The announcement was made in September.
Don’t sign up for Rogers, they are the most evil of cell companies.
Instead, go for a pay-as-you-go plan with 7-11, PetroCanada, Fido, etc… they all use the Rogers network. Or use President’s Choice or Virgin Mobile… they use the Bell network.
Consensus seems to be that the 7-11 Speakout Wireless and the President’s Choice Mobile are the cheapest and best deals. No contracts, no dealing with evilness.
Thanks…
Why so evil? was thinking about having a phone/web surfer all in one at a reasonable price.
The phone I have now is capable…I just dont wanna get screwed around by citywest…All I hear is woohoo rogers is coming…but mig why you say they are NFG?
First off, pointing out the blatantly obvious which I expect you already know. Belus phones won’t work with Rogers, period. Rogers is entirely GSM, a technology based on the TDMA standard. Belus phones are CDMA, totally incompatible. So no, Rogers won’t accept the Telus phones.
As for using your existing Telus phone on the Latitude/Bell/Citywest network, of course CityWest will tell you it can’t happen. And they’ll be lying too, because it can. Telus and Bell don’t have separate networks in BC, outside of certain spots in Vancouver and Kelowna. Western Canada is all Telus, and Eastern Canada is Bell. However each phone has an ID tag in it that identifies it as a Bell or Telus phone, basically saying “I’m part of network 4125” or something. So all new Bellphones will have a different network ID than the Telus ones. Really want to use that old Telus phone? Switch the network ID tag, away you go. I’m on roughly my 50th cellphone, and I’ve done it many times. It’s just not easy convincing the cellphone rep to do their part with a phone with the wrong logo.
As for Rogers being evil, of course they are. They’re a giant global (okay Canadian) conglomerate bent on world domination (or something). Every major cell company is evil. But if you avoid dealing with the people as much as possible, they’re fine. Directly comparing the service of my Rogers and my Telus phones, the Rogers phones have better reception, less spotty service, clearer voice signals, and much much cheaper prices for a heavy user like myself. I’m looking forward to cancelling my Telus contract and switching back to Rogers. But they’re still evil though…
I echo the above though. Anyone have a rollout date?
Wow, and I’ve never owned one, and haven’t used one in years.
Welcome to HTMF, dearthair:-)
I’m going to go see CityWest and see if they can switch my Telus phone over to the Bell network. My cel contract expires in June.
So I went to CityWest and let them know about dropped calls and the poor voice quality ( after the switch to Bell) and they said they’d have their technician look into it. If they fix that I’ll be happy.
Further to this, Citywest sent a voicemail to customers that basically said “in the near future, you’ll be receiving a text message to let you know when you have new voicemail.” To me, that means existing customers will get data services, on existing phones.
Voicemail here: menino.com/temp/message.wav
Note the voicemail says the switch would happen before November 30th. So I guess they’re a bit behind schedule.
i went to citywest today
wow what a lineup.
they seem to be having alot of troubles with the new network…
my phone kept switching over to analog. arg draining all the battery power
theyre not bringing out mobile browsing and such till december 9th either
It appears that both CityWest and Rogers are a bit behind schedule. Rogers advertised that they would have service in Terrace and Rupert “in November”. Unless my math is off, November ended a little over 13 hours ago.
I hate it when companies announce deadlines they can’t meet.
so the new hardware citywest got is incapable with bell Canada so this is why the cell phone thing is behind they are working on a solution…lol…
You have GOT to be kidding. Got any more details than that?
My phone seems to be using power more quickly now as well. I was paying my bar tab yesterday at Breakers and overheard a customer sitting at the bar saying that his phone was also quickly using battery power.
Interesting. Would a switch to a different network cause our phones to more quickly drain their batteries?
no… its just because theyre having so much problems with it. so it keeps switching back and fourth from digital to analog…
if you go into settings and switch the mode to digital only you wont have that problem anymore
its probly on automatic so it changes whenever the network goes funky.
analog drains power like mad.
Thanks for the tip. 
Yes, it was set to automatic. I’ve set it now to digital only.
did anyone happen to go to the citywest open forum last night?
if so, was there any actual news news? or just fluff about the
service that is yet to be fully functional…
The Analog Switching problem is ongoing. Seems switching it to Digital does not work either, cause some how it switches to Analog when ever it desires. Citywest acknowledges the problem and have no solution as yet, Called them and you get the usual answer “We are working on it”. Have my phone on “Home Only” mode and will see how that works…
I think the meeting takes place tonight (Wed night) at the Crest…
thanks podunk 
yes because analogue uses more power whereas digital will not
he asked if the NETWORK would make the power drain not the signal the phone is getting 