Bell HSPA out next month - BCE

[LouTreize]

Anyone excited now? LOL!

From BGR:

Canadians coast to coast rejoice, for next month Rogers’ HSPA monopoly will come crashing down at the hands of Bell as it officially launches its HSPA network overlay. Bell has been under increasing pressure to iron out any kinks in their upcoming HSPA roll-out as the upcoming 2010 Olympic Winters Games are fast approaching and Bell is the official network. They seem to be giddy with excitement, too, having finished the work ahead of schedule. Their new HSPA network which is an overlay on top of Bell’s 1XRTT/EV-DO Rev A. network, will offer speeds of up to 21Mbps. While that might be impressive enough, they’ve also managed to cover over 1,000,000 square kilometers including 20,000 cities and towns, reaching 93% of the entire Canadian population. Color us more than impressed.

Bell clients to access the fastest, largest national wireless network deployment ever starting next month

- Canada's wireless leadership role enhanced with state-of-the-art HSPA
wireless network
- Serving 93% of Canadians in almost 20,000 cities and towns starting
in November
- Joins existing 3G EVDO network - already Canada's largest - to
offer Bell customers maximum worldwide coverage and maximum choice in
smartphones

MONTREAL, Oct. 5 2009 -- Bell today announced that it will be
ready to launch its much-anticipated new HSPA network in November, months
ahead of its original deadline to deliver in time for the 2010 Olympic Winter
Games in Vancouver, of which Bell is the exclusive telecommunications
partner.
Supporting a range of new smartphones, turbo sticks and other
leading-edge mobile devices and access speeds as high as 21 Megabits per
second (Mbps), the new network will deliver high-speed mobile access to 93%
of the Canadian population across more than a million square kilometres. With
almost 20,000 Canadians cities and towns covered, the all-new network will
serve rural and remote locations as well as it does urban areas, making
mobile Internet access as fast at the farm or cottage as it is in the city.
"Bell announced in October 2008 that we would launch our next-generation
network before the Winter Games in February 2010, and I am proud to say our
team has over-delivered. The new network will be ready to roll in November,
quickly notching up competition and wireless choice for consumers and
businesses across the country and keeping Canada at the forefront of wireless
innovation," said George Cope, President and CEO of Bell Canada. "The new
HSPA network executes on our strategic imperatives to accelerate wireless in
Canada and to invest in next-generation broadband networks - supporting our
goal for Bell to be recognized by customers as Canada's leading
communications company."
With the busy holiday season ahead - when more wireless phones are sold
than at any other time of year - and the coming arrival of new wireless
brands and networks, Bell will be ready to compete.
"Bell Mobility is excited to offer Canadians access to the best network
experience available anywhere on the globe along with the maximum choice
possible of the world's leading-edge mobile devices. We're happy to say that
being with Bell just got better," said Wade Oosterman, President of Bell
Mobility and Chief Brand Officer for Bell.
"Together with our existing EVDO 3G network - already Canada's largest -
HSPA will allow Bell to offer Canadians the best of all wireless worlds: the
international reach of HSPA supporting full global roaming, the superior
North American coverage offered by EVDO and the unique mobile products
produced for each network technology."
The new HSPA network is the latest evolution of the international
GSM/HSPA mobile standard, supporting peak download speeds of up to 21 Mbps.
While the new network is the broadest HSPA network in Canada by far, what
really sets it apart is the underlying architecture.
"Bell is maximizing our HSPA network advantage by building out the vast
majority of our next-generation network with high-speed fibre - enough fibre
to wrap halfway around the globe in fact - and an all-IP (Internet Protocol)
architecture for enhanced reliability," said Stephen Howe, Bell Mobility's
Chief Technology Officer.
"HSPA also clears the path to super high-speed 4G (fourth generation) LTE
wireless in the future. Hats off to the thousands of Bell team members and
Bell partners who've worked so hard to build not just Canada's, but indeed
the world's, most state-of-the-art wireless network in record time."
The new network has been built with the latest HSPA infrastructure
supplied by partners Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei Technologies. Bell
also recently announced a partnership with AT&T, the largest HSPA operator in
the United States, for reciprocal North American roaming coverage. Bell will
offer full international roaming capability on GSM, UMTS and HSPA networks in
hundreds of countries around the globe at launch.
Bell greatly reduced the cost and time to market for the new network by
leveraging its existing national network-sharing agreement with TELUS
Corporation. The agreement was originally established in 2001 to ensure fast
delivery of and increased competition in national mobile data services,
especially in rural and remote areas, and supported earlier launches of 1X
and EVDO high-speed national networks.

[KaMikA]

http://www.bce.ca/en/news/releases/b.../05/75220.html

From Bell themselves