CDMA provider contemplating move to GSM: The Telus edition
Ah yes, ye olde we're-going-to-switch-our-network-technology story surfaces again, seems we can't have a quarter without this type of story raising it's head. We heard this same tale back when Bell Canada was involved in all that sale / merger / rumor business, but this time Telus is the center of the fun. It seems that Telus may be set to abandon its 'Betamax" network and is now ogling the hundreds of millions of dollars in roaming revenue that the GSM carriers enjoy by considering a move to tap into it. Of course, this is merely speculation, but the story does seem to be gaining traction and Rogers shares actually suffered a 2.6 percent drop on this news yesterday. The Olympics are in Vancouver in 2010, we're thinking if Telus really was going to go for it -- and shell out an estimated half billion dollars -- that would be a prime time to roll out a hybrid EV-DO / HSDPA network.
Filed under: Telus Mobility
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
FyreStarrter @ Jan 16th 2008 1:03PM
I think this is a good move for many reasons but the main one is that there will TONS of GSMers in Vancouver when the Olympics come & many of them will be roaming. Why NOT get those dollars? Make perfect sense to me.
sitruc @ Jan 16th 2008 2:28PM
How broad is Telus?
PTaco @ Jan 16th 2008 4:07PM
I talked with the Telus folks at NRF's Big Show on Monday. They confirmed this and commented that gaining "global" GSM users was much more important than the build-out costs. They are tired of the CDMA/GSM hybrids that are a band-aid, not a solution, and too many of their users are involved in intl. biz.
Just me @ Jan 16th 2008 8:22PM
the switch to gsm will not happen fast enough but in the meantime gsm's coverage in eastern Canada sucks big time compared to CDMA's coverage
DavidEckmier @ Jan 17th 2008 12:49AM
bout frickin' time. the rest of the world uses it... I'm not sure why we seem to be the only real CDMA holdouts here in North America. the sooner the better, in my opinion.