[Hiatus]

I guess some of you are aware of it, BELL AND TELUS ARE OFFICIALLY GOING GSM in a few month they told us during our training that they would hope to finish to build their tower and install their stuff by mid or the end of November just before Vancouver 2010 starts.

SO THAT MEANS:

- SIM CARD
- HSPA which would provide you around a 7.2 mb/s download
- CDMA don't worry, they will probably offer you a credit to migrate to their HSPA or you can stay with the cdma network until the HSPA run more efficiently
- You will see NOKIA & SONY ERICSSON at BEll & TELUS finalllyy

another good news for you!

AS OF AUGUST 5th new plans kicking in if you're looking to renew or sign contract wait until August 5ht especially for the back to school promotions. & BEST BUY MOBILE are launching with crazy deals apparently my managers said we might even have deals such as get a 0$ with 3 yrs contract and a 200$ gift card =]

[silver-typhoon]

Here's the bad news you forgot to mention.... Telus and Bell are most likely not using the bands you see in other GSM phones... aka though you have a SIM card, it's pretty much stuck to your unflattering Telus/Bell provided phone unless otherwise specified. I believe Koodo (a slave of Telus) offers their cell phones with a SIM card to access its systems?

Regardless, lol IT'S ABOUT TIME! Pity I already moved to Fido

BTW, Nokia and Sony Ericsson used to be on Telus wayyyy back when.... I had a Sony Ericsson phone with Telus back in 2002...



Somewhat unrelated topic, but there's also that new company hitting the scene soon. GlobeAlive or something or other, who are going to be on GSM bands as well... More info on Howards Clickity but so exciting... lol potential oligopoly toppling in progress?

[ltnd.]

^ I think Koodo is also CDMA based..like it's parent, Telus...UNLESS they're going to change too once Telus switches to GSM

[vietlord]

If Koodo goes GSM, I would switch to them right away.
Their add-ons are uber cheap.

Unlimited texting for $5 @_@

[andyroxs]

i dont get it. arent there GSM carriers in canada? whenever i go back to canada with one of my taiwanese phones, i always just buy a prepaid from fido and it works perfectly.

[ltnd.]

Yes we do have GSM carriers in Canada -- Rogers and Fido (which was acquired by Rogers not too long ago). The other competitors are Bell, Telus, Solo, Koodo, and other smaller companies. But they're are CDMA. So Rogers/Fido is the only (I think?) GSM carrier currently.

@ vietlord: yeah if Koodo did go GSM..I would go to them in a heart beat o_o .. but I wonder if their plans would jump a little because of it? I don't know lol

[andyroxs]

Yes we do have GSM carriers in Canada -- Rogers and Fido (which was acquired by Rogers not too long ago). The other competitors are Bell, Telus, Solo, Koodo, and other smaller companies. But they're are CDMA. So Rogers/Fido is the only (I think?) GSM carrier currently.

@ vietlord: yeah if Koodo did go GSM..I would go to them in a heart beat o_o .. but I wonder if their plans would jump a little because of it? I don't know lol

seeing as im going back to canada for uni, and i'll probably use a phone from taiwan (gsm), is there any major disadvantage to using rogers/fido? as in price, reception, etc? if possible, id prefer not having to buy a new phone.

[silver-typhoon]

Reception for Rogers and Fido is dependent on where you're located. Go check out their network coverage maps... generally, if you're in a major city (and not in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the territories, or eastern maritime provinces), you're good to go. Fido is owned by Rogers. Fido has per second billing as opposed to Rogers' per minute billing (where you go 2s over and it counts as a minute).

I thought Koodo had a SIM card in their phones, but it was "glued in" or something. This is according my brother who is with them, but I rarely trust any tech things he says

The tricky thing about the GSM situation in Canada is that we don't use the same frequencies as most of the world... we apparently just got a 1700 band for GlobeAlive o.0 so really, even if Telus and Bell move onto GSM... the chances of being able to freely purchase your own phone for usage is still quite low because they will most likely use frequencies that are different from the ones for the pretty phones

[Hiatus]

i know telus and bell used to have SE & nokia it been a while since ive seen them lol its somehow good news for people who are stuck with bell and telus though im with fido less of a concern for me lol

[MineralWater]

Telus and Bell are going to put up (overlap) their HSPA networks on top of their existing CDMA/EVDO networks, using the more unpopular 850/1900MHz bands.

Even if iPhone/whatever/3G GSM phones are brought over to Telus/Bell, will they use the 3G connection for both voice and data?

[jaekyung03]

so glad they're going gsm...the only reason why i switched out was because of it lol

[swt-L0VE]

It's about friggen time! I'm sick of Rogers and their plans & sucky service. I hope Telus has some better plans once they change over to GSM.

[*Melissaa]

I don't wanna stupid but.. what's a GSM?

[J-10]

when does the back to school promotion thing end?

[darkensky]

How do we check what some of the back to school promotions are?

[J-10]

How do we check what some of the back to school promotions are?

watch the commercials i guess

[heejaeun]

It's about friggen time! I'm sick of Rogers and their plans & sucky service. I hope Telus has some better plans once they change over to GSM.

i agree.. rogers based on connectivity and signal wise its good butt! theyre plans and everything are a bit over priced i regret getting a 3 year contract with them.. ughh i cant wait till 2010 and then ill switch to bell if ever they get gsms:D

[J-10]

is it possible for me to activate a new fido service by myself? im only 17 and i will be coming to canada by myself

[0rchid]

I don't wanna stupid but.. what's a GSM?

lol! seriously, what is GSM?

i really wanna get a japanese phone but reading all this GMS and frequency problems with asian phones in north america has gotten me all confused :s

[SongBird]

^ I hate to be mean, but you guys can just click on a new tab and google what GSM means instead of asking in a forum and then wait for a reply. I don't want to go into a lot of the technicalities, for me the main advantage of GSM is that it allows you to be like Rogers/Fido where you can take your SIM card out of your phone so that you can replace your phone for cheaper and have the option of using any phones that you want to that has a SIM card slot, like a lot of the phones from overseas. It could also mean having more than one phone using the same number. As to weather what network provides better call quality and whatnot is a big debate for some people.

Any who, I heard that a few small companies won the rights to some phone towers so that means that we will be seeing more competitions and hopefully that would drive down some prices.