MobileSyrup.com » Bell Mobility News

Good Cause: Bell Let’s Talk Day is today

Ian Hardy — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:15:28 +0000

Bell’s “Let’s Talk Day” is happening today. It’s a day in which they hope to raise awareness and also raise funds to support mental health. For every text, long distance call made today by Bell customers (Bell and Bell Aliant only), Bell will donate 5¢ to mental health programs. The goal is to beat last years total of $3,303,961.80.

Update: Bell will also donate 5c for every Retweet (RT) on Twitter today too.

Source: Bell

Bell adding 5 hours of Mobile TV to the Fab 10 $60/month plan

Ian Hardy — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:46:12 +0000

Today is Sunday, February 5th – SuperBowl XLVI is happening and Bell is expecting this day to set a new record with highest number of mobile TV streams since the 2010 Olympic Gold Medal hockey game. Mobile TV in Canada is still in its early stage, but will become increasingly important and we’ll see the carriers start to push out more features and channels this year. However, to bring real adoption the prices will have to drop as they’re still quite high – $5 for 5 hours of mobile TV usage.

Effective tomorrow, Bell will be changing their Fab 10 $60/month rate plan around. It’ll still have the same 200 minutes, 1 GB data, Unlimited nationwide talk to 10 numbers, Unlimited text, picture and video messaging, Call Waiting and Conference Calling and Unlimited local evenings, but will now welcome the addition of 5 hours of Mobile TV viewing. Just remember that any Mobile TV overage is $1/hr.

Check for this tomorrow.
(Thanks tipster!)

Bell Samsung Galaxy Note will be $729.95 outright

Ian Hardy — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:34:17 +0000

According to Best Buy Bell has the lowest 3-year contract price for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note at $199.99. TELUS is priced at $249.99 and Rogers hits a high with $299.99. One of the major questions surrounding this new category of phone/tablet is what the no-contract price will be. Well, special thanks goes out to Bell’s retail chain The Source for giving us the goods. Finding it online through their main site only brings up the 3-year price, but a quick search via their mobile site reveals an outright cost of $729.95.

The Note is launching February 14th with Android OS 2.3 Gingerbread, but will be upgraded to OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich within a few months.

Source: The Source
(Thanks tipster!)

TELUS, Bell and Rogers releasing the Galaxy Note February 14th for $249.99 on a 3-year, Best Buy says

Ian Hardy — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:44:53 +0000

Well this is very interesting. Must be Galaxy Note day in Canada today. The confirmed carriers to release this Android phone/tablet are TELUS, Bell and Rogers with a “mid-February” availability. First out of the gate with the official release date and pricing is big box retailer Best Buy showing the Note will be available to the masses on Tuesday, February 14th for the 3-year contract price of $249.99. Best Buy also notes the Rogers logo on their info page, but doesn’t have any pricing info. Missing is the no-contract price points but will most likely be around the $600+ mark. If you want to pre-order the Note can walk into a store and lay down a $50 deposit.

Source: Best Buy

Bell officially says the Samsung Galaxy Note is “coming soon”

Ian Hardy — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:24:54 +0000

Bell has officially come forth and posted the LTE-enabled Samsung Galaxy Note as “coming soon”. There are no other details on a price or a date, but this is expected to hit shelves “mid-February”. This will come with Android OS 2.3 Gingerbread and Bell states that it’ll be “upgradeable to Android 4.0″ – just no date as to when.

Specs of the Note have it with a 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED touchscreen display (1280×800), the “S Pen” stylus, a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, 8 megapixel camera that shoots 1080p HD videos, 2 megapixel front-facing camera, HSPA+ and LTE-enabled, Wi-Fi and a 2,500 mAh battery.

Source: Bell

Bell and Virgin Mobile rollout HD Voice

Ian Hardy — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:44:00 +0000

Almost a year to the date WIND Mobile implemented HD Voice to their customers, this reportedly brought a “better quality, clearer voice service experience”. Today, both Bell and Virgin have rolled out HD Voice to their HSPA+ customers – this is available for free on select handsets. For Bell, currently the HD Voice compatible phones are the Nokia C6, Nokia C6-01, HTC Sensation and the HTC Incredible S. For Virgin Mobile, those who have the HTC Sensation and HTC Incredible S will experience HD Voice.

A few notes though: HD Voice will only work when “the call is made by and received by HD Voice compatible phones”, plus will only work when you’re in a coverage area, once you step out HD Voice will not work – but will default to regular voice. According to the Virgin Mobile internal doc we received it states that “HD Voice is not available in Manitoba or Saskatchewan”, but the Bell internal doc states that “Callers within Saskatchewan will not have access to HD Voice at launch”, plus that callers within “Extended” 4G HSPA+ coverage will also not have HD Voice at launch – most likely to do with their limited agreements with MTS and SaskTel.

As to what specifically you can expect from HD Voice on Bell or Virgin: clear call quality, richer overall sound quality, significant reduction in background noise and ease in recognizing voices when multiple peeps are talking.

Let us know if you can notice a difference.

(Thanks tipsters!)

Good Cause: Bell Let’s Talk day is February 8th

Ian Hardy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:28:01 +0000

Bell is back this year with their commitment to support mental health. Their “Let’s Talk Day” is happening on February 8th and they’ll donate 5¢ to mental health programs for every text and long distance call made by Bell customers (Bell and Bell Aliant only, not sure if Solo or Virgin is included). Last year the total number of text messages was 66,079,236 which brought the total dollar amount raised to $3,303,961.80. This year they want to top it.

More here at Bell

Windows Phone update 7.10.8107.79 getting pushed to the Bell LG Optimus Quantum and HTC HD7 tomorrow

Ian Hardy — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:06:14 +0000

Microsoft will be starting to officially roll out Windows Phone 7 build 7.10.8107.79 tomorrow. This update will most likely hit all Windows Phone owners in Canada, but the above internal document reveals that Bell will deploy a 2-stage rollout for the LG Optimus Quantum and the HTC HD7. The “1st wave” will start on January 18th, followed by the “2nd wave” on January 25th. Curious what fixes this will bring… here’s the complete list:

- On-screen keyboard. Fixes an issue to prevent the keyboard from disappearing during typing.

- Email. Fixes a Google mail syncing issue.

- Location. Fixes a location access issue. With this fix, the Me feature in the People Hub sends anonymous information about nearby Wi-Fi access points and cell towers to Microsoft only if you agree to allow the Check In function to access and use location information.

- Security. Revokes digital certificates from DigiCert Sdn Bhd to address an encryption issue.

- Email threads. Fixes an email issue related to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. With this fix, when you reply to or forward a message, the original message is now included in your response.

- Voicemail. Fixes a voicemail notification display issue that occurs on some European and Asian networks under certain conditions.

(Thanks tipster!)

Bell cuts the number of employees at their Mississauga call centre, apparently it’s in the hundreds

Ian Hardy — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:12:09 +0000

Bell Mobility has reduced the number of employees at their Mississauga call centre. Apparently this has impacted between 300-500 employees, but Bell wouldn’t confirm the exact number of employees that were let go. Some employees who were given the pink slip say it was due to outsourcing, coupled with the unsuccessful bid to unionize. I reached out to Bell to get further details and they confirmed the reason is to staff up their call centres in both Montréal and Vancouver.

In an email Bell stated they are “growing its Montréal and Vancouver call centres, Vancouver to offer extended service hours and Montréal to provide more bilingual and French-language service… Growth in Vancouver and Montréal is balanced by some reductions to the team at the Creekbank call centre in Mississauga. We don’t release numbers on staffing changes to specific groups. We will work to find new positions at Bell for those eligible, those that depart will get appropriate severance.”

Via: Star

Samsung Galaxy Note coming to Bell?

Ian Hardy — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:43:30 +0000

The Samsung Galaxy Note is heading to Canada in Q1 2012, this is something we let you know at the end of November 2011. However, what was unclear at the time was the carrier that the phone/tablet was heading towards. I personally thought it was heading towards Rogers, but this screenshot from the Android Market might give a bit more insight. What you see here is an image of an app within the Android Market that was captured by an unlocked Galaxy Note, model version Samsung GT-N7000. It clearly states “This app is compatible with your Bell Samsung GT-N7000″… perhaps it’s a coding error, perhaps not.

Bell has been getting lots of exclusives first: Samsung Galaxy SII, Samsung Galaxy Nexus… but Rogers secured the Galaxy SII LTE. However, there is a slight chance that the Note could actually find it’s way to TELUS. The bottom line is that Galaxy Note is coming to Canada and hopefully the truth gets revealed at Samsung’s CES press conference today. We’ll bring you all the details around 2PM (PST).

Samsung recently announced that they’ve successfully shipped over 1 million Galaxy Note devices worldwide. Refresher of specs, the Note has 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED touchscreen display with a resolution of 1280×800, “S Pen” stylus, a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, runs Android OS 2.3.5 (but will be upgraded to OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich), HSPA+ and LTE-enabled, 8 megapixel camera that shoots 1080p HD videos, 2 megapixel front-facing camera and a 2,500 mAh battery.

Source: Engadget
(Thanks Ramen!)