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Bell on 700Mhz spectrum auction: “Open auction ensures roll-out of rural and urban LTE”
George Cope, President and CEO of Bell, wants the upcoming 700Mhz wireless spectrum auction to be completely open with no set-asides for the new entrants. Rogers agrees with this viewpoint as they stated the same earlier this week during the Canadian Telecom Summit. However, new wireless carriers like Videotron, Wind and Mobilicity are urging the government to restrict or cap the amount of spectrum the Big 3 could actually purchase – saying Rogers, Bell and TELUS are all spectrum “hoarders” and buy it to simply stifle competition.
The 2008 spectrum auction brought new players into the market and generated over $4 billion. The government plans to auction the sought after 700 Mhz airwaves late 2012 and it’s important for several reasons: it’s great in cities for getting high speed data into buildings and underground, cheaper to deploy in rural areas and a pathway to the build-out LTE (Long Term Evolution).
At his keynote presentation at the Canadian Telecom Summit today Cope stated that depending how the government structures the upcoming 700Mhz auction will either put Canadian wireless in a leadership role or have us lag behind other countries. “The 700Mhz level, it’s a different game than the last auction. It’s really important everybody understands that there’s 50% less spectrum available this time then the last time. And, this concept of set aside that we had last time was to allow the new competitors to come into the market. So if we have a set aside who are the new competitors actually going to compete against in the auction, there is really no other new entrants. And more importantly, if we have a set aside one of the 3 national wireless carriers will not get the spectrum required to evolve to the next level of technology. Now they may not get it anyway if there is an open auction, but there should be an open auction to determine that.”
Rogers, Bell and TELUS will all be launching their LTE networks shortly. Rogers will be going live this year in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa, Bell will launch “in certain Canadian markets in 2011″. Meanwhile TELUS will go live sometime in 2012.
Cope stated that “LTE as you’ve heard will be launched nationally. One of the big files we had a couple years ago was the ‘digital divide”; How are we going to get these high speeds into the rural communities? HSPA+ dealt with that. We will do the same with LTE and cover the country with 95% of the population… if you separate that spectrum in this auction you really do run the risk… of a rural divide again. So to me it’s pretty straight forward, pretty simple. If we’re going to have an auction for spectrum and LTE is the next level of technology why would we ever put a structure in place that might prevent one of the incumbent carriers from actually being able to participate successfully in that auction. That would make no sense… LTE does truly hinge on the spectrum rules.”
(Apologies for the horrible video quality)
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79 comments for “Bell on 700Mhz spectrum auction: “Open auction ensures roll-out of rural and urban LTE””
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the powerpoint is extremely inaccurate.
this is how much canada is lagging open auction or not:
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69 
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Might as well add “GRRF” or “system access” fees to the list, too:
Other countries
$0
…
Canada $6/month
($19.95/month after the big 3 buy the spectrum for $387 brazillion)
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is this a freedom 55 club? or a business auction where those who have money can play the game. Bring your wallet to the auction if you intend to do some bitting. Rule and guideline to the game is clearly spell out to all players.
go big or go home….
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How about the make it open on the condition of net neutrality and open access, as well as regulated tariff and consumer protection.
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I dont think Canada will ever lead when the s ame 3 are in the market
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Bell is fast. But that’s not the issue. We don’t care about 42 Mbps. Most of us don’t even care about 21 Mbps.
So even if Europe is still at 7.2 Mbps, but with better prices and better caps, they are still WAY ahead of Canada.
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“And Rogers is AT&T for the majority.”
Where the hell do you get this from? They use the same spectrums, and that’s about it. They are completely different companies, and if you go back far enough, AT&T’s roots actually come from Bell, not Rogers. They briefly were partners for marketing reasons, but they are two entirely separate companies.
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As a citizen of Canada, I am passionate about my disagreement with this. Any political party who wants to allow the big 3 to horde more spectrem is corrupt as far as I am concerned. Supporting new companies with this spectrem is what is best for me and people close to me. I am a conservative conservative except I was forced to vote ndp this last election because of the conservatives weak wristed stance on letting the isp’s exploit this country, if any law makers are paying attention .. my vote follows public internet, it vetos all other issues… if you back the big 3 you don’t belong in office.
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Youre a conservative conservative but want the government to control large corporations? That makes no sense, the whole conservative economic mandate is centered around deregulation and non interference with business, especially big business.
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Welcome … back to Canada mate.
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I’m totally open for a free auction, but only once the market is open to foreign competition too.
The big 3 [especially Bell] love to talk about “fair” as if they’re being wronged. They have a government enforced oligopoly with very little competition even close to them all because of our terrible protectionism nonsense.
The government protects them enough from having to compete with real companies, now they want “free” access to bidding on something that none of them have any use of.
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HAHAHAHA Leading Japan!? Wow, Bell is officially delusional.
We will NEVER lead Japan, or the UK or even the States…Well maybe the states because they are starting to turn into what we are not.
It sounds to me like Bell and Rogers are starting to get a bit nervous when they use CTS to sales pitch the government.
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47 
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They make good points, but it’s pure speculation. Who’s to say WIND or Mobilicity or even Public Mobile wouldn’t build a nation-wide lte network?
You don’t know that Bell! How about you use your 1700/2100 spectrum for that rural build-out? Why can’t you do that? Psh, pathetic.
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Actually they are being cheap, 700 is similar to 850 which is what rural Canada is build on. If they used PCS or AWS they would have to build out 50 percent more sites to provide coverage in rural Canada, it isn’t about hoarding spectrum, its about profits and gouging Canadian consumers.
Bell and Rogers has already shown they don’t build in Tier 2 markets. This 80 million in Atlantic Canada is just Rogers trying to influence the auction. Rural maritimes still has GPRS and Newfoundland has no love from Rogers… Its all about the money.. not the consumer.
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“Who’s to say WIND or Mobilicity or even Public Mobile wouldn’t build a nation-wide lte network?”
Simple economics. @ $1 Million per tower, do you think they have the financial backing? Perhaps one day. But not today and not in the near future.
‘How about you use your 1700/2100 spectrum for that rural build-out?’
Simple physics. 1700/2100MHz has a shorter wavelength then 700/850MHz. Therefore doesn’t travel as far. It gives more possible channels per frequency however. Hence used in higher population areas.
700/850MHz travels much father and has a better penetration rate. This is why we currently see 850MHz deployed to rural areas. 700MHz is coveted for it’s ability to penetrate structures.
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These big 3 will do anything in there power to suck every penny from Canadian’s. I have voted first time in my life for Conservatives because they let wireless competition come in Canada. If they don’t continue the same, no more Conservatives ever.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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If only the federal government would stop spending money on jails, fighter jets and giving corporate tax cuts… Then they wouldn’t have no money left.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Who cares if its Canadian owned or not.
Tim hortons isnt Canadian anymore, you want them out.
As long as they give far prices, Im in.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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are you guys happy with our telecom laws in Canada?
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DAkia> Tim Horton’s isn’t owned by Wendy’s anymore, they’re publicly traded on the TSX.
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No one provider should get national coverage… all providers that get coverage must sell to all other providers allowing everyone to have full national coverage.
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What is this LTE crap??!!!! They charge 40$ for 3GB data which will exhaust withing 500 seconds at 42Mbps!!! Stop putting CRAP on people and stop sucking people’s money. Canadians doesn’t even know how they are being sucked…. wake up people…. raise your voice against these monsters…
It’s the big 3′s hunger for more money that makes me go mad… you had enough blood… leave it now…
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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@aka – You’re dilusional if you think a GT2 giong 330km/h is going to get 9l/100km. Just saying.
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Set aside for New Entrants!!. Big 3, if you won’t expand to rural areas, then New Entrants will get there then let see who wins or lose
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We all lose, because the small3 will take years to expand nationally, assuming they’re still around 5 years from now or face the same fate as Fido or Virgin mobile. Value brands are not sustainable in the long term, if history is any indication.
there’s no guarantee that they will expand to rural Canada, they do not have the capital, unless they can ramp up to over 7 million subscribers by the end of their 2nd anniversary (this time next year), it’s not likely to happen. Wind currently only has 300,000 subscribers.
stop putting hopes into companies own by foreign interests.
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LEAD ? Bell is one of the 3 reason why the Canadian wireless market was stuck in ancient medieval times for 15 years+, they are just so full of it. I worked at Fido this summer, and i’ve seen 100+ $ bills every week because people went over their minutes !
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Cole needs to shut the hell up. Nobody wants to listen to that bull. He must really take us for i****s. They should be forced to use ALL the spectrum in their posession before they can get any new ones.
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I for one (a mobilicity customer) can vouch for the absolute NEED for the entrants to have this part of the spectrum. I can literally walk into a wooden house and loose reception, and forget about basements…
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Try Wind, I found it to be much better.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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@aka, unfortunately your comment holds no value…because you’re willing to pay for quality doesn’t mean you will get quality.
Right now in this day and age…especially in Vancouver, everything is getting more expensive, cost of living is higher…but yet quality of pretty much everything…food, electronics, clothing….heck even customer service is starting to evaporate…wages stay the same…
The only way we are ever going to get change is if one of the big 3 steps up…but of course no one will, we all know the government won’t do anything…it’s really up to the consumers.
We have a choice, just depends on which one you make…
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@littlebabywawa, do you have any proof they lied? Do you have ANY proof to back up any claims you make? Of course not, you are a Rogers shill. There is a court battle going on but NO ONE has won yet so stfu because you have zero knowledge about anything. You and your little gang of muskrats are getting nowhere. Face it, WIND is here to say. Maybe you and comrade Rocco should move to Cuba where you can be happy there is no foreign competition.
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This site used to be good.
Now, all it is is Wind fanboys arguing against Rogers fanboys, iphone fanboys trolling Android posts. Kids in high school who think they’re lawyers telling professionals what they think is really happening as fact. It’s pathetic.
No matter how logical or reasonable a post is, anything negative towards Wind gets immediately shot down. If you like wind so much, fine. Spend your $45 a month for unlimited data… if your’e outside… if you’re in one of select few calling areas. Me, I’ll stick with my $50 6GB voice+Data plan that I don’t go over with superior coverage. That’s just me though.
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rogers need money to support the jays
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Has George Cope been smokin some s**t, or does he actually believe what spews from his mouth? We already lag behind a lot of countries. This auctiion will not advance us a country ahead of most of Europe and Asia. Even the U.S. is ahead of us in telecommunications. All that power Cope got when he got wooed from Telus to Bell must have made him absolutely insane. Cope, give your head a shake and wake up!
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Adam its nice to know u have a 6gb data plan with 50 local mins a month.
Us (im not even with any of the value providers because im locked up in a 3 year which i shall be buying out soon) would prefer to have UNLIMITED province-wide (not local) and canada wide calling for a decent 45$ a month and 10$ unlimited data plans.
Cellphone service should be a necessity not a luxury. We have all been taking it up the a$$ sideways for too long. Time to get some real prices.
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Good for you. Do you use your minutes enough to justify unlimited calling? I’m assuming you never travel right? (Most Wind customers obviously do not) You never visit rural areas? And I guess you never go indoors. You get what you pay for. with Wind, you get all the bandwidth you need…. that is, IF you can use it. with Rogers, you get a nationwide fast network, AND you get a secondary network to fall back onto IF their network is to ever experience any type of issue. I can roam nationwide for free and my phone works in other countries on 3.5G no problem.
Us would prefer to have UNLIMITED province-wide (not local) and canada wide calling for a decent 45$ a month and 10$ unlimited data plans.
Aside from the obvious grammatical errors, I like how you assume you know what my plan has. I have unlmited Rogers to Rogers (so I can call any rogers phone for free) and 1000 long distance minutes, anywhere in the world. I’m not talking for more than 1000, so there is literally NOTHING Wind offers that I don’t have already. I’m not going over my 6GB data. I’m not even going over 3GB usually. So again, I ask you, what drawback of going with Rogers is there for me? Not a single one. An extra $5-10 after tax is worth it when you consider the network available to me.
It’s like you buying Maclearan F1 and being told you have only a quarter mile straight line to use it, while I’m using an Aston Martin DBS, but I have full use of a race track.
You have all the power you want, but you can’t use it. I still have a very good car, and can really pus it to its limit.
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Everyone is always so quick to b***h about everything price related. Does anybody stop to realize how much it costs companies to provide service on such a huge land mass with such a small relative population to bring that money back? I’d love to have lower bills but a lot of people on this site have such a lack of fundamental understanding of how business works. I understand ALL cell phone companies have done some shady stuff and have all exploited a loop-hole at some point to gain a cash-grab, but seriously, you all proclaim these companies as evil when in reality it’s the same mentality everywhere around the world. One of the biggest negatives I put towards cell phone companies is the reinforcement of an attitude of a generation of people who think they deserve high-end electronics for next to nothing and believe organizations exist solely to treat them like royalty. These companies take a lot of dollars to run and take even more dollars to technologically advance.
I’m sorry, but for those people who constantly go over your minutes and have $100+ bills repeatedly get no pity from me. I’ve done the cell phone jobs and there are no shortage of r*****s who just don’t seem to understand fundamentals…
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Exactly. People expect that companies like Rogers or Bell should bend over backwards to them. They demand full LTE coverage in Yellowknife, and if they can’t stream Love Boat in the middle of Lake Superior they get all p issy.
Fact is, it’s expensive to offer coverage in sparsely populated areas. The reason Wind CAN offer cheap plans is because they are based in densely populated areas like Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, etc. where there are a lot more customers per tower than the rural areas. I’m sure Rogers coudl do taht too if they want, but you’d all freak out because there’s no Rogers service on the highway.
When/IF Wind ever becomes a nationwide carrier like the big-3, I can GUARANTEE their prices will go up. They will see their profits dwindling rapidly if they keep their current prices on a nationwide netork. It’s simply the price you pay for reliability.
If you don’t like it, nobody is forcing you to stay here. Move to Europe, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
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I don’t know what it costs to start and run a network and either do you. It probably costs as much as it does in Europe and most European countries pay a lot less then we do here.
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HAHAHAHHAHA!
“Cell phones should be a necessity, not a luxury”
Can anyone smell entitlement? Nobody owes you anything.
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LOL!
It’s almost like people here don’t understand basic business fundamentals.
These companies are NOT here for YOU. They’re here to make money. If you don’t like what one company is doing, switch. Nobody is stopping you. They do what they do, because they can.
If you truly believe cellphones are a necessity, not a luxury, you probably shouldn’t be with Wind. After all, they don’t offer you service outside of major cities. What kind of ‘necessity’ does that?
That’s like saying you can’t have food or water as soon as you get on the highway.
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The gov’t should tender to have someone build out the LTE network and then rent bandwidth to any of the cell phone companies who want it.
It would shake things up substantially and long term as taxpayers it would help as there would be more money generated in the long term than the auction provides.
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Bell, Rogers and Telus have been anticompetive for quite some time. They do what it takes to keep the prices high and keep us locked up in contracts. The average lifespan of a phone is less then the contract term (3 years). They know that you will have to get a new phone and the contract will just be renewed before it ends.
If they want the spectrum then they should surrender or sell their horded spectrum, at cost.
I am now contract free and had to go with one of the new players; thank god they are here.
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Rick, that’s why people say competition does not truly bring out advancement. If cell phones were controlled by the government you’d have just that – one giant network paid for by tax dollars. Unfortunately the more carriers saturate the market, the more expensive it gets for the carriers to develop further.
And to the d*****s who thinks his cell phone is a necessity… take a gander at the amount of people in the world who live below the poverty line. Food is a necessity, not emailing from the street.
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at least rogers has provided service in rural mb, can’t say that about telus & bell!
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I’m all for the entrants but until coverage is expanded massively and roaming fees within Canada are gone i will not switch.
Also it will not be fair to take the big 3 out of the auction. They already have a massive subscriber base and why make that subscriber base lose out on the 700mhz spectrum. This spectrum could do wonders for the maritimes
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I don’t know if the auction should be compltely open, but the new entrants have already shown that they don’t seem to concerned with coverage outside the major cities already, so reserving the spectrum for them would really screw over those in rural area.
I think if the auction is open they should make it that the spectrum MUST be used within so many years, and rural rollout of all markets must be completely, or face some type of fine for not do so in a timely manner.
canadians in rural areas need good high speed options ASAP and the current system will not accomplish that.
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I disagree with that partiall, now, I do live in a smaller city who only recently got 3G, but living there is a choice. Not having the best cell service is part of the price you pay to live there. There are lots of affordable places in town you can live to get service.
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The REAL story here is the anti-competitive practise of buying spectrum and not using it. The solution is relatively simple: A caveat on spectrum purchases. Buy it, and then use it or lose it. Land develoment contracts include this feature all the time to avoid ‘lot speculators’ who buy and hold with no intention of building, only flipping the lot later. With a development requirement, they have to build (within a reasonable time) or lose the lot.
There’s no question ROBELLUS are buying and holding spectrum just so other entrants can’t get it. The interest cost is far less than the reduction in gross revenues ROBELLUS would see if they were thrust into REAL competition like wireless service in the rest of the world. Hoarding is anti-competitive yet sanctioned by government because gov’t lets ROBELLUS do it. Until that changes, we consumers will never see real competition.
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Canada is third highest wireless and internet rates in the WORLD, yet they want to talk about “leading”and equality for the same 3 companies that have had a government sanctioned monopoly for years…
What total BS.
Get a new PR firm. You are selling and we ain’t buyin it.
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Canada also has one of the lowest population densities in the world coming in at 229 out of 240 countries
The following countries are the only ones with lower densities:
Greenland
Falkland Islands
Mongolia
Western Sahara
French Guiana
Namibia
Austria
Iceland
Mauritania
Suriname
Canada
The price you pay to live here. Covering sparsely populated areas is expensive. Telecom isn’t a public service, it’s a business.
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Hmmm maybe I missed something but all european countrys have a mobilephone penetration of over 100 percent so canada cant be 3d
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Open auction would embrace the spirit of free market. There should not be any special treatment granted to new or old carrier.Put the money on the table if you want to buy something.Read the rule and guideline before enter into an auction. Stop thinking that i’m new and i should be treated special and a different set of rule apply to me(new entrance). Sorry, class is out, real world rule apply now. So get use to disappointment, it build character at the end of the day.
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I live in Halton Region, Campbellville Ontario and I can only get dial up from Bell. They can’t even provide high speed internet in this area of the GTA. Let them fix that first before giving them more spectrum opportunities.
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Give the 700 mhz spectrum to Google. In return they’ll give free internet to everyone in Canada without caps. Why should Bell, telus,and Rogers profit from this? They’ve made so much money ripping Canadians off.They have made communications in this country a joke. Give it to GOOGLE.
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lolno
Google is not an ISP, and in case you haven’t notices, Google doesn’t really care about Canada, as evident by how the f*****g United Aarab Emirates and Saudi Arabia gets access to things like google voice and SMS before Canada does.
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I don’t get stupid comments like: “These big 3 will do anything in there power to suck every penny from Canadian’s” … so tire of reading comments like these… don’t you know you live in a capitalist system where EVERY company are in it for the money and it’s that same money that allows them to grow and provide better and modern services… ffs they are providing us with services that are essential to a modern society if you can’t f*****g afford them DON’T TAKE THEM…
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“Open auction ensures roll-out of rural and urban LTE”
Note to dumb CEO’s like the ones at Rogers and Bell. You do not need 700Mhz to roll out LTE to rural areas. I repeat. You do not need 700Mhz to roll out LTE to rural areas.
Why?
Because of this statement:
“Rogers, Bell and TELUS will all be launching their LTE networks shortly. Rogers will be going live this year in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa, Bell will launch “in certain Canadian markets in 2011″. Meanwhile TELUS will go live sometime in 2012.”
Really? How did you do it without the 700Mhz spectrum?
I’ll tell you what will ensure the roll out of rural and urban LTE… Wind/Mobilicity/Videotron/Public Mobile rolling out their services (LTE or not) into the rural areas.
The BS that is coming from your mouths boil down to stifling the competition and monetary gain. You may be able to fool the press, but you can’t fool me.
If industry canada wants to continue to foster competition, then they need to set aside spectrum for those that do not have any 800/850 Mhz spectrum. That means the new guys.
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So in what is Bell (canada) leading vs Vodafone, T Mobile, O2, Orange, Att …….
LTE has already launched last year in the US and Europe.
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perhalves we should sit all parties down and start serving them tea. Maybe a bit of hand holding and group hug to give each others some comfort. After all that, we break the group into pair of two holding hand and walk into the direction of sunset.
sorry, i thought this is freedom 55 program. Loves thy neighbor and hold hand. This really give me great joyes and comfort for some reason.
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Canada’s “Big Three” continue to lead other countries in the following:
Ridiculous charges (GRRF)
Overpriced TXT msgs and Data
Overpriced Voice minutes
Overpriced Handsets
Disrespected customers
Dumbassery.
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All you people need to go and educate yourself on Wireless technologies, telecommunications business, and the fact that Canadian providers have some of the best networks in the world.
The big three contribute tremendously to the Canadian economy and communities.
The prices continue to go down, competition is good, but the Wind is going about this is just wrong and illegal.
And stop complaining about high prices. If you cannot afford it, don’t buy it. Get some higher education, get a job.
Losers.
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Canada doesn’t lead s**t!
Bell knows how to stroke the governments dack!
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As an actual rural resident I feel some what indignant that Bell is using this argument to try and black mail the government into getting what it wants. If they haven’t deployed into rural areas as yet it’s not because they don’t have the spectrum to do so, it’s simply because they have chosen not to. I live in rural Alberta where coverage is already relatively decent with the existing frequencies. This is in sharp contrast to the rest of rural Canada where coverage is pathetic. The difference here is the Oil Patch. They are powerful enough to demand service and actually get results. Other places in rural Canada have simply been deemed irrelevant other wise they would have service already too. So, this has nothing to do with a rural roll out as it’s already been demonstrated to be viable with the current spectrum. Bell is being dishonest and should state the real reason for this request. Stating they have concerns about being able to roll out to rural areas is quite clearly not the case.
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Actually, Carmine, you are wrong. Canada does actually lead with a few other in the world. Take a speedtest and see where it ranks in the global average. Cable was invented here, we had 3.5G+ before most countries in the world – even before the US carriers who have far, FAR more money – and we will be among the first to have multiple carriers with LTE. So before you guys decide to b***h about how unfair and shi*ty your carriers are take a step back and analyze what’s been done with such a small pool of customers and such a huge and expensive area to cover. A lot of you guys have this poison attitude that everything you desire should be delivered to you on a silver platter for next to no money at all. ‘Big 3 with unlimited data’… are you ill? Do you not understand how much network traffic would congest if you had thousands of people doing that? You make these demands but have no conception of how that would work in the real world.
Anybody here who has worked high enough in any of these carriers would give you customer statistics that would make half of you r*****s choke. Around 9% of the customer base for the Big 3 are people like the ones who frequent this site – those who are never happy, ship jumpers, whiners, and people who demand a price from retention departments whose computers tell them that customer is not financially worth the discount. I was not born in Canada, and half of you disgust me with your notions of how things ‘ought to be’. Try coming from a country where if your bill is late your services are disconnected completely and passed off to collection agencies. Welcome to capitalism: it is not about your feelings, it about a companies MONEY. You accuse them of being crooks while on the other side of the coin they pay people a lot of money to identify those people who aren’t worth their time. You should see the stats for port-overs to Wind and the port-overs back from Wind – it’s actually laughable. They only pretend to give a sh*t about your $40 social networking only and bbm plan because they have to. The premium brands are for premium accounts and people who want big boy services. Considering I have 9 services across Rogers I’d prefer to be with the bigger company because they have money to spend and I don’t have to talk with reps wearing flamboyant polo shirts working in a kiosk at the mall.
Adam… hug me. You’re one of the few left on this site that has a brain and a sense of reality.
(You, too, Mya!)
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who cares about 4G when data caps are still all around 6GB or less? 3G is fine by me as long as (a) you actually consistently get those speeds ans (b) the prices aren’t ridiculous.
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Do you seriously need 6GB of data? Put the cellphone down, son.
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Do the big three need more bandwidth?
Look at this comment from Telus: “TELUS’ strong spectrum position means that a similar course of action is not necessary as a result of spectrum considerations.”
For investors, they have the bandwidth, for the rest, they don’t.
http://about.telus.com/investors/annualreport2007/investor-overview/qa.php?page=4
As far as Bell is concerned, if they had more cell sites, they could easily make better use of their current allocated bandwidth. Phones are always clinging to weak signals (and our brains are getting toasted).
-gmd
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The main problem is the CRTC and the rules/laws governing TELCOM ownership in Canada. I would love for Bell/Rogers to get their way and have an open bid, but by open bid I mean a truly open bid… invite Verizon to the party…
I also think there should be a time frame in which bandwidth should be used in order to discourage squatters to hoard. While they’re at it they should kill off all these BS subsidiaries that give the illusion of competition but in actual fact keep rates higher because of the additional costs to running 2 corporations rather than a single entity.
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Leave it open. Fair and square.
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I just saw an ad for Tmobile. There was fine print that appeared on the screen for only about 2 seconds. Needed to record it to read the fine print.
50.00 a month unlimited voice / text / web *
The * translated to 100mb per monnth at LTE speed, then speed throttled to 2G speeds. Hello, that is less than 1 meg of speed after 100 mbytes of data. For 50.00 a month. My current data plan with one of the big 3 cost me less than that and I get 2 gigs a month. I also get a warning before I go over so there are no surprizes.
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