Wind coming to Canada

[adam917]

Originally Posted by PhotoJim

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?