Canada's National GPRS Service
By James Careless
from the April 16, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
OTTAWA, CANADA--Next generation mobile wireless service is being launched in the Great White North, at least for messaging device users.
Microcell Connexions, whose national networks support the "Fido" digital wireless phone service in Canada, has finished installing its "2.5G" general packet radio service (GPRS) infrastructure--the first such "national" network in North America.
The result: as of now Microcell is wholesaling 56 kilobits per second wireless data capacity Canada-wide, including back office support and billing. In addition, this speed will soon be boosted to 128 kbps, says Rajiv Pancholy, president and chief operating officer of Microcell Connexions. That's almost ten times better than the 14.4 kbps data speed currently available on Canada's wireless networks.
As well, thanks to cross-border agreements with such U.S. carriers as VoiceStream Wireless, Microcell will be able "to support our customers when they travel to the U.S. using GPRS technology," Pancholy says. According to Microcell Connexion's research, over 45 million cross-border trips are made between Canada and the United States annually.
VoiceStream has indicated it's shooting for a national rollout of GPRS services in the United States sometime this year.
Of course, offering GPRS capacity is one thing. Actually having someone using it is another. Wireless pundits for some time have cautioned that even as service providers actually build and launch 2.5G or 3G services, advanced mobile phones that can take advantage of new capabilities enabled by those networks--streaming video, for example--will be in short supply.
So where does Microcell Connexions stand on this second front? Well, as a wholesaler the company won't be providing GPRS services directly to consumers, says Pancholy. But Microcell already has a deal in place with Research in Motion, makers of the RIM BlackBerry wireless handheld, to offer RIM's own wireless data services nationwide over the Microcell GPRS network. That's a change from RIM's current wholesale business model, which sees the Waterloo, Ontario-based equipment supplier selling through wireless carriers such as Bell Mobility and Rogers AT&T.
As for other consumer/business GPRS products, Microcell's Pancholy won't say much, beyond commenting that they should start hitting the market "before the summer." Time will tell just what these services are, and whether 2.5G GPRS applications are as hot as everyone hopes them to be.
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