My Cellphone My Terms

Who are the main cell phone providers?

The wireless industry in Canada is hard to follow. There are currently over 25 wireless brands in the market. The majority of these brands are owned by the BIG three, Bell, Rogers and Telus. Many Canadians are not aware of this but smaller brands like Koodo, owned by Telus, Virgin & Solo owned by Bell and Fido owned by Rogers are considered to be the the Big 3′s discount brands.  Many of these discount brands will save customers an average of 15% or more on service by having cheaper rate plans and eliminating system access fees.

Bell and Telus transitioned from their previous CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) network to HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) network. The main reason for this change is to save money on the cost of devices, access to newer devices and to benefit from roaming revenues that were exclusive to Rogers.

More recently we have seen a number of new players enter the market.  These players are still relatively small in terms of network coverage and some will remain that way.  Wind Mobile is poised to be the only true national player and is currently offering service in Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.  The other new players, Mobilicity and Public Mobile are currently only serving the Greater Toronto Area and they will remain regional carriers.  In response to the new guys Rogers Wireless launched another new brand adding more confusion to a crowded market with Chatr Wireless and Bell has recently rebranded its Solo offering to match up with the new players’ plan offerings.

Heres hoping that some of these savings will be passed on to their customers.

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