Rogers' iPhone Exclusivity in Canada to End Next Month?

[jzuena]

hopefully this is true, now if only ATT can end there exclusivity. i think apple needs to build a CDMA version for verizon.

Actually, it is Verizon that needs to offer up a boatload of cash to Apple if they want to carry the iPhone. Apple is selling their phone at a rate they are very happy with just to GSM customers. If Verizon wants in on the party, they need to make it worth Apple's while.

All of these, or Apple could just sell the iPhone unlocked.

Which may eventually happen and still leave Verizon customers complaining that the phone isn't compatible with their CDMA network.

 

[profets]

Thank you so much!!

I am switching ASAP then.

My game plan will likely be as follows. One month before new iPhone comes out, sell iPhone 3G S, as it will still be the "current" iPhone hence raking in a lot of money. Last time I sold I got $400 for an 8GB iPhone 3G, so I reckon I'll get about $400 for this one as well.

Once I get money, end Rogers contract outright. I'll probably actually break even.

When Apple announces new iPhone fourth generation, run to a Bell store (or hopefully camp out, I love doing that) and buy the iPhone fourth generation with amazing amazingness. Sign up for a three year contract with Bell and their awesome service, and booyah.

I am so stoked. I have to drive two and a half hours away from where I live to even get a BAR of 3G service. Where I live I have to use EDGE every second of the day, it's painful. The prospect that I could not only have 3G everywhere Bell offers service (and where I live – Eastern Canada – it is damn well blanketed in service, you never get less than five bars on Bell where I live) I'll get a 21MBps 3G connection, up from 7.2MBps when I had to drive two and a half hours out of town.

AND I get Telus' network too.

I love you Canada. I can't wait for this summer now. I hope the new iPhone gets a cosmetic makeover.

Wow, I really am an Apple geek. I've had every iPhone generation so far, and I wasn't planning on it, but now I guess I'm getting the 4th gen too.

np.. by that time you should have great idea of bell's hspa coverage.. i guess with your current iphone you can see 302880 show up under carrier setting then?

 

[AAPLaday]

Seems like in most countries this is happening. Its good news for consumers

 

[Doju]

np.. by that time you should have great idea of bell's hspa coverage.. i guess with your current iphone you can see 302880 show up under carrier setting then?

Alas no.

How can I get it to? I live in south-east Nova Scotia.

 

[SAN66]

Alas no.

How can I get it to? I live in south-east Nova Scotia.

A few things when checking "302880".

- Be sure you have 3G selected and not Edge, it won't find 302880 on edge.
- Turn off your Wifi to know you're not on Edge.

 

[profets]

Alas no.

How can I get it to? I live in south-east Nova Scotia.

i guess the best thing is to wait and see when bell launches the network. once bell puts up some hspa coverage maps you'll have a good idea if where you live is covered or not

 

[DeepIn2U]

I've heard that Bell and Telus are somehow related (owned by parent company or something like that). Can anyone verify?

In partnership with the national network.
Bell is owned by a teachers fund of some kind.
Telus is its own company.

1999 Founded: 1999 with the merger of
Telus (Alberta) and BC Tel.
In the 1999/2000 period Telus acquired through merger the high performing Clearnet Communications, a cellular company that was based in Scarborough (Toronto) Ontario, which gave it foothold in the highly competitive central Canadian market (Ontario, Quebec). Telus has signed an agreement with Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei to create an overlay HSPA network that will run along side their existing CDMA network.

Bell Canada, commonly shortened to "Bell", is a major Canadian telecommunications company. Including its subsidiaries such as Bell Aliant, Northwestel, Télébec, and NorthernTel, it is the incumbent local exchange carrier for telephone services in most of Canada east of Manitoba and in the northern territories, and a leading competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) in the western provinces. Bell Canada is the main remaining asset of BCE Inc. (TSX: BCE, NYSE: BCE), also known as Bell Canada Enterprises, a former conglomerate operating in a variety of businesses. On June 30, 2007, BCE accepted a bid of $42.75 per share in cash, for a total valuation of $51.7 billion, from the group led by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, and including Providence Equity Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners, Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, and Toronto-Dominion Bank. The proposed deal would have been the largest acquisition in Canadian history and the largest leveraged buyout ever. The deal was approved by BCE shareholders,Quebec Superior Court (whose ruling was overturned by the Quebec Court of Appeal, but was later upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada), and the CRTC, subject to certain conditions for its corporate governance structure to ensure that Bell remained under Canadian control. The BCE subsidiary Bell Canada has moved into new industries via new divisions such as Bell Internet, an Internet service provider; Bell Mobility, a cellular wireless service now operating in most Canadian provinces; Bell TV, one of Canada's two national satellite television providers; Bell Home Monitoring, a new division announced in February 2007; and Bell Distribution. BCE also owns 15% of CTVglobemedia, one of Canada's largest privately held media companies and owner of the CTV Television Network, the A television system, The Globe and Mail, and the CHUM Radio Network, as well as other (primarily television) media assets.

In mid 2009, BCE extended its ownership of Virgin Mobile Canada from 50% to 100%. BCE also bought The Source by Circuit City (which was renamed after the sale to The Source) and all assets of InterTAN from bankrupt Circuit City.

Source: Wikipedia.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Yes it is 3G GSM. Google is your friend. There are several different generations of GSM. Some countries decided to skip 2G (Edge) and go directly to HSPA or UTMS which are both 3G GSM standards. The iPhone supports both HSPA/HSDPA and UTMS networks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_Packet_Access

http://www.apple.com/ca/iphone/specs.html


This page shows what Telus and Bell are offering soon:
http://www.gsmworld.com/ROAMING/GSMINFO/cou_ca.shtml

Note that it is from the GSM standards group and that they list Bell and Telus as offering GSM soon?

Be VERY careful mixing the two.
GSM is based on a TDMA type of carrier signal
UMTS/3G/3.5G/HSPA is based on CDMA hence the official name WCDMA.

That said Telus/Bell's HSPA will NOT I repeat NOT be compatible with GSM/GPRS/EDGE! There is no hardware or software/firmware on their network to support that old tdma based standard. So regardless of your google searches I can tell you from 12yrs of using all networks (using Tuxedo, using Nortel Switches, accessing Ericsson/nokia-siemens base-stations, etc) that it will NOT be GSM based. This means if you grab your old Ericsson T39m, SE T68i, K700, Motorola Razr (not V9), V600, Nokia 6350, Or even "European Nokia N85/E71-1" that does not support support NAM 3G based bands you will NOT even get a network connection.

So you're right but partially correct for the topic at hand.

i agree.. and also hope that a company like Wind Mobile can bring some change as well

Wind just did their sales staff hiring in Mississauga, Ontario over the weekend; a friend of mine applied.

I think their going with the 1700/2100Mhz AWS bands that T-MobileUSA is using (why do we seriously need such stupid bands; licensing licensing $$, isn't the technology able to support all the numbers of the USA/Canadian population)??

 

[Nermal]

I've seen the same questions asked a few times so I'll try to help out a bit. Here in NZ we've just gone through the same sort of transition that Bell and Telus are going through now; namely a move from CDMA to WCDMA (with HSPA).

As mentioned, there's no GSM, GPRS or EDGE. All devices run in "3G mode" all the time with no fallback. The WCDMA network in NZ has the same footprint as CDMA, so there's no issue there (of course, I can't say whether Canada will be as fortunate). Data speeds are always good, and calls go over WCDMA. You cannot use an old GSM phone.

Hopefully that answers a few common questions

 

[DeepIn2U]

I'm with Rogers now and I'm paying for the following which is crazy. I use it for business so I can write it off but these rates compared to what others pay in Europe are disgusting.

Bill Averages $180 per month or over $200 if I go over the 350min limit.

350min of anytime min
Unlimited Incoming Minutes
MY 5 "Unlimited Calls to Any 5 friends of yours"
Unlimited evenings after 6pm
Unlimited Weekends
6GB of DATA per month
2,500 min of call forwarding
call display
visual voicemail
Long Distance of 100minutes for U.S. and Canada calling.

Start using those 2500 Call Forwarding minutes to forward incoming calls to a landline phone.

Like their parent company Bell, both Virgin and Solo will piggyback on Telus's network without any extra fees to the customer when you travel to an area where Bell doesn't have its own infrastructure.

To get all the other players on the table, there's also Telus. It has its own wholly-owned subsidiary discount brand, called Koodoo Mobile. Both Telus and Koodoo will piggyback on Bell's network without any extra fees to the customer when you travel to an area where Telus doesn't have its own infrastructure.

Wrong. As I've stated earlier Telus own's their network in the west, bellus own's there's here in the eastern part of Canada. They've agreed to share their networks. Solo & Koodo are subsidiary's of the business to emulate a value brand against Fido. No difference in the networks. Piggyback is just a term of formality as bell users do the same for telus networks out west, telus users for bell networks out east. Koodo & Solo and now Virgin will follow the same suit.

I wish I can find the original press release but Google is not liking generic searches or specific searches; and I cannot find it on Telus Mobilities press site.

 

[Dustman]

Isnt Bell/Aliant CDMA? There is no CDMA iPhone.

 

[Doju]

Isnt Bell/Aliant CDMA? There is no CDMA iPhone.

Please, PLEASE read the article people. Bell is changing to GSM.

San and profets, I managed to see it with your help! Though, I can't access it. I have No Service, even though I can "see" it. I guess it just hasn't been activated here yet, but it's still here. This means I have service here, right?

 

[Takuta-Nui]

Hope hope hope so. Not like I will get an iPhone within the next four or five years, but it's good nonetheless to have that competition and the options.

 

[Nermal]

Please, PLEASE read the article people. Bell is changing to GSM.

Bell is changing to WCDMA with HSPA, not GSM. Please read the article

 

[butterfly0fdoom]

Well... to be fair, WCDMA/UTMS/HSPA is what the GSMA chose to adopt for 3G... It's along the GSM upgrade path. XD

 

[Nermal]

You can't use a standard GSM phone with it though. We've made the same move (CDMA to WCDMA) here in NZ.

 

[butterfly0fdoom]

You can't use a standard GSM phone with it though. We've made the same move (CDMA to WCDMA) here in NZ.

That's a very valid point. Although with WCDMA being standard on the vast majority of GSM phones by now, it shouldn't be a large issue.

 

[aristotle]

Be VERY careful mixing the two.
GSM is based on a TDMA type of carrier signal
UMTS/3G/3.5G/HSPA is based on CDMA hence the official name WCDMA.

That said Telus/Bell's HSPA will NOT I repeat NOT be compatible with GSM/GPRS/EDGE! There is no hardware or software/firmware on their network to support that old tdma based standard. So regardless of your google searches I can tell you from 12yrs of using all networks (using Tuxedo, using Nortel Switches, accessing Ericsson/nokia-siemens base-stations, etc) that it will NOT be GSM based. This means if you grab your old Ericsson T39m, SE T68i, K700, Motorola Razr (not V9), V600, Nokia 6350, Or even "European Nokia N85/E71-1" that does not support support NAM 3G based bands you will NOT even get a network connection.

So you're right but partially correct for the topic at hand.

Wind just did their sales staff hiring in Mississauga, Ontario over the weekend; a friend of mine applied.

I think their going with the 1700/2100Mhz AWS bands that T-MobileUSA is using (why do we seriously need such stupid bands; licensing licensing $$, isn't the technology able to support all the numbers of the USA/Canadian population)??

Did you bother reading the link? WCDMA is not an upgrade from CDMA. 3G GSM uses WCDMA as an air interface however, it shares the core network as 2G GSM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W-CDMA_(UMTS)

This allows it to be deployed beside Edge/GPRS. Telus may indeed not bother implementing GPRS and 2G as fall back modes but it is still none the less a 3G GSM standard.

If you followed the GSMWorld link, a site maintained by the GSM licensing group, you would see that Telus and Bell are both listed there because they are about to deploy HSPA/HSDPA networks. Those networks are compatible with devices like the iPhone which does support HSPA and UTMS in addition to 2G (Edge) and GPRS.

 

[Darkroom]

prices competition is healthy

prices competition between rogers, bell and telus in canada? yeah, that's doesn't exist. if Wind, Videotron, and the new group of carriers ready to launch start offering real competition, then this could get interesting. but for now, bell and telus selling the iPhone for the same price as rogers isn't very exciting.

 

[goosnarrggh]

Wrong.

Wrong.

As I've stated earlier Telus own's their network in the west, bellus own's there's here in the eastern part of Canada. They've agreed to share their networks. Solo & Koodo are subsidiary's of the business to emulate a value brand against Fido. No difference in the networks. Piggyback is just a term of formality as bell users do the same for telus networks out west, telus users for bell networks out east. Koodo & Solo and now Virgin will follow the same suit.

I challenge you to point out a single sentence in what I wrote - something that you have labelled with a blanket "Wrong" - and demonstrate that it is actually factually untrue. Virgin Mobile is a 100% owned subsidiary of Bell Canada. Which is to say, Bell Canada owns 100% of the voting shares in the corporation which is Virgin Mobile.

Everything else I wrote is also totally consistent with what you wrote, which is another correct way of describing the same situation.

I never claimed that Virgin Mobile, Koodoo, or Solo ever had any form of distinct network infrastructure, so that can't be the thing you were trying to refute.

Maybe you don't like my choice of the word "piggyback". If that's the case, I am sorry for my choice of wording, but I still contend that is it not factually incorrect - Bell and Telus are two distinct corporations which own their own distinct sets of infrastructure, and they have agreements in place to allow customers of one company to use the infrastructure belonging to the other company when the customer is in an area where the one company doesn't have infrastructure but the other does.

 

[SAN66]

San and profets, I managed to see it with your help! Though, I can't access it. I have No Service, even though I can "see" it. I guess it just hasn't been activated here yet, but it's still here. This means I have service here, right?

You won't be able to access it without a proper SIM card, none of us can. I even tried just accessing it in field test mode to see signal strengths, but no dice, it rejects the connection and says no service.

I really wanted to check signal strength too, I really hope its better than the horrible signal I get with Rogers in my home 1/2-1 bar.

 

[rhpenguin]

Virgin Mobile is a 100% owned subsidiary of Bell Canada. Which is to say, Bell Canada owns 100% of the voting shares in the corporation which is Virgin Mobile.

Bell owns Virgin Mobile CANADA aka VMC. They have no controlling interests in VM USA or UK as far a I know.

 

[goosnarrggh]

Bell owns Virgin Mobile CANADA aka VMC. They have no controlling interests in VM USA or UK as far a I know.

Mea culpa. You're right. I was wary of sounding too repetitive by typing too many words, and as a result I wasn't specific enough.