Telus and Bell looking enter Canadian GSM market?

We’ve heard it all before. It’s clear that CDMA is nearing the end of the road in this GSM-dominated world, and both Telus and Bell Canada are reportedly giving serious thought to switching over their networks to the GSM standard. As CDMA providers, Canada’s Telus and Bell wireless networks lack global GSM compatibility and popular GSM handsets.

While the rest of the world gets to play with the hottest new handsets as soon as they launch, CDMA customers regularly wait months for handset manufacturers to push out CDMA variants of their more popular GSM mobile phones. Sure, there are CDMA-only handsets out there, but, for the most part, they can’t compete with our favorite GSM hardware.

Following on the Canadian AWS auction’s close, rumors are swirling around the possibility that Telus and Bell could be looking towards 3G (HSPA) or 4G (LTE) GSM technology in the near future. Crossing over to GSM would allow the Canadian carriers to compete with Rogers, allow them to cash in on roaming revenue, and give them the option to offer GSM handsets to their subscriber base.

It remains to be seen whether the Canadian wireless companies will choose to adopt 3G or 4G technologies. But, it stands to reason that 4G LTE would be the network-standard of choice, considering that the move would give Telus and Bell a competitive edge against Rogers while also offering their customers the latest data networks.

“If Telus (and BCE) comes through with this decision, one could conclude that they had little choice if they want to secure their future competitive position,” UBS said.

The Canadian wireless market is in dire need of GSM competition. Rogers customers are routinely charged more than their US GSM counterparts for, and that practice isn’t going to change until Rogers is forced to seriously reconsider their pricing strategy. Telus and Bell would do well to switch over to GSM.

[Via: InformationWeek]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

zak

Thanks for the tip! I was going out of my mind trying to figure out what the problem was. Thanks again!
Zak

I dont understand how spammers can do this arg it really annoys me
His link takes you to travel insurance
Zak

Anyways will awesome news i would love some more choice!

As it stands, rogers can screw me around however they want and ill never leave because their the only GSM provider
Zak

And what effing tip?
Such a retard
IDENTITY THEFT!!!
Will Park

I really want to see Rogers get knocked down a couple notches and get realistic with their pricing strategies.

What identity theft are you referring to?
Zak

That “Zak” dude at the top isn’t me.

I understand there can be other Zak’s in the world but I just think this guy’s a tad homo. His comment is totally unrelated to this post. He’s just trying to get clicks to his stupid website!

Anyways Will, I agree. It’s just a matter of time until the market evens out.
Zak

@ Will

1 last thing,
How long do you think it would take Telus or Bell to start offering GSM service?
Will Park

let me put it this way. Don’t hold off on any short-term wireless purchases based on Telus or Bell going GSM. If they don’t switch, they’re dead in the water, so it’s safe to assume they will. But, the time it takes from announcement to actual infrastructure rollout will be measured in years. I wouldn’t expect GSM (hopefully LTE) on Bell or Telus for at least another two years (2010, 2011).
Rob

Look for Telus to implement some GSM love before the Olympics. Canada West is their territory, like Canada East is Bell’s. A little GSM footprint around vancouver island and everywhere leading to the venues in Whisler. All roaming revenue will go to Rogers if they don’t do it.

How many tens of thousands of people will be in Vancouver using their cell phones before, during and after the Olympics?
Zak

Very good point!
2010 definitely sounds reasonable
Phil

Well, it’s official. Bell & Telus bowed out and announced yesterday(October 10,2008) that the two companies are joining force to offer HSPA(High Speed Packet Access), a version of GSM. Initially they are going to “overlay” their CDMA system with HPSA. I would suspect there will be lots of bugs in the initial phase of the implementation, which is targeted in early 2010, just before the 2010 Olympics.

Since Bell & Telus have no expertise in the GSM/HSPA arena, I’ll bet they are paying big bucks to pull engineers and designers from other GSM carriers.

The “visionaries” at Bell & Telus had to do this after the North American credit crunch. I’ll bet it’ll cost them a few bucks less last spring. Too bad. So sad.

I think Ted Rogers is laughing out loud …..
Case

Hmm, im hoping that GSM will be available soon enough with Bell, i just bought a blackberry that is GSM only compatible, and just now found out that bell is CDMA only. so now im in a bit of tug -o -war…i have no clue whether to buy the handset anyway and wait till bell gets in the GSM game, or to just forget it…

honestly i didnt know what all this GSM and CDMA buisiness was till 1hr ago…and the guy at the store i went to never really explained to me that i needed a compatible network-handset relationship for me to activate the phone,and so now i have bought and payed for an item that may not be of use to me for another 2 yrs? thats a lil upsetting…