Sorry, CDMA: Telus, Bell finally fess up to HSPA, LTE aspirations
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Oct 10th 2008 3:48PM
posted Oct 10th 2008 3:48PM
Capping months of speculation, Canadian CDMA carriers Bell and Telus have both announced that they'll be moving to HSPA to power portions their 3G networks as a stop-gap on their way to an eventual LTE rollout. While both networks will be investing heavily to build out the necessary infrastructure, they'll be sharing the fruits of their collective labor to extend roaming agreements that are already in place between the two -- a logical move, considering they'll be going up against the Rogers juggernaut which has the distinct advantage of already being on the GSM technology roadmap. The carriers are looking at 2010 to flip the switch on HSPA, but don't worry, owners of EV-DO handsets: the CDMA goods will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future while HSPA is getting layered on top. Odds are, anyone using a CDMA handset will be due for new hardware long before the lights finally go out.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
TELUS may be going GSM, but they're not using GPRS handsets.
They're going straight to HSOPA as they released news about a venture with Bell Mobility in Canada and next generation mobile networks in Frankfurt, Germany back in July.
Their roadmap opens up in 2010 which is when the HSOPA is slated to be released, and how ironic that the tests for 100Mbps transfer speeds was done in Germany as well around that time.
Does this mean that when all of the carriers (in the world) get 4G networks up and running, they will all be compatible with one another?
dean no all north american carriers yes but not all world carriers because the handsets each have their own bands. if they make one with all bands then yes
But atleast by that time, Rogers will have to upgrade again from HSDPA because it's theoretical peak is around 14Mbps.
When everything mellows out with technologies and speeds, it will be down to the company's individual customer service and support once again as each company will no longer have an individualistic network feature/quality that changes circumstances with companies who need GSM, and others whom stay within Canada/US for business.
For the top three giants, TELUS is in the lead, with Rogers and Bell running in the silver and bronze.
If you were to take every company into account, if Fido was still without Rogers, they would still be the leader in customer service and support, as their history individually has gained them many J.D. Power & Associates awards in customer service.
Carriers regardless, looking at the technology now, 3G covers 60% of the largest Canadian cities while CDMA (3G) covers 99.8% of the Canadian population.
Lower average speed, but the best coverage = CDMA
Only slightly higher speeds (by amounts of kbps in Canada), and the worst coverage for 3G technology = GSM
Up to you.`
I don't believe they'll be inter-compatible as far as not having to unlock handsets/buy unlocked handsets directly from the manufacturers and being able to bring a Verizon device to work on TELUS.
But it's hard to say, now that TELUS is going with HSOPA.
These devices will have BOTH CDMA and GSM radios, so... it might be just carrier dependant, just like how it always is with CDMA.
Also, to that last comment within Chris' news, you'll probably see around a quarter of the people who are about ready to turn over onto the new HSPA+ network because alot of consumers have been going with newer phones as of recent of this year.
BlackBerry Curve being the best sellers in the local dominion of Toronto.
1997/1998 - ClearNet turns into TELUS Communications Corp and creates TELUS Mobility Corp.
2001 - Consumers upgrade into new EVDO network devices
2004 - Consumers upgrade/OTASP into new EVDOrA network devices
2007/2008 - Consumers renew into newer handsets with greater capabilities such as e-mail, XM satellite radio, web
And now that's through thinking every 3 years (the norm here in Canada) you're able to upgrade with a VERY generous offer from TELUS.
Also, to that last comment within Chris' news, you'll probably see around a quarter of the people who are about ready to turn over onto the new HSPA+ network because alot of consumers have been going with newer phones as of recent of this year.
BlackBerry Curve being the best sellers in the local dominion of Toronto.
1997/1998 - ClearNet turns into TELUS Communications Corp and creates TELUS Mobility Corp.
2001 - Consumers upgrade into new EVDO network devices
2004 - Consumers upgrade/OTASP into new EVDOrA network devices
2007/2008 - Consumers renew into newer handsets with greater capabilities such as e-mail, XM satellite radio, web
And now that's through thinking every 3 years (the norm here in Canada) you're able to upgrade with a VERY generous offer from TELUS.
Why the pit stop at UMTS? They should just go straight to LTE. oh well Telus and Bell's stock both tanked today, Rogers too.
Yea, alot of analysts up here in Canada is asking "why not wait another year and then roll out LTE instead of trying to match Rogers, and before moving to LTE?"
I think that would've been better as TELUS / CDMA would be the first again to bring the latest in the market.
(CDMA being the first one in the pool of 3G technologies)
Folks,
The headline, preamble, and discussion are all incorrect.
This will not layer GSM on top. They are going straight to LTE.
HSPA != GSM
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=873515
3GSM is an integral part of the GSM roadmap, but I've updated for clarification.
Sweet thanks!
Yah, things made more sense when GSM (organization) and GSM (path) and GSM (radio) and GSM (infrastructure) and GSM (codec) all meant the same thing. Now it's just confusing as hell. To most consumers in NA tho, I think it just means "the phones with the SIM cards", or most likely to "work around the world".
GSM voice codec all the way! I use it every day!
to answer u. analyst are stupid. LTE will be rolled out but the handset support wont be there for a year or 2. look at rev the last year is when rev a handsets became the norm. and many handsets are still rev 0. shoot blackberry has yet to make a rev a device the storm will be the first. so waiting a year they could have but with this they can be more aggressive doing this now. i agree with the decision personally. the only other way they could have been more copetitive is allowing foreign phones onto their network. and they probably look at that as too much of a headache.
Just a heads up, i was part of the conference call and it was stated that the rollout will begin in the summer of 2009 in major markets and then be fully available to all segments of the market as of 2010 and then an eventual fluid transition to LTE in early 2011.
Makes sense.
They'll do some BS press release that they're the first production with LTE by 2010 Olympics or something. But really it will just be demonstrative until the specs are ratified, hardware tested, rolled out.
Sure would be a fun time to be at TELUS - Moto and Nokia and Ericsson all wining and dining you for the right to sell base station equipment. Smart move on Telus/Bell's part too - now any soft/hardware for CDMA will be heavily discounted - and if not, your average Telus user simply won't see any upgrades in 3 years or more.
They have already announced that network equipment for UMTS will be provided by Nokia Siemens and Huawei
Actually, if you take a look at it, devices in the beginning of the year have been made with a radio tuned to the EVDOrA spec.
LG KEYBO, LG VENUS, LG SHINE, Samsung A523, Motorola RAZR2, HTC Touch Diamond, BlackBerry Pearl(ver2), BlackBerry Curve, HTC Touch Dual, Motorola Q9c, Samsung Instinct, LG Dare
Also the speculation for the network being foreseen as operational by the 2010 Olympics is very possible, being that the WEST is the court where TELUS plays their A-Game.
And for Ericsson to come back into the scene, that would be great, seeing that it would bring back quality into the devices (but that's just my personal hope that Sony Ericsson becomes supported by TELUS)
Now what frequency bands will they be using? Hopefully 850MHz; that stupid 1700/2100 thing called AWS should never have been done in the first place. Seriously, can North America please be compatible with at least one other continent? Even just 1700/1700 would be better- at least 2 Asian providers (DoCoMo and EMobile) use that.
Well according to the article: "Telus Mobility added that it planned to use its existing 850 MHz and 1.9 GHz spectrum holdings for its HSPA deployment." and "Telus Mobility picked up 59 spectrum licenses in the 1.7/2.1 GHz band for $880 million, while Bell Canada was the high bidder for 54 licenses totaling $740 million." so based on this information, depending on how they deploy their HSPA/LTE over these spectrums, we could end up being able to use pretty much any handset available.