AGiLE ANiMAL™

Bell’s HSPA+ Covers Almost Everywhere

With the launch of Bell’s HSPA+ network I suspect that there are going to be a bunch on converts from Rogers to Bell. Rogers is only taking care of 5 canadian cites (at the time I wrote this blog) with their HSPA+. Bell pretty much covers everywhere that I have ever been in Canada. And I have travelled coast to coast.

It is hard to argue with a network that offers HSPA+ everywhere.

The only question that remains - what do you do with your Rogers Internet Stick? Bring it with you!

Disclaimer

If you are stopping to read this disclaimer, chances are this is not for you. You might wreck something. You are better off just selling your old stick on Kijiji or Craig’s List.

Unlock the Stick

Unlocking a Internet Stick is actually much more painless than unlocking a phone. I went to [DC Unlocker]:http://www.dc-unlocker.com/ and paid about $15 for 10 unlocking credits. I then had to find a computer running Windows (in my case I grabbed the other laptop and launched VMWare.) All I had to do was run the unlocking software with a Bell SIM card inside the Rogers Stick.

Pro Tip: either buy the SIM card without a plan or borrow a SIM card for this. If for some reason the Unlock fails you don’t want to be signed up to a plan.

Get a SIM Card

This is actually the most painful part. The entirety of the current Bell staff don’t get the whole “just give me then damn SIM card” thing. Usually it takes about 30 minutes by the time they talk to their manager, etc. Likely they will make you sign up for a plan before you leave - like I said, they don’t get SIM cards yet.

I’d suggest going with a 30 day plan. The next time you need a new laptop you can then cancel the plan and SIgn up for a new one at Best Buy - they will give you a $150 discount on a new laptop.

Pro Tip: Don’t sign up for a 3 year contract unless you are getting something worth about $200 for free. That contract is going to cost money if you want to break it and Bell owes you something for signing it. Large companies like Best Buy will make sure that when you sign up for a deal like this you get something sweet for free.

The Settings

Yeah this is the simple part. Once you have an activated SIM you just need to change some settings from my previous article on the Rogers Internet Stick.

Go into System Preferences and then select Network. You will need to change the dialup account created for your Internet Stick.

For Bell, there is no Telephone Number, Account Name or Password. Leave them blank. Then you just need to change the APN in Advanced Settings:

APN: inet.bell.ca

Once this is done clicking connect should be it.

The Punchline

During peak hours things might be a bit slower but I am consistently seeing around 7.0Mbps down and 2.5 MBps up.

Which is pretty amazing if you ask me.

Way to go Bell.