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Bell, Rogers and TELUS join together to create “North America’s largest two-way mobile video calling community”

By on February 24, 2010 at 9:18am in Asides, Bell Mobility News, Mobile News, Rogers Wireless News, Telus Mobility News, Various News

Mobile video calling has been trickling around for some time, carriers have adopted the service and customers have used it… but one of the major drawbacks is the fact that in order to use video calling on your mobile device you have to connect with somebody who’s on the same network.

Bell, Rogers and TELUS have joined up again to create “North America’s largest two-way mobile video calling community”. The big 3 have successfully completed a “inter-carrier mobile video calling” trial that gives their subscribers the ability to make clients two-way mobile video calling between carriers. No word on when this service will be launched or how much it will cost, but it’s a great step forward for Canadian wireless.

Stephen Howe, CTO for Bell Mobility said “We are proud to be part of the first inter-carrier partnership in North America to enable clients to call each other using video capabilities. By breaking down the barriers between video calling clients in Canada, we anticipate strong demand for the service – as we saw with past inter-carrier initiatives such as text and picture messaging.”

More here at CNW

Related posts:

  1. Video Calling comes to Bell and so does an exclusive Facebook app
  2. Currently, Telus has about 5.6 million wireless subscribers, BCE has about 6.2 million and Rogers is Canada’s largest wireless carrier with 7.3 million subscribers.
  3. “Fastest & Largest”: Bell vs. Rogers Legally speaking
  4. TELUS leads Canada in “North American Green Carrier” study

Discussion

13 comments for “Bell, Rogers and TELUS join together to create “North America’s largest two-way mobile video calling community””

  1. They make it sound like this is a good thing for consumers but it isn’t. We already have smart phones, data plans and software so we don’t need carrier involvement. Extra charges on our phone bill for a service our devices already support is only good for carriers.

    Stop capping and limiting our bandwidth and become the dumb pipes you should be – THAT’s how you can do something good for consumers.

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    Posted by Graham J | February 24, 2010, 9:37 am
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  2. but most phones have the camera facing the outside of the phone…

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    Posted by Preacher | February 24, 2010, 9:40 am
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  3. WoW,

    This is a great move.
    Make it a 5$ addon or apart of bundle packs. If the feature worked in the way, 250 daytime with evenings and weekends free for voice 5$ extra video becomes apart of you’re plan we would have a winner.

    I have a feeling lame priceing might be offered though..

    just like the data plans..

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    Posted by eric | February 24, 2010, 9:45 am
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  4. Yeah, with the price that’s going to be charged and not to mention the lack of device support, who cares?

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    Posted by Pederson | February 24, 2010, 10:28 am
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  5. I bet you anything this is in anticipation for a video calling iPhone

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    Posted by Ted Avery | February 24, 2010, 10:50 am
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  6. So what about WIND Mobile? It’s the fourth wireless carrier in Canada. Is it not part of the deal? It shows how much the 3-stooges really hate competition.

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    Posted by Ahmed Eltawil | February 24, 2010, 10:53 am
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  7. @Preacher The LG Xenon is one phone that has two cameras – one facing the caller. Not all phones have this, but more and more do.

    @eric @Pederson Check out http://www.bell.ca/shopping/en_CA_ON.Video-Calling/VTCALL.details#2

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    Posted by schultzter | February 24, 2010, 12:13 pm
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  8. http://www.bell.ca/shopping/en_CA_ON.Video-Calling/VTCALL.details#2

    Yeah, but that is for BELL only.

    I doubt they will give everyone video calling for 5$ under this new system.

    LOL,

    get cheapest plan add on 5$ video calling and you could bypass expensive cellular bills IF this worked between all 3 carriers.

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    Posted by eric | February 24, 2010, 1:36 pm
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  9. Just FYI, the way your articles are setup prevent us from posting it on twitter with tools like Twitter bar, because the title is always your site instead of the article title.

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    Posted by Yannick Desjardins | February 24, 2010, 1:38 pm
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  10. Given that this is an initiative from the Big 3, I see this cost at the very least $20…which in my opinion is BS since phones are already capable of doing this and we already have data plans, etc….. as someone had already pointed out.

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    Posted by Plazmic Flame | February 24, 2010, 2:03 pm
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  11. Talk to me in three years when my contract is up for renewal. Just got the milestone and, currently, have no interest in thinking about new hardware.

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    Posted by Tony | February 25, 2010, 5:08 am
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  12. @Yannick I agree – half the time I don’t Tweet an article because I can’t be bothered to clean it up!

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    Posted by schultzter | February 25, 2010, 1:41 pm
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  13. Yannick & schultzter… I believe we fixed the issue. Let know if you can Tweet articles now.
    Best, Ian

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    Posted by Ian Hardy | February 25, 2010, 2:06 pm
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