After setting up plans over the summer, Telus has announced that their dual-cell HSPA+ network will be launching in March and offering speeds up to 42 Mbps. They’re pulling a T-Mobile by calling HSPA+ 4G, and if they reserved it solely for the network at 42 Mbps, I could have let it slide, but Telus is also labeling their old 21 Mbps network as 4G. It’s pretty standard for USB internet sticks to be the first to tap into these new network speeds, and this is no exception; a Sierra Wireless AirCard will be the first thing on Telus to make use of the upgrade. We can expect Bell to offer something identical, since they basically have the same network as Telus.
Wind Mobile and Rogers are still testing out LTE, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see them hit this level of HSPA+ in the interim. The rest of the world is no stranger to the tech, either – Telefonica started rolling this out last March, followed by Portugal and Poland. T-Mobile down in the U.S. plans to have their own up by the summer, and as soon as they have supporting AWS handsets, Wind Mobile is in a good position to grab the leftovers.
Dual-cell HSPA+ will be a decent stepping stone to LTE in the long run, but again, device support is what will make the whole process even remotely worthwhile. It takes time for manufacturers to make these phones, assuming they even see a big enough market to be worth their effort. I like that “3G” technology is getting this much mileage before the switch over to LTE, but now that Wind Mobile and Telus are both swinging around the “4G” terminology, it’s only a matter of time before everything degenerates into a marketing pissing match between carriers like it did in the U.S.
Hit up the Telus mini-site for more information about their HSPA+ 42 Mbps plans.
[via Telus]