Canadian Wireless Companies?

[willben123]

I live in Florida and curently have VZW and a BB Tour 9630 but I was wondering something. I know that RIM is Canadian or I think it is and I found myself wandering on Telus, Rogers and Fido's website. I was curious as to what kind of phones and plans do you guys in Canada have. It seems to me that Telus has more BBs available and Iphone and Rogers a little less with no Tour or Storm, and Fido even less but the best plans (or cheaper). I also noticed that you guys don't have unlimited data plan (which I'm not sure I need it on BB with lack of apps) and you have to sign for 3 years. Do you have to have SS # with good credit to get a line. Which company is better? Who has the best coverage, fastest data? Is it all GSM? How do they compare to VZW, ATT, T-Mobile and Sprint? I know this is a stupid post but reading all the stuffs on Canadian wireless companies on CB just triggered my nosyness!

[ohnoitsbrandon]

Canadian rates are horrible, all three big companies (bell, telus, rogers) all have pretty much the same options but different selection of phones. Bell and telus have the largest* and fastest* network, hspa, while rogers has gsm. Bell and telus also have cdma towers.
I don't know much about rogers but I know about bell and telus because I've had phones with both. On cdma you roam on verizon in the states and with an hspa phone, you roam on at&t.
Fido is owned by rogers. Koodo is owned by telus. Solo and virgin are owned by bell.
They do do a credit check, you might have to put down a deposit. You require a social security number (known as a social insurance number (sin) in Canada) for the credit check and you also need another piece of I'd, like a drivers license.
You can sign for less than 3 years but you get the best subsidy on a 3 year plan. Those are the norm up here.

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[derrickps]

The best price for data on sasktel is the $40 unlimited. It has voicemail, unlimited text messaging, email, bbm, and unlimited data all included. You just pick your voice plan based on your mins that you need.

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[HaggisHunter]

SaskTel will implement 3G/3.5G starting July 1 with a corridor from Regina to Saskatoon initially and covering virtually the whole province by the end of 2010. This will allow hassle-free roaming on all "Mobility consortium" carriers across Canada and may even include Rogers. Currently Telus uses CDMA (without an agreement!) on SaskTel towers and other CDMA carriers roam on SaskTel. At 98% of the population, SaskTel's cell coverage is second to none.
To put this in perspective, the population is about 1 million in an area near the size of Texas.

[yogi]

I am with bell and I have unlimited internet, email, bbm for $45.00

[steve7602]

ya prices in canada are way to high, im on the telus hspa network and im paying $50 for 500 mg's a month lol thats bad lolwhen i first got a blackberry when the first pearl came out unlimited internet cost $30 with voice plane included.

so ya were getting robbed hp here in the great white north lol

[kylecore]

And to burn us even more we get year old phones.
Aside from blackberrys any other smart or dumb phones usually takes well over 6 months to become available on contract this side of the boarder.
I mean it even took over a year for the original iphone to become officially carried by rogers here, and the 3gs version took something like an extra 4 months. Granted the newest iphone 4 was announced available for preorder the same day you guys could preorder it, but when it come down to it canadians really couldn't, and even if you managed to get in a pre order we won't see it shipped to nearly the end of july where you guys have gotten yours shipped already... Its a fat joke.

I love phones (not just berrys) and it just rubs me the wrong way knowing our tech is 6 months to a year behind you when I'm 45 minutes from the boarder. Currently the droid x, htc evo, samsung galaxy s (I know all android) are all available stateside for great prices, but not even an option for here.
The saddest part is (again sorry for another android reference) that by some mighty chance we get the new droid x or htc evo here by christmas(if then), it'll be old tech again because you'll be getting that new 1.5ghz or 2ghz "droid pro".
**** I'll be surprised if we get a windows phone 7 device within 6 months of one being released stateside

Sorry for my little rant, but it really is frustrating as all ****! Haha

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