Agile Animal

Prelude - Thank You Vancouver 2010

The Vancouver 2010 Games will leave many legacies for Vancouver and Whistler. And while the infrastructure left behind will benefit Canadians, the greatest impact that the Olympics will have is on the state of Wireless Network Access in Canada. To cash in on the ridiculous amount money to be made in roaming from overseas customers, Bell (and Telus) completely refitted their network infrastructure to use HSPA+ (GSM).

The State of the WIreless Nation

With Bell (and Telus) covering most of the Country with HSPA+ and Rogers covering most of the Country with HSDPA (and some select cities - not my city - with HSPA+) things and really amazing. I have posted some speed test results over on my tumblog for Bell, Rogers and Shaw Cable. My wired cable Shaw connection is still fastest on the download but Bell is over twice as fast on uploads. And due to the fact that Rogers has a very small HSPA+ footprint you can expect Bell’s network to be about twice as fast in most places.

The HSPA+ network is faster than standard ADSL. Significantly faster. As in you will notice it is faster. Especially if you are connecting in to a corporate VPN.

Since the HSPA+ launch I have been reading posts from Americans all over the place to the effect of “I am jealous of Canadians and their wireless prowess.”

The Punchline

It is at the point now where I am recommending to my colleagues that they switch to Bell Wireless for their business related internet access. Unless you are downloading movies/super-large files or hosting your own server it provides exceptional value. Since using the service wrong can cost you a lot of money, I am going to explain this in detail: the wireless internet provided by Bell or Rogers will cost you a lot of money if you download movies. Use it for things like email, twitter, posting blog entries and connecting to the corporate VPN.

If you don’t want to have a USB stick hanging out of your laptop at home there is Cradlepoint. You can pick up a wireless router that can use your Bell Wireless Internet as the primary connection for your house. Again, don’t do this if you intend to transfer more than 5GB of data in a month and make sure you are on an appropriate plan (read: torrent users, this is not for you - you thieving b*****ds. Everyone else, make sure you have enough data or select a flex plan.). However, if you are checking email, surfing the web and connecting to the corporate VPN this solution will likely work quite well and be about as expensive as the equivalent wired service.