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This rumour has been going around for months and the day has finally arrived with Bell & Telus both investing in their technology to build a better high speed network… for future growth and upcoming Fourth Generation (4G) Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard.

George Cope, President and Chief Executive Officer of BCE and Bell Canada said: “This investment initiative builds on our industry-leading wireless service – which already offers access to the largest and fastest network across North America- to deliver Canadians the broadest choice in high-speed wireless service, while confirming our path forward to LTE, the global 4G wireless broadband standard.”

Darren Entwistle, TELUS President and CEO said “This technology evolution is a win for Canadian consumers. TELUS’ investment in next generation wireless services will give our clients more wireless functionality including; international roaming, fast network speeds and a compelling selection of globally-compatible handsets and devices. As the next evolution in our multi-network strategy, this initiative will position TELUS to actively participate in the future global LTE eco-system and leverage economies of scale, offer timely access to handsets, and enhance global roaming relationships and revenues.”

Read the Bell Press Release here
Read the Telus Press Release here

Just in time for the hockey season to begin, Viigo now gives you all the NHL stats, scores, standings, schedules, headlines and team news striaght to yoru mobile phone (Windows Mobile or BlackBerry). More here. Go Leafs!

Almost 2.7 million phone numbers were registered for the newly created CRTC “National Do-Not-Call List”.  With nearly 50% coming from Ontario alone. If a telemarketer connects with a registered number they could face a maximum fine between $1,500 for individual telemarketers and $15,000 for companies. Learn more and sign up here at the official website

The TELUS hammer must have dropped this week from all the shenanigans that Future Shop pulled.

First we saw the leaked “2-Weeks of Savings” newspaper ad promoting the upcoming HTC Touch Pro for $239.99. Then we saw a link on their website promoting the HTC Touch Pro for sale with no contract for $649.99… the flyer will be circulating soon, but the website has no sign of the HTC Touch Pro.

What did they leave us with after all this hype? The Telus Samsung Instinct for $99.99 on a 3-year plan with a $50 gift card. This offer is around until the 23rd of October and most likely the Touch Pro will be launched within this time period.

The same offer for the Instinct is available Big Brother Best Buy.

**update** Here is the image that is on the flyer that was distributed today:

Crazy numbers by HTC this year so far! To date this year the Taiwanese handset maker earned NT$13.7 billion (up 30% from the same period last year). Total revenues for Q3 are NT$37.86 billion, representing a 30.06% growth. More here

The fine folks over at Rogers must be dipping into the juice.

They have released the Samsung Jack i616 “Merlot”, which is a dark maroon colour. The phone is nothing new and the price for the  Windows Mobile 6.1 Jack has recently been reduced to $24.99 on a 3-year plan.

What is very strange is that Rogers has put this on their site with the phone branded by Fido. Just bizarre.

Check it out for yourself with the picture or go to their site here
It actually looks like a nice colour…

We will see how well the iPhone in Canada has really done on Tuesday, October 28th. This is when Rogers is to release their third quarter 2008 financial results.

A couple days ago we wrote about how a leaked ad from Future Shop show the upcoming HTC Touch Pro from Telus to be priced at $239.99. Now it seems that Future Shop feels lucky and has started selling the HTC Touch Pro even before the official launch.

The price on its website shows it to be $649.99 with no contract. Although it says it is “Out of Stock. Will ship when available”, you can most likely hold out a week and get this on contract from either Future Shop or Telus directly.

The link to the Touch Pro is here

(Thanks Brandon!)

While we wait patiently for Sony Ericsson and Rogers Wireless to release the anticipated Xperia in Canada, there is news south of the border that this premier phone will be released on November 3rd in the United States. The Xperia just recently passed all checkpoints through the FCC.

For us Canadians, all we can do besides buying an off market phone, is watch the promo movie they released a few weeks ago called “Who is Johnny X?

Already on Episode 8, if you have some time today check it out here

Bell enters the game with its version of the BlackBerry Storm “coming soon” info site. Earlier today we saw the Telus version. The Bell site says:

“Take The World By Storm:
“The new BlackBerry® Storm™, coming soon from Bell.
The Storm — the first ever touch screen BlackBerry® smartphone — features a high resolution screen so you can surf the Internet in full HTML format.
And, its 3.2 megapixel camera has built-in flash and autofocus capabilities so you can capture the moment no matter where you are.
Best of all, you can take it anywhere. The BlackBerry Storm smartphone runs on the fastest, largest network across North America¹ and works around the world on both CDMA and GSM networks.
Check back soon to find out how to get your own BlackBerry Storm from Bell.”

No word on price or release date. See it here