Hi;
I'm wondering what is happening with the GSM phone marketplace across Canada — especially Manitoba these days. The only place in Canada without two competing GSM networks will be Manitoba where MTS partnered with Rogers. They will operate separately there but the equipment will be shared — more like the SO/Rogers arrangement. There will be no roaming to a second network where there is no coverage from the other — because there will only be one network of towers and equipment.

Bell and Telus have partnered to set up what they are now calling "The largest GSM Network in Canada." Bell launched their GSM network and started selling iPhones on Wednesday and Telus did the same Thursday last week. Has anything changed across Canada? SaskTel has signed on with the Bell/Telus network but will be a bit behind on deployment of their GSM network in Saskatchewan. Ostensibly the launch was to compete with the new upstart compaies that will be arriving soon. Practically the launch seems a bit premature as neither Bell nor Telus seem ready for it — but there is no doubt on the "Wet Coast" that it is so they will be ready to try to capitalize on GSM phone roaming charges during the Olympics next February. If their network isn't up and running, all that revenue would have gone to Rogers.
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I was in a mall here in Victoria on Wednesday and there were more people in the Bell store than I had ever seen there total, let alone at one time. The Telus store had no sign that they would be adding any products the next day — I wasn't back to see if anything changed. I was also in a "generic" store which sells several makes of phone and I heard a conversation between a sales person and a customer about how there were more options with the new Bell GSM phones that were released that day. The sales person was definitely hedging — he never mentioned Telus as if he were prohibited from that. He just told the customer he could fix him up with a phone that day but "if he came back tomorrow some of the stock in the back will be unpacked" the local papers had talked about the Telus launch the next day, so I assumed the stock in the back included both Bell and Telus phones.

My interest is twofold. My contract with Telus is up for renewal shortly. I am already getting the "deals" offered for extending my contract with a new phone. So far everything I've been offered is CMDA not GSM. I have a rather good plan with Telus for local service and up until this past week I have been assuming I would likely renew it. I use it pretty much as my only phone.

My biggest complaint is the hassle when I travel. It is outright embarassing to give someone my callback number knowing full well they will pay long distance toll charges to Victoria and I will pay back to wherever I am if they return a call to me. I paid a lot of money for long distance while in rural Nova Scotia dealing with a family emergency last March. The calls I initiated were "local" and in most cases included with my "plan". However when people returned calls to me, it wasn't local for either of us even if they were across the street from me. The nature of the situation was such that I couldn't very well say "I'll call you right back". I didn't find out about SO until after that trip — either a Speak Out Phone or a Petro Canada phone would have paid for itself and the airtime in that one trip in saved long distance charges. I had someone who could have bought SO time here and/or in Manitoba for me if I needed to add time on Speak Out — and I could have topped up a PC phone locally or on the Internet.

I also have a Rogers Internet Stick which I purchased for a specific need for temporary Internet use. I got it when they were first promoting them and could have paid full price and then used it for the short term for that need. (Same trip to rural Nova Scotia). I chose to spread the same amount of cash over time by signing up for a one year data plan. The stick has come in handy a couple of times since the trip — once when a friend moved and couldn't get her internet connected for a week, and the other on a trip I made out of province. The SIM card from that phone works for browsing on a Windows Mobile phone I have. I just have to remember not to use it for voice or I'll get a big bill from Rogers.

My SO phone is the same smart phone — I just change out the Rogers SIM with my SO SIM. I'm going to try the SO Unlimited Browsing later this week. My SO phone has a 204 area code and it is perfect for me as I have family in both Winnipeg and Rural Manitoba. It gets around the long distance callback hassles as incoming Manitoba calls are flat rate and 10 cents per minute less than Telus charge me. And most importantly they are local for the person calling me.

I was hoping the impending renewal date of my Telus cell phone and the expiry of my data plan with Rogers might be the time to consolidate things. I'm really curious how the Manitoba situation will play out. MTS/Allstream and Bell are at war in Ontario and/or at the CRTC regarding wholesale internet access and pricing so it is no surprise that MTS didn't join the Bell/Telus system. Telus and/or Bell have some infrastructure in Winnipeg but nothing outside the city, All the towers that would give full rural coverage are either controlled by MTS or Rogers. The Bell/Telus conglomorate are going to have to spend a lot of dollars if they want rural coverage. MTS and Rogers are obligated by the CRTC to allow use of their infrastructure to the new startup companies — but not the established ones.

The western end of Ontario is MTS not Bell for cell service in a number of areas. Bell never did service that area even for land lines, and the municipal phone companies partnered with MTS to get cell service on the CMDA nework.

If Telus GSM service goes to a "roaming" service at the Manitoba Saskatchewan border, and at Sault St Marie on the other end — Rogers may very well be getting my business.

Any input will be welcomed.
…ron…

Actually I'm no longer a Manitoban so I can't really do much with any politicians there — as if I could have when I lived there.

MTS is a private corporation and no longer a provincially owned company. They own Allstream Communications and operate as MTS-Allstream in a lot of Canada and parts of the US.

Whether they are an embarassment or not may be subjective. The 3 Prairie Provinces have the largest percentages of their provinces covered by cell phones — a direct result of the provincial ownership of the old telephone utilities. Alberta was privatized first — to become Telus (the old BC tel was added later in a merger) and Manitoba second — keeping the MTS name. Only Sasktel is still provincially owned and responsive to that province's political system.

Whether you feel that MTS is an embarrassment or not, their cell rates are better than most if not all the other major carriers in Canada. I once had a Telus employee tell me that they couldn't get staff deals as good as the ones MTS offers everyone in the province.

If you are using Rogers and want to get really annoyed, compare what Rogers offers in Manitoba for prices compared to what they offer in the rest of Canada. The easiest way to do that is to go to the "Compare Cellular" Plans and Sevice page and open the Rogers page. Open tabs in each of BC, Manitoba, and Ontario. Then check what you get for the same price (often with the same plan name) in each tab. The Data Plans are similar or the same — the voice plans sure as H*** aren't. If Rogers can offer those prices for a province with a relatively small population base scattered over a huge (albeit reasonably flat) area, why can't they offer it in the much more heavily populated areas where there is a potential for a much larger customer base.

Obviously they do it to compete with MTS — which just adds to the reasons that others in this forum regularly refer to them as "Robbers". The very annoying part of all of that for the rest of Canada is that Rogers lets their prices "float" up to the levels that Bell and Telus charge. We are generally as Canadians getting ripped off for service. If Rogers offered the same prices nationally that they offer in Manitoba, Bell and Telus would have to sharpen their pencils a lot.

I've considered using a VOIP service with a Manitoba number forwarded to a BC number to save the hassles with the long distance to and from Victoria when I'm in Manitoba and someone calls me. It would save the person calling me the toll charge but not the return toll for me as long as I have a Victoria number. I still need a 204 number on the cell phone or a good long distance plan associated with the cell — the VOIP phone can't do that part.

Speakout is great in that my trips to Manitoba are somewhat random. The 365 day expiry works well for me. I can buy a year in advance and top up in either location and or along the way if I start running out of time. My only hassle is the need to carry two phones. My family and friends are not all in Winnipeg, so the fact that SO considers any 204 area code call to be local is a welcome bonus.

My real interest is in consolidating my Telus Cell Phone and My Rogers Internet Stick into one function that will work in both provinces and in between if I drive. From what I see, if I want it to be GSM, then Rogers is my only real choice. I'm going to give the Speak Out browsing thing a try — if it lets me check email by webmail and some basic browsing for weather and highway conditions, I may just stay with a BC voice only cell phone and the SO phone for browsing and Manitoba calls.

Thanks for the feedback I'm fishing for ideas and opinions before my Telus plan runs out..
…ron…

I wrote a reply that told me it was saving — then it disappeared. So forgive me if this one comes up as a double post.
I used MTS cell phones from 1990 when MTS first went on the air until 2002 when I moved to BC. I traveled extensively across Canada and occasionally into thr US in that time and never had problems with lack of coverage. Besides my work travel, I had family in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia and my phones worked well in any travels in that area. I had a variety of phones over that time frame and had no problems with any of them, nor with those my staff carried.
Since moving to BC, I've had several Telus phones and they have worked well in Manitoba whenever I've travelled there. I have also used those phones in other areas of Canada and along the various highways between Vancouver Island and Manitoba. My Telus phone works as "Local" all over Manitoba. That is one of the reasons I'm wondering where the move to GSM at Telus will lead.

There is a not much coverage from the Manitoba/Ontario border until you reach Sault St Marie. Thunder Bay Tel do have some coverage there but it is far from continuous.

Rogers has more coverage in Rural Manitoba than they do in Rural Saskatchewan or the Interior of BC as well. They cover all of southern Manitoba, not just Highways 1 and 16 like they do in Sask. Once you leave Manitoba headed east Rogers dissapears until Thunder Bay, then reappears at Sault St Marie.