Bell, Telus getting ready to pull GSM trigger?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jul 23rd 2008 8:01AM
posted Jul 23rd 2008 8:01AM
The rumors are certainly nothing new, but rumblings over official announcements from both Bell and Telus regarding their newfound love for all things GSM have reached a rolling boil in the past few days. The latest little tidbit comes from UBS, whose fortune tellers say that both Canadian carriers should be outing some transition plans in the near future in the hope of better positioning themselves to compete with rival Rogers, get cooler handsets on board, and realize some synergy with the overwhelming majority of carriers around the world. Bell and Telus are both staying completely tightlipped for the moment, but one remaining question is whether they'll be going with HSPA or moving straight to LTE -- a distinct possibility, considering that the 4G tech should be ramping up right around the time that the carriers could realistically put the gears in motion. You ready to cry uncle yet over there, UMB?[Thanks, Mario and Jay]
I'm kinda surprised you did mention iphone or iphone 4G on this... .
didn't*
Let's hope it's not going to work the same way as it currently does in the US, with operators announcing they're going to go GSM with LTE (meaning "We'll be running the crummy, proprietary, closed CDMA2000 standard exclusively for the next few years anyway, so expect yourself to be locked into a standard you'll have to throw the phone away for if you subscribe today."
On that note, why hasn't Sprint switched yet? They're currently trying to figure out what to do with their massive iDEN network, whose back-end is GSM with a few add-ons. Switching to the real thing should be child's play for them and should minimize their switching costs. A large number of their iDEN phones are dual-mode GSM anyway. But no, they're the only major operator considering switching their entire network to WiMAX. And they wonder why they're having problems?
why would u have to throw away ur phones. they will not be shutting down cdma even after lte launches. it will take a good 3-5 years before u see cdma get shut down
"carriers aroudn the world" ummm i guess that's "around"
;)
I still find it hard to believe this would go through anytime soon. Not only is Bell and Telus making a killing on their handsets with exclusive deals with manufacturers like Samsung etc. but it would cost millions and put many of those thousands of EVDO towers that Telus has out in alberta. Plus with their cheap 30 dollar data BlackBerry is selling like crazy in their CDMA versions.
Well, who says CDMA and GSM can't coexist? China Unicom has been doing it for ages.
I think it would be great if they had support for both CDMA and GSM, I doubt that they will totally abandon CDMA.
Scazza!
The reason this will go through is roaming charges. Both Bell and Telus are losing out on all the travellers coming into Canada with a GSM phone.
If Telus and Bell ultimately end up going to GSM and "abandon" CDMA, the only pro for me personally would be a wider selection of handsets, other than that until recently GSM actually started to promote their 3G services, I've enjoyed being a CDMA user for 10+ years now.
Although GSM is more widely used around the world, I actually prefer CDMA. I hate when people come up to me and say "OMG you're CDMA/Bell/Telus? That sucks!" Why is that? Because I can't use my phone when I leave the country? Majority of people who tell me that probably don't even leave the country anyway, so GSM doesn't really have an advantage over CDMA.
Actually, why can't you? The only continents not covered by CDMA are Europe and Africa (well, and now Australia).
Well, let's see; fewer extremist republicans, 3 GSM carriers, maybe T mobikle, I want to move to canada.
Telus has confirmed it intends to go straight to LTE.
"Robert McFarlane, executive vice-president and chief financial officer, said Telus will use the additional capacity [from the Spectrum Auction] to eventually deliver fourth-generation (4G) services. They will be built using the industry's LTE standard, he said."
http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080808.wtelus0808/BNStory/Business/home