The IT Nerd

Bell today announced the network readiness of 5G+, to be deployed across the country on Canada’s fastest and most awarded 5G wireless network, and offering unprecedented mobile data speeds.

In 2021, Bell secured prime 3500 MHz spectrum in urban and rural markets across the country, adding high-capacity airwaves critical to the evolution of Bell 5G on its network. Bell is now poised to deploy 3500 MHz wireless spectrum and unleash the next phase of 5G advancement. Bell plans to continue its network leadership position and deliver to customers the fastest 5G+ network in Canada, with its world-class network technology strategy and prime spectrum position.

Optimized for demanding apps and services, 5G+ is the fastest mobile technology yet in Canada. From gaming to streaming, to video conferencing, everything is expected to be faster and more responsive with peak theoretical download speeds of up to 3Gbps in select areas.

Bell 5G customers with compatible devices will soon have access to 5G+ capabilities, starting with those in Toronto. For all other 5G customers, until 5G+ is available in their area, they can continue to enjoy 4G, LTE and 5G on Canada’s best network. Bell will work towards offering 5G+ coverage to approximately 40% of the Canadian population by the end of 2022.

Bell continues to aggressively expand their fibre network rollout by announcing that they will bring all-fibre broadband access to approximately 160,000 additional locations in London by 2026. This expansion will bring speeds of up to 1.5 Gbps and access to Bell services such as Fibe TV to those customers. 

I have to say that both Bell and Telus have really been pushing the accelerator on their fibre rollouts. That in my mind will put them in the position of being the leaders in Internet access in Canada as they will simply have the fastest networks out there, which will attract customers to them and away from the competition such as Rogers. I say that because while Rogers has made some recent announcements, Bell and Telus both have quite the head start. Thus I have difficulty seeing how Rogers can catch up to them in a rapid manner.

Bell today announced the launch of the first public multi-access edge computing (MEC) with AWS Wavelength in Canada. Building on Bell’s agreement with AWS, announced last year, together the two companies are deploying AWS Wavelength Zones throughout the country at the edge of Bell’s 5G network starting in Toronto.

Bell Public MEC with AWS Wavelength embeds AWS compute and storage services at the edge of the Bell 5G network, closer to mobile and connected devices where data is generated and consumed. This enables software developers and businesses to take full advantage of the high speed and low latency of Bell’s 5G network and the cloud with AWS to build innovative, low- latency solutions that leverage real-time visual data processing, augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR), artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), advanced robotics, and much more.

Network infrastructure is the backbone for Canadian businesses today as they innovate and advance in the digital age. Organizations across retail, transportation, manufacturing, media & entertainment and more can unlock new growth opportunities with 5G and MEC to be more agile, drive efficiency, and transform customer experiences.

Optimized for MEC applications, AWS Wavelength deployed on service providers’ 5G networks provides seamless access to cloud services running in AWS Regions. By doing so, AWS Wavelength minimizes the latency and network hops required to connect from a 5G device to an application hosted on AWS. AWS Wavelength is now available in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, and Japan in partnership with global communications service providers.

Creating an immersive shopping experience with Bell 5G

Increasingly, retailers want to offer omni-channel shopping experiences so that consumers can access products, offers, and support services on the channels, platforms, and devices they prefer. For instance, there’s a growing appetite for online shopping to replicate the in store experience – particularly for apparel retailers. These kinds of experiences require seamless connectivity so that customers can easily and immediately pick up on a channel after they leave another channel to continue the experience. These experiences also must be optimized for high- quality viewing and interactivity.

Rudsak worked with Bell and AWS to deploy Summit Tech’s immersive shopping platform, Odience, to offer its customers an immersive and seamless virtual shopping experience with live sales associates and the ability to see merchandise up close. With 360-degree cameras at its pop-up locations and launch events, Rudsak customers can browse the racks and view a new product line via their smartphones or VR headsets from either the comfort of their own home or while on the go.

Bell Public MEC with AWS Wavelength is now available in the Toronto area, with additional Wavelength Zones to be deployed in the future.

A while ago I wrote about Bell having the upper hand on Rogers when it came to the speeds of their Internet offering. And yesterday, they did something that will absolutely make Rogers a complete non-factor when it comes to getting Internet access in Canada. Here’s the announcement from Bell:

Bell today introduced the fastest Internet speeds of any major provider in Canada, with total speeds three times faster than cable. Bell pure fibre Internet service now offers download speeds of 3 Gbps (gigabits per second) as well as upload speeds of 3 Gbps, providing that faster experience while working or learning from home, playing games or sharing videos with the upload speeds that cable cannot deliver.

This new service is now available in most parts of Toronto. But you can bet it will be coming to other places soon. And combine that with Telus doing just slightly slower speeds for their fibre offering in Western Canada, I can’t see a scenario where Rogers comes back from this. I say that for the following reasons:

• Rogers with their current cable offering can only hit a maximum speed of 1 Gbps downstream and a rather pathetic and uncompetitive 30 Mbps upstream. Which when compared to this new offering from Bell isn’t in the same league.
• While Rogers is doing a rollout of fibre in a few places starting with the east coast, they are years behind Bell on that front. And they are unlikely to catch up.

Now while I am a Rogers customer, but it is offerings like this that make me want to switch to Bell. That despite Bell’s horrible customer service which contrasts greatly to Rogers much better customer service being a factor as to why I haven’t pulled that trigger yet. But this new offering from Bell is tempting me. And I am sure it is tempting others as well.

Rogers, you have a problem.

I have to admit that I come into this somewhat jaded because of my recent horrible experience with Bell Canada, but when Bell posted this press release claiming that it was bringing “more value” to the Canadian wireless marketplace which is insanely expensive, I was skeptical. And reading it only made me more skeptical because this press release was focused around they Virgin Plus flanker brand. There was nothing in the press release about the Bell brand.

If they really wanted to bring value to Canadians, Bell would bring these same changes to the Bell brand. But clearly that’s not the plan as they still want to milk Canadians for every dollar possible. So I would take this press release and file it under “meaningless noise” because it doesn’t mean anything other than optics to check a box that was imposed upon them by the federal government.