You are here

Telus lauches Blackberry Storm 2. More Polar bear jokes ensue.

Telus launched the Canadian-made premium touch screen smartphone, the Blackberry Storm 2, on Wednesday. The original storm was considered RIM’s answer to the threat of touch screen phones, like the iPhone, and was not considered a big success. With the new Storm, RIM has applied the lessons learned from their first attempt – the Storm 2 runs the latest Blackberry OS 5, has more memory, Wi-Fi and an improved ‘Sure Press’ touch-screen. Since RIM has not officially launched a North American frequency HSPA Storm 2, Telus is launching it on…

Read More

Bell also magically makes the SAF dissappear

With the consumer backlash against made up wireless fees growing, Bell is rumoured to be to joining Rogers and Telus, and getting rid of the hated $6.95 ‘System Access Fee’. According to an internal document, leaked on The Mobile Ninjas here, on Nov 20th Bell “will no longer be charging” the SAF Effective November 20th, 2009 Bell Mobility will be launching new pricing for all existing post-paid plans & will no longer be charging the $6.95 system access fee. Review the job aid for more details. However just like Telus…

Read More

Episode 020 – Mobile Madness

After taking a hiatus, which allowed us to catch up with our Fan Expo footage, we’re back on a regular schedule. Given the big news in the mobile phone space over the past couple of weeks, we talk about the new Bell / Telus HSPA+ network, and some of the new phones they’ve introduced (or soon will be) such as the Motorola Droid/Milestone, the HTC HD2, the end of Rogers iPhone exclusivity and much more. If you’ve been contemplating switching, or getting a new smartphone, then this is the episode…

Read More

Motorola Droid (Milestone) coming to Canada in January, exclusively on Telus

On Friday, November the 6th, the heavily hyped Android 2.0 Droid smartphone launched on the largest US carrier, Verizon. The Droid is another phone in the long list of iPhone killers, but unlike the other pretender’s to this crown, it really seems to have all the right mix of features and cool to succeed – with commercials like this, these, and good early reviews here and here. However the biggest news for Canadians is the news that Droid will be coming to Canada in Q1 2010. When I started writing…

Read More

Telus HSPA network off to rocky start, iPhone and HTC Hero in tow

A day after Bell’s Nov 4th launch of their new HSPA network Telus’ went live. Like Bell, Telus’ flagship handset is the iPhone, but unlike Bell the remaining handset selection is a lot slimmer at the moment, lacking any lower end phones. Telus is exclusively selling the HTC Hero, an Android 1.5 phone, and the LG BL40 ‘New’ Chocolate, and with Bell they have the Blackberry Bold 9700 and like Rogers the Nokia E71 qwerty. Hopefully this line up will expand, and there are already unconfirmed rumours that the Samsung…

Read More

Bell / Telus HSPA Network launches

It’s been a long time coming, but as we covered before, the new high speed wireless network from Bell and Telus officially launches today.  The HSPA+ network  supports speeds up to 42Mbit down and 22Mbit up, although the fastest phones being launched support 7.2Mbit.  It’s a new standard, which means it’s not backwards compatible with their CDMA network (which will stay online for some time to come).  It’s a two day announcement, with Bell going public today, and Telus tomorrow. Though it means a lot a new phone options, don’t…

Read More

Telus Officially Announces HSPA and iPhone Launch Date: Nov 5th

After many months of internet fed rumours, which most of time should be taken with a grain of salt, Telus and Bell let the news drop that they would start selling the iPhone on their new HSPA network in November. Today Telus finally clarified the exact date, November 5th. They also announced the other handsets that they would be launching, since the iPhone isn’t the end all and be all for everyone. One of them is the (exclusive to Telus) HTC Hero, the hotly anticipated Android phone running HTC’s slick…

Read More

Bell and Telus To Launch iPhone In November

As long as quasi-substantiated rumours are to be believed, anyways. The iPhone will be available from Bell and Telus in November, breaking a year plus exclusive deal with Rogers.  November also marks the nation wide launch of the joint HSPA network from Bell and Telus, well ahead of the original schedule, which suggested it would be available around the time of the Olympics, and probably starting in Vancouver so the two telecom companies could take advantage of international roaming fees racked up by visitors from around the world. It’s little…

Read More

The Canadian Broadband Wars Heat Up

A new initiative was recently launched to battle the CRTC rulings regarding Bell and Telus and access to network infrastructure.  Competitivebroadband.com, which is comprised of a wide range of independent ISPs and coalitions, is aiming squarely at making the consumer aware of, and getting them involved with, the proceedings.  From their mission statement… Following the decision by the CRTC, which was released on 11 December 2008, MTS Allstream decided to petition the federal Cabinet, which has the power to reverse this decision. Others have also made their views known in…

Read More

Cellular Code of Conduct

On Tuesday the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) released a new ‘code of conduct’ that will theoretically govern how wireless carriers will behave vis a vis their subscribers, which number over 23 million in Canada. On the face of it, the code of conduct sounds good.  Part of the 3 page document includes allowing customers out of their contracts if, at any point, the carrier has made changes to said contract. I’m sure most long time mobile users are used to such shenanigans, where fees start creeping up, or there’s…

Read More