TELUS INSISTS THAT THE joint Long Term Evolution (LTE) infrastructure build the company has signed with Bell Canada is simply that: an agreement to share the costs of building out a national LTE network. Nothing more.
There will not be any spectrum sharing, says Michael Hennessy, senior vice-president of regulatory and government affairs at Telus in an interview with Cartt.ca. He explains that the premise of deploying the LTE network in conjunction with Bell is to reduce their respective capital costs of building a national network. “We each control our own spectrum and we’re using our own spectrum to support…
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VANCOUVER – Telus had a busy Friday.
On the financial front, the company released strong fourth quarter and full-year 2011 results across both its wireless and wireline networks. On the network technology side, the company turned on its LTE network in 14 markets from coast-to-coast.
Given the new, much-faster data capabilities of LTE (theoretically up to 75 Mbps download, but more practically somewhere in the 12-25 range), why isn’t Telus charging premium prices for the new devices and perhaps for different speeds of service, Canaccord Genuity analyst Dvai Ghose asked Telus executives during…
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VANCOUVER – Driven by wireless and wireline data growth, fourth quarter 2011 revenue at Telus hit $2.7 billion, an increase of more than 5% over the same three months of 2010, the company reported today.
The increase was generated by 6.5% growth in wireless revenue and 4% growth in wireline revenue, both driven by strong data growth, the company reported. Telus added 148,000 postpaid wireless customers in the fourth quarter as smartphone adoption continued to accelerate, causing wireless data revenue to increase by 43%. “This increase more than offset declining wireless voice revenues, resulting in wireless…
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VANCOUVER – Telus’ 4G LTE wireless service will debut in 14 metropolitan areas across the country on Friday.
The initial launch cities include Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area, Kitchener, Waterloo, Hamilton, Guelph, Belleville, Ottawa, Montreal, Québec City, Halifax and Yellowknife. But the company said Thursday that it will continue to roll out coverage with a goal of reaching more than 25 million Canadians by the end of this year.
Telus will also offer an array of LTE capable devices including the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE tablet, the LG Optimus LTE smartphone, the Novatel Wireless Ovation MC679…
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BEIJING, China – At a signing ceremony Thursday morning that included Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Huawei confirmed that it will provide LTE RAN (radio access network) equipment to Bell Mobility and Telus for their joint LTE wireless network in Canada.
"LTE is the gold standard of wireless technology, enabling Canadian consumers to connect and Canadian business to compete at a global level with access to the latest superphones, data services and mobile content”, said Bell Mobility president Wade Oosterman, in a statement. “The combined scale of Canada's largest communications company and an international technology leader like Huawei ensures we can…
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GATINEAU – Canadian consumers need their wireless companies to be much more transparent when it comes to contract terms and other matters, so the industry should have national standards when it comes to the provision of wireless services, Telus told the CRTC on Wednesday in calling for a public hearing on transparency in wireless.
The call for that new process came in a letter to the Commission from the company’s senior vice-president of government and regulatory affairs, Michael Hennessy, where he denied an accusation leveled by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre that Telus routinely charges wireless customers for 30 additional…
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VANCOUVER – Telus is hoping that their Optik TV customers in British Columbia and Alberta will want to watch television while on the move.
The company launched a free app that allows viewers to watch select programming from channels that they already subscribe to on their mobile devices, tablets and laptops. ‘Optik on the go’ debuted with content from Super Channel, Hollywood Suite, Family Channel, Disney XD, Disney Jr, and Baby TV in English, French and Mandarin.
Using the Cisco Videoscape platform, the app allows users to start, pause, rewind and fast forward their shows just like they do at home. Apple iPad, iPhone,…
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GATINEAU – Shaw Communications filed an appeal to the CRTC on Friday regarding last October’s policy decision to quash usage-based billing in favour of incumbents charging independent internet service providers either a flat rate, or a rate based on capacity and the number of users.
Under the new regulatory regime, ISPs can now sell smaller providers a set capacity per month, or a simple flat fee for a set level of speed – and was officially instituted February 1st. The new policy also means smaller ISPs will have to pay more to…
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IT HAS COME TO OUR attention that a headline of ours last week has caused some misunderstanding.
Last week, the office of Industry Minister Christian Paradis issued a press release noting he was taking part in a pre-budget round table discussions with leaders from the information and communications technologies sector in Toronto.
It was one of a series of planned round tables that also included a stop earlier this month in Montreal. At the meetings, the Minister said that he is seeking to engage private sector stakeholders on how best to ensure that…
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GATINEAU – Bell Canada says there is nothing it can do to make content from the National Football League available to other mobile network providers in Canada, no matter what the CRTC wants.
Back in December, thanks to an original complaint by Telus, the Commission ruled that Bell Mobility gave itself a “significant competitive advantage” by entering into exclusive agreements for the mobile rights to popular National Hockey League (NHL) and National Football League (NFL) content. It gave Bell until the end of January to say what it plans to do to make the content available to other mobile carriers….
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