TORONTO-The major Canadian carriers are cautiously laying the groundwork for third-generation (3G) wireless networks. But true, full-blown 3G in Canada is at least three to four years away.
“Canadian mobile operators are unlikely to reach the promised land of mobile data services in one single step,” said Brahm Eiley, president of The Convergence Consulting Group of Toronto. “In the next 12 to 18 months, we should see the introduction of more and more useful mobile data (applications), which will in turn lead to buildout of customer bases, creation of new value chains and birth of mobile portals. Only then will it make sense to expand significant capital resources on 3G.”
The pace of the rollouts will be contingent on 3G spectrum auction. Industry Canada, the federal regulatory agency, will auction 40 megahertz of spectrum in the 2 GHz frequency band in November. Four blocks will be available in 14 areas for a total of 56 licenses across the country. In the meantime, the five incumbents are gravitating to 3G in slightly different fashions.
Bell Mobility, Clearnet Communications and Telus Mobility will be testing 1X Radio Transmission Technology (1XRTT), an interim step before moving to the cdma2000 3G wireless standard.
Microcell Telecommunications and Rogers AT&T Wireless will upgrade to the 2.5-generation General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) before embarking on 3G service.
Either way, the interim technologies will provide data speeds 10 times faster than current personal communications services (PCS), but less than half the speed of complete 3G. “The full singing and dancing version of 3G will allow for 384 kbps (kilobits per second) for wireless access while driving and 2 Megabits (per second) for stationary use,” said Vino Vonerai, director of industry relations for Bell Mobility of Toronto.
Speech travels well over 9.6 kbps, but fast Internet access and multimedia communications require about 2 Mbps.
Bell Mobility begins its 2.5G field trials later this year, with commercial 2.5G services scheduled for mid- to late 2001. The carrier is improving its 14.4 kbps network, increasing compression to bring data speeds to 56.6 kbps. Bell Mobility is using Nortel equipment to link its underlying 3G infrastructure.
Clearnet will invest heavily with Lucent Technologies to furnish its PCS network and will rely on Motorola to supply the handsets for its upgraded Mike packet-data service. The upgrade paths will be through Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) technology.
Telus Mobility will commence field trials of 2.5 CDMA technology (1XRTT) at the end of this year using Nortel equipment. Handsets for the pilots will come from Qualcomm and Samsung. The carrier’s plans for upgrading to 3G services have not yet been formalized. Telus Mobility is waiting to see what data applications customers want and will look at the acceptance of the 2.5G offering before undertaking the additional investment.
Microcell is moving to deploy GPRS and is currently testing the technology. It is gunning for a commercial rollout as early as the fourth quarter of this year. Once the carrier has upgraded to a GPRS network, it plans to offer a variety of mobile devices from manufacturers such as Research in Motion and Palm Computing. In December 1999, Microcell launched field trials of 3G network technology in Montreal with Ericsson Canada, Telesystems International Wireless (TIW) and the North American GSM Alliance.
Rogers AT&T Wireless is planning to apply the IS-136/EDGE airlink standard for its 3G initiatives. The network should be ready by the first quarter of 2001, and the operator is planning on commercial deployment in second-quarter 2002. “The EDGE technology we’re using is the most attractive because it actually brings the convergence point to GSM and TDMA. We recognized the commonality in the underlying backbone protocol is imperative for a smooth migration to 3G,” said David Neale, vice president of product development at Rogers AT&T Wireless. The carrier has been working with Ericsson in building out its network.
