TORONTO – Having another company selling the iPhone makes a great headline for Bell Canada, but according to Bell Mobility president Wade Oosterman, there are plenty more benefits to switching on the company’s new, shared, HSPA wireless network.
Bell announced earlier this week its next generation wireless network will be ready next month, earlier than planned and while most media have focused on the overhyped handheld, upgrading the net will bring more to Bell than the Apple mobile.
“There are four big benefits that accrue to us and our subscribers,” Oosterman told Cartt.ca. “The network is vastly larger than any similar one in Canada,” and with its legacy CDMA-based net (EVDO 3G) running along side, customers will have a vast choice in handsets, too.
But, with the latest generation HSPA, the next step for the GSM global wireless standard that all wireless companies are building to, “you get a speed advantage on a bigger footprint,” he added. “I don’t think there’s a network anywhere in the world that’s as all-around advanced as ours is and that’s a combination of speed, coverage and backhaul infrastructure.”
“It’s no good having a 21 Mbps stream, for example, when your backhaul can’t support it,” explained Oosterman, who noted Bell’s vast fibre backhaul capability will support the wireless net from coast to coast.
The new HSPA network is a joint project that Bell and Telus are building together – with the original deadline of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and while Telus has said it, too, will offer the Apple iPhone beginning next month, the western telco has so far been tight lipped on when the network will turn on for its customers. One suspects it will have a similar announcement soon, given the iPhone is a GSM device, meaning it won’t run on Telus’ legacy CDMA net.
But like we said, besides the iPhone, the state of the art network will also give Bell “a big lift in terms of our ability to deliver services to our customers on a global basis,” Oosterman added. (And new competitors will have another roaming partner, too, as Rogers is no longer the only GSM game in town.)
Customers will also be better able to travel with their handsets and Bell will be able to gather some of the inbound international roaming revenue, too, something that Rogers had always gathered up as the lone GSMer in the Canadian market.
– Greg O’Brien
