Wind coming to Canada
 

Wind is coming to parts of Canada later this year. They own native AWS (UMTS 1700MHz) licenses and have an off-network roaming agreement with Rogers (850/1900MHz GSM&UMTS).

WIND | We're Bringing Change to the Canadian Wireless Industry

Looks like a franchise-type agreement, seeing as how Canada doesn't allow majority foreign ownership of telecoms.

Wind owns a pretty good chunk of Globalive, but within the foreign rules ownership allowance.

Hopefully the Canadian affiliate is as aggressive as its Italian parent (step-parent).

Vlad Vlad Vald.. Wind Canada will be nothing like the wind of Europe thats for sure. All the rest is still up in the air. They will be like Bell was. Equipment that will only work on one system, IMEI filtered so that only wind Canada equipment will work. You know this. I know this.

Had they grown the grapefruits and demanded the frequency be open for all then a real choice would have happened. As it looks they are all in bed together.

I think I read that there were 15, more or less handsets that work on the 1700MHz band. No blackberries no iphones.. does not look good.

There aren't many 1700 MHz phones right now, but there will be in time. It wasn't all that long ago that 850 MHz GSM phones were pretty rare. I remember being excited to get my Nokia 6590i. :)

Doesn't that Nokia Rover RX-51 tablet that's coming soon use the AWS (1700 MHz) band. That would be a good start on some decent non-Android devices.

You are right in that it really hasn't been very long ago since even plain GSM phones lacked 850 MHz. It seemed to have taken about 3 years for each 'new' band to become commonplace on devices (first 850 GSM, then 850/1900 UMTS came about some time after 2100 UMTS, now it seems to be headed that way with AWS). The real problem likely will be including every used band in future devices. With LTE coming, it seems this number will only get higher (off the top of my head there are the 2600 & 700 MHz bands set aside for LTE, right?).

I wonder when GSM will be shut down in favour of re-farming those bands to for use in 3/4/5(!) G. Have there been any talks of this happening just yet or do we still have another 5+ years to go?

Jim I agree with you BUT why did Rogers keep the 850 /900 /1800 /1900 band?
My point is Wind EU is quad band so they are going stay that way for quite a while. So right now who is 1700? And who is saying that there is going to be a shift to 1700 MHz Not rogers they bet 500 million( could have been more ) that it would stay 850 /900 /1800 /1900. No real info has come out of Wind really so I wonder what's fact and what is fiction

G

Adam you make a good point but with the IMEI blocking that device will not work with Wnd Canada. That much has been confirmed.

G

Rogers bought 1700 MHz spectrum too, and will be deploying it. So did Bell, Telus, SaskTel Mobility, and MTS, all of whom will be deploying HSPA and LTE (Telus and Bell already have test networks running in some major cities on 850 and/or 1900 MHz). It's just a matter of time before the hardware comes.

The stumbling block is that up until this year, the only GSM provider at 1700 MHz was T-Mobile in the US. Now that Canada has auctioned off that spectrum and many providers will be using it, the phones will come. There are already a few that T-Mobile US is using. More will follow.

Watch - I bet the fourth iPhone supports the band.

Jim you are awesome! I hope it happens but I simply do not believe it. Fingers are crossed! This whole buying of frequencies has me bothered.. I like you will adopt the wait and see position.

The limited frequency support of current 3G devices will soon come to an end, since back in November 1997 Qualcomm announced chipsets supporting quadband-GSM and UMTS at 700MHz, 800MHz, 850MHz, 900MHz, 1500MHz, 1700/2100MHz (AWS), 1800MHz, 1900MHz, 2100 MHz, 2600 MHz to be sampled in 4Q 2008. So maybe we will see first devices with those decaband (= 10 bands) chipsets for christmas.
Those chips do not only include frequency bands, that have not been deployed yet, but the QSC7630 will even support CDMA including ED-VO, GSM and UMTS including HSPA with up to 10.2 MBit/s in a single chipset!

Of course the industry is interested in deploying 3G in the lower frequency bands due to their higher range and so reduce the required number of basestations. But I believe we won't see any operators to completely drop GSM in favor of 3G soon. That's not feasible unless 3G-capable handsets are that widely spread, that operators don't need to fear a huge customer churn and the loss of inbound roaming revenues by such "hard" switch. Hard switches will only occur in the CDMA-world, where operators will switch from CDMA to UMTS, as Telstra Australia or New Zealand have done.
What will happen is operators with enough frequency spectrum to run GSM and UMTS parallely in the same band, but that requires quite a big chunk of spectrum (at least 2 x 10 MHz, where at least 2 x 5 MHz are continious for 3G). In some countries like Germany, the GSM-bands (at least the 900MHz-band) is fragmented, which makes the simultaneous use of UMTS impossible for some operators, allthough in summary there is enough frequency bandwidth. Therefore O2 Germany and eplus are currently fighting with the German regulation authority for a refarming of the 900MHz-band, which would lead to equal distribution of the existing GSM-bands in 4 continious ranges and according to a press report from yesterday they may succeed.
With LTE problems increase, since the maximum data bandwidth (the actual user experience) correlates with the frequency bandwidth. For those 300 MBit/s of downstream touted all the time, you need 2 x 20 MHz of spectrum. The 850MHz band however has only 2 x 25 MHz - so even if there were only two operators sharing the 850MHz-band, those rates of hundred(s) of MBit/s are pure fantasy.

I think you mean 2007 there, not 1997, Inquisitor. Back then, dual band was a new and expensive "feature"!

:OT:

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/off-...telephony.html

Wind likely not coming to Canada
 

Wind "not Canadian enough" so can't open:

CBC News - Technology & Science - CRTC says no to Globalive

While the CRTC may have failed to pass Wind the fat lady has yet to sing.

Globalive phone battle headed to cabinet

Is anyone here aware of Bell & Telus' new shared 850/1900 MHz HSPA+ network?

It's coming soon, probably this year still.

Rogers is sharing with MTS Mobility in Manitoba (Rogers is already GSM/HSUPA while MTS is CDMA/EvDO & CDMA/1x). Rogers will help MTS deploy 3G GSM in areas where Rogers currently has no coverage, and both providers' customers will be able to use the service. Good deal for all, methinks.

The only outlier is here in Saskatchewan where SaskTel Mobility's HDPA network is seriously delayed, perhaps as much as a year. That means that unless Bell and Telus get a roaming agreement with Rogers, GSM/HSPA customers of both networks will have no service coverage here at all until late next year or early 2011.

Yesterday's Globe & Mail noted that the CTRC has shut down Wind Mobile. They found that it had excessive foreign control and that the real owners of Wind was Orascom. Wind is appealing.

Stu it was pretty clear that Orascom was in charge. They held all the debt, had all the experts and none of the control? The CRTC could not get over that point. It simply made no sense They will appeal but that may take months.. So for now No Wind, maybe they will find another name..

I guess that now means even less incentive for manufacturers to make AWS-compatible 3G devices. :-(

Last minute reprieve! Globalive to enter wireless market - The Globe and Mail

Wind could be up soon... as soon as Monday.

No joke.

CBC News - Technology & Science - Globalive says wireless network launch imminent

I was just reading the Wind cite and they are real interesting (if I was a Cannuck). First, when I first read about "home zones" on Wind's website, I thought that they were talking about a regional market like the competitors. (E.g. Toronto zone, Vancouver zone, Calgary zone, etc). They aren't, they are talking about "on network." A Toronto Wind phone roaming in Vancouver is on network. Away zone is roaming on other people's network and that is $0.25 a minute. The exception is their $35 "Always talk" plan which is province wide/home zone.

WIND Mobile | Support | FAQs

Wind will roam in the U.S. at $0.25 a minute. On network, you can get 5 gigs of on-device data for $35. It will be interesting to see what their tethering enforcement will be.

The Wind site is still being tweaked. There's quite a bit of confusion and I'm certain there are lots of issues to be worked out from both a marketing as well as a network point of view.

None of their voice plans includes off-network (ie Rogers) access. The $35 (province-wide) and $45 (canada-wide) plans only cover long distance from the home zone (on-network). Roaming on the Rogers network is $0.25/minute for voice, long distance included and $0.10 for a 25kb block for data.

There are still many unanswered questions such as what would happen if a phone locks on the Rogers network while in the Home area due to poor in-building coverage or other issues.

I for one plan to hold off until they iron out most of the start-up quirks.

Obviously, I meant "site" rather than "cite."

US roaming is on T-Mobile's native network only (e.g. no coverage in North Dakota).

Tethering is allowed specifically. A data-only plan costs $45 instead of $35, or you can have the $35 plan if you have a voice plan.

All plans are available prepaid or postpaid, although there is no normal prepaid offering where you buy a balance and then get charged for minutes as you use them. The prepaid offerings are monthly plans at the same rate and with the same benefits, but instead of passing a credit check and getting billed later, you get charged monthly out of your prepaid balance.

The data only plan is $55 and requires the purchase of a Huawei E181 USB stick @ $150.

Wind Coverage
 

I bought a phone and activated it on friday. It still isn't working and they tell me they are having problems with their network. They have a 30 day money back policy so I will give them some time before taking the phone back.

I agree the wait and see approach is a good one. So far my Rogers accounts have gone down in price, so Wind being around is good. But there is still the learning curve here. People do not want to pay 130.00 for a locked handset that will only work on Wind. This is a sore point. Also people are saying they get the phone and wait for days for service to be started. It is brand new so there will be glitches BUT with all the time they had one would have thought they would have tested things a bit. Even my Wind sim from Greece will not roam on them.. it will roam with rogers only.. They have work to do for sure.. and now a union is looking to challenge them in court which will complicate things. Since there is no contract people will adopt the wait and see stance.. There was a bloke who said that his store had several line ups.. some to get the new phones others to return them.

It will be interesting thats for sure.

I asked them why my Wind Italy phone wasn't roaming on their network and they said they have no agreement with Wind Italy yet!
I still have no service but will give them till after christmas to get things right.

Do any Wind Italy clients actually have a phone that supports UMTS 1700? Certainly none of the Wind-supplied phones in Italy will.

Until phones that have this band are more widespread, a roaming agreement isn't all that useful.

Now, Wind Canada roaming on Wind Italy would be very useful indeed.

Not that I know of yet. You can use your Wind Italy sim in an unlocked Wind Canada phone and vice versa as a Wind Canada phone won't work in Italy except as GSM, no 3g. Until they make 3g phones with all frequencies it will be a problem.

Don't most phones that come with UMTS 1700 also have 2100 for int'l roaming?

And does Wind not have 2G coverage? If so a lack of UMTS 2100 wouldn't matter much.

BLC you could place your sim into a WInd canada phone I think, but they are locked and so far no one has reported on a method to unlock them...but I think you would be roaming on rogers the whole time. AFAIK here are 17 or so handsets only that will run off wind canada AWS1700, Time will tell if hey go any farther. It would seem my Wind.GR sim needs to be registered and it was not oh well..

it seems like WIND.GR and WIND.IT and WIND.CDN share only the name.. nothing else. Oh a funny note the training manuals they used were translated to english and made little sense as did the website prices were in British pounds.. this led more and more people to ask what is Canadian about this company.. handsets imported from overseas was another point brought up.

this is going to be interesting.. so far my plan has gone down in price...

Unfortunately no but I'am sure it will change in the future.

Wind Italy's roaming agreement is with Rogers right now and is some ridiculous rate (1.50 euro a minute I think). The sim would work in Wind Canada phones if they had an agreement.

Wind roams on Rogers in 2g at 25 cents a minute, no long distance charges so it may put Petro Canada mobility out of business as the rate is the same but much cheaper on long distance calls.

So far it is all academic as here in Calgary my Wind Mobile phone still dosen't work!