Wind coming to Canada

[rockjock]

Jim you are awesome! I hope it happens but I simply do not believe it. Fingers are crossed! This whole buying of frequencies has me bothered.. I like you will adopt the wait and see position.

Originally Posted by PhotoJim

Rogers bought 1700 MHz spectrum too, and will be deploying it. So did Bell, Telus, SaskTel Mobility, and MTS, all of whom will be deploying HSPA and LTE (Telus and Bell already have test networks running in some major cities on 850 and/or 1900 MHz). It's just a matter of time before the hardware comes.

The stumbling block is that up until this year, the only GSM provider at 1700 MHz was T-Mobile in the US. Now that Canada has auctioned off that spectrum and many providers will be using it, the phones will come. There are already a few that T-Mobile US is using. More will follow.

Watch - I bet the fourth iPhone supports the band.

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by adam917

You are right in that it really hasn't been very long ago since even plain GSM phones lacked 850 MHz. It seemed to have taken about 3 years for each 'new' band to become commonplace on devices (first 850 GSM, then 850/1900 UMTS came about some time after 2100 UMTS, now it seems to be headed that way with AWS). The real problem likely will be including every used band in future devices. With LTE coming, it seems this number will only get higher (off the top of my head there are the 2600 & 700 MHz bands set aside for LTE, right?).

The limited frequency support of current 3G devices will soon come to an end, since back in November 1997 Qualcomm announced chipsets supporting quadband-GSM and UMTS at 700MHz, 800MHz, 850MHz, 900MHz, 1500MHz, 1700/2100MHz (AWS), 1800MHz, 1900MHz, 2100 MHz, 2600 MHz to be sampled in 4Q 2008. So maybe we will see first devices with those decaband (= 10 bands) chipsets for christmas.
Those chips do not only include frequency bands, that have not been deployed yet, but the QSC7630 will even support CDMA including ED-VO, GSM and UMTS including HSPA with up to 10.2 MBit/s in a single chipset!

I wonder when GSM will be shut down in favour of re-farming those bands to for use in 3/4/5(!) G. Have there been any talks of this happening just yet or do we still have another 5+ years to go?

Of course the industry is interested in deploying 3G in the lower frequency bands due to their higher range and so reduce the required number of basestations. But I believe we won't see any operators to completely drop GSM in favor of 3G soon. That's not feasible unless 3G-capable handsets are that widely spread, that operators don't need to fear a huge customer churn and the loss of inbound roaming revenues by such "hard" switch. Hard switches will only occur in the CDMA-world, where operators will switch from CDMA to UMTS, as Telstra Australia or New Zealand have done.
What will happen is operators with enough frequency spectrum to run GSM and UMTS parallely in the same band, but that requires quite a big chunk of spectrum (at least 2 x 10 MHz, where at least 2 x 5 MHz are continious for 3G). In some countries like Germany, the GSM-bands (at least the 900MHz-band) is fragmented, which makes the simultaneous use of UMTS impossible for some operators, allthough in summary there is enough frequency bandwidth. Therefore O2 Germany and eplus are currently fighting with the German regulation authority for a refarming of the 900MHz-band, which would lead to equal distribution of the existing GSM-bands in 4 continious ranges and according to a press report from yesterday they may succeed.
With LTE problems increase, since the maximum data bandwidth (the actual user experience) correlates with the frequency bandwidth. For those 300 MBit/s of downstream touted all the time, you need 2 x 20 MHz of spectrum. The 850MHz band however has only 2 x 25 MHz - so even if there were only two operators sharing the 850MHz-band, those rates of hundred(s) of MBit/s are pure fantasy.

[Motel75]

I think you mean 2007 there, not 1997, Inquisitor. Back then, dual band was a new and expensive "feature"!

[beppe_bl]

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/off-...telephony.html

[RTuesday]

Wind "not Canadian enough" so can't open:

CBC News - Technology & Science - CRTC says no to Globalive

[bylo]

While the CRTC may have failed to pass Wind the fat lady has yet to sing.

Globalive phone battle headed to cabinet

After the country's telecom regulator said the wireless hopeful is in violation of federal ownership rules, Globalive is expected to appeal the decision directly to the federal cabinet, according to sources in Ottawa...

The decision carries significant implications for the telecommunications industry.

Had the controversial structure been approved, industry players said it would have opened the door for Canada's telecom players to seek more foreign investment...

The move presents a golden opportunity for other upstart wireless carriers looking to enter the market, since Globalive was one of the more aggressive new players and will now be delayed. However, the head of DAVE Wireless said the CRTC decision won't lead the company to push up its plans to launch early next year.

“We've been very quiet, but we've been very busy,” said DAVE Wireless president David Dobbin. “ I can assure you Canadians will have choice in the wireless market.”

[adam917]

Is anyone here aware of Bell & Telus' new shared 850/1900 MHz HSPA+ network?

[PhotoJim]

Originally Posted by adam917

Is anyone here aware of Bell & Telus' new shared 850/1900 MHz HSPA+ network?

It's coming soon, probably this year still.

Rogers is sharing with MTS Mobility in Manitoba (Rogers is already GSM/HSUPA while MTS is CDMA/EvDO & CDMA/1x). Rogers will help MTS deploy 3G GSM in areas where Rogers currently has no coverage, and both providers' customers will be able to use the service. Good deal for all, methinks.

The only outlier is here in Saskatchewan where SaskTel Mobility's HDPA network is seriously delayed, perhaps as much as a year. That means that unless Bell and Telus get a roaming agreement with Rogers, GSM/HSPA customers of both networks will have no service coverage here at all until late next year or early 2011.

[Stu]

Yesterday's Globe & Mail noted that the CTRC has shut down Wind Mobile. They found that it had excessive foreign control and that the real owners of Wind was Orascom. Wind is appealing.

[rockjock]

Stu it was pretty clear that Orascom was in charge. They held all the debt, had all the experts and none of the control? The CRTC could not get over that point. It simply made no sense They will appeal but that may take months.. So for now No Wind, maybe they will find another name..

Originally Posted by Stu

Yesterday's Globe & Mail noted that the CTRC has shut down Wind Mobile. They found that it had excessive foreign control and that the real owners of Wind was Orascom. Wind is appealing.