their plans to upgrade to HSPA [definition]. We broke this story back in July of this year.

The upgrade won’t be cheap, but is very much great news for the industry (well less so for Rogers but they knew it was coming) as well as for consumers. The overall trend of consolidating network standards on the way eventually to LTE will and should lead to lower cost and faster time to market for wireless hardware. Device and equipment makers now have less work to duplicate across competing wireless standards. Not that device makers don’t have to deal with with the proliferation auctioned spectrum bands internationally and the engineering challenges of multiple gps/wifi/bluetooth radios in devices… etc.

It would seem that Canada’s two big CDMA/EVDO carriers finally got sick of Rogers getting all the cool devices first, and of stealing all the juicy international roaming revenue to themselves. 80% of the world is on GSM/HSPA which explains why device makers often release GSM phones first and why visitors to Canada are often roaming on Rogers rather than Bell/Telus.

The new network is proposed to ready (just in time) for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

For Canadians, it’s great that devices (assuming you can unlock them) will finally be portable across every major carrier. This factor alone will do a lot reduce switching costs and, hopefully, go some way to keeping the new and current carries honest. At least, that’s the theory.

Link: BCE and Telus announce joint network upgrade

Thanks to GaryB for the tip

  • http://andrewcurrie.ca acurrie

    Soon the big four will have to compete on price alone… A great day for Canada!

  • http://teclaration.com/?p=96 Canada to become great Big HSPA melting Pot, hooray for Compitition | Declaring Tech to the World !

    [...] It’s official, Telus and Bell announce HSPA [...]

  • http://www.cellphones.ca/news/post004246/ Bell, Telus implemts 3G HSPA network, headed for 4G LTE in 2010

    [...] [source] Bell announces strategic 3G wireless network investment, maximizing consumer choice in mobile data and confirming its path forward to 4G LTE wireless [...]

  • http://simontonekham.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/its-official-telusbell-is-upgrading-to-a-state-of-the-art-wireless-technology-with-the-help-of-two-vendors/ It’s official – Telus/Bell is upgrading to a state-of-the-art wireless technology (with the help of two vendors) « The Simon Tonekham Statesman

    [...] is spreading like wildfire! From the message boards to many blogs such as WirelessNorth.ca. The only problem is, how will other providers that run on the big players’ networks will [...]

  • http://www.mediatechnews.com/bell-telus-implemts-3g-hspa-network-headed-for-4g-lte-in-2010/ MediaTechNews.com » Bell, Telus implemts 3G HSPA network, headed for 4G LTE in 2010

    [...] [sour&#99e] Bell announ&#99es strate&#103i&#99 3&#71 &#119ireless net&#119ork invest&#109ent, &#109axi&#109izin&#103 &#99onsu&#109er &#99hoi&#99e in &#109obile data and &#99onfir&#109in&#103 its &#112ath for&#119ard to 4&#71 LT&#69 &#119ireless [...]

  • http://www.landlinefree.com Dan

    Of course, Rogers is now moving to a “You must use our Rogers branded phone” scheme for many of their services, which negates several advantages that GSM had over CDMA. However, I'm not sure if they've actually implemented such a policy… yet, or just talk about it.

    I guess they'll be doing IMEI lookups whenever a phone logs on to their network and provisioning services appropriately. Maybe there will be a market for Rogers-branded IMEIs in the future.

    But certainly, economies of scale++ and another nail in the coffin for Qualcomm.

  • http://torontotechjobs.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/telus-hspa-mobile-device-platform-services-architect/ Telus: HSPA Mobile Device Platform & Services Architect « Toronto Technology Jobs

    [...] an HSPA Mobile Device Platform & Services Architect.  In essence, Telus is rolling out a new technology platform along with Bell, and they’re hiring to fill some roles, including this one, which seems to be [...]

  • http://www.englishclass.com.tw ????

    Insightful read. I have stumbled and twittered this for my friends. Others no doubt will like it like I did.

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