Bell Mobility follows T-Mobile, AT&T’s lead; 3G network now to be called ’4G’

By on Mar 1, 2011 at 6:40 PM
General March 1, 2011

Despite the fact that Canadian wireless provider Bell Mobility will be rolling out LTE in the near future, it — like many of its peers — has decided to play the name game when it comes to “4G.” In an internal memo to employees, Bell explains that its high-speed HSPA+ network will henceforth be known as 4G. “Given the significant improvements in performance and quality the wireless carriers have made to their networks, the ITU has reassessed the definition of 4G standards,” reads the note. “This re-classification allows Bell to promote the HSPA+ network as 4G.” The changes take effect today, though there’s no word on how Bell’s marketing department will differentiate its 4G LTE network from its 4G HSPA network. Hit the jump to check out the full memo.

Thanks, B!

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  • Anonymous

    Prepare to lose an arm (and/or a leg) if you are with Bell. This infamous company are known for bring in usage based billing of 25GB per month to every one and known for making tons of billing error without admitting

  • http://twitter.com/SParKlngCyaNide SparklingCyanide

    About time!! I think people often forget about the significant improvements in performance and quality the wireless carriers have made to their HSPA+ networks and that they have every right to call it 4G as it is as fast or faster than current LTE networks and are only going to get faster,,

    • Fastwalking

      Not true. The speeds Bell is achieving are nowhere near as fast as real 4G. The only reason they get away with it is because the precedent has been established in the US by carriers there making similar claims about improved 3G service – BUT it’s NOT 4G.

  • http://twitter.com/jbarajasp Jose P Barajas

    Shame on them for branding a 3g network as 4g…. oh well…. come on carriers, focus on building true 4 th generation networks rather than over pumping your dated 3g ones…

    • $$$$$

      Tell me why should they waste their money on a technology that has no real eco system and is quite costly to perform? Their will be only a few phones till mid year to chose from not to mention if they can reach speeds equal to or greater than LTE with just a software update why was the money. When they do the some of the cost will be passed on to you Joe customer who then will bitch
      that their bill went up. I know why, just to say you have it right?

    • jay_max

      Shame on Verizon for branding its LTE network as 4G. When they deploy LTE-a then they can call it 4G. Until then, you’d better lump them in with AT&T and TMO.

  • Tomm

    So when carriers reach what the ITU actually deems 4G, will they call it “6G?”

    • http://www.facebook.com/schramk Kevin Schram

      Bieber 6G Fever.

  • Plantemichel

    Bell is a garbage trashes company who doesn’t know how to serve it’s client. I know from personal experience. Bell sucks !!!

    Rogers rocks !!!

  • Anonymous

    Whatever G becomes gimmick now.
    However, we can’t overlook the evolution of technology. Now HSPA+ becomes “post 3G network” according to the definition of ITU, and HSPA+ still has room to grow to compete with true 4G.

  • Boogz Hrz

    TELUS did it first in canada look it up

  • Anonymous

    Cool how a smaller carrier started a trend. Have to give T-Mobile props. Anyways I have had no problems with tmobile 4g network here.

    • Anonymous

      Well, technically Sprint started this whole hubbub, but it was T-MobileUSA whom converted it into marketing gold.

  • Anonymous

    iPhone4 on Bell in Vancouver with 5 bars:

    down: 4.51 Mbps
    up: 1.30 Mbps
    ping: 190 ms

  • http://twitter.com/Davva360 David Moore

    I have 2 issues with this:
    1. It causes so much confusion amongst consumers who think the networks must have done something.
    2. Most HSPA+ devices do not get 4G speeds or anything close. When I think of 4G I think about speeds that would rival Cable internet at home. Somewhere in the 15MB/sec to 20MB/sec range. Most people are getting 3MB/sec. 5 if they are lucky.

  • Anonymous

    Is anyone surprised by this?

    ISP’s have shown time and time again that they have no interest whatsoever in doing anything that remotely resembles the truth. We are told time and time again that we can get X speeds yet most get nowhere near that and yet consumers pay for the X speed. We are told that ISP’s can’t afford certain amounts of data yet have never actually been shown that. We are told that 4g is on multiple ISP’s yet none are actually even 1/10th close to it

    ISP’s have no reason to tell the truth since they have little to no rules/regulations to follow. They lie? So what?

  • http://www.facebook.com/Jimmy.A.G.Rosky Jay G Rosky

    This really pisses me off, the big carriers roll out these upgrades to there old as dirt data networks that finally give you acceptable 3g speeds and then pass it off as 4g. When customers start getting privy to their carriers purposely misinformed marketing what do the carriers do? Go to the ITU and line somebodies pockets enough to get the definition changed! Who cares really? marketing gets to keep there 4G bait and switch and the dumbass customers paying for it will never know the better.

  • Fastwalking

    Bell has always been the one to make false claims about its service. They offer “high speed” internet that has been independently proven to be no faster than regular internet and they get away with it by saying “speeds up to…,” rather than promising any specific speed.

    Now here they go with fake 4G. Not surprising. It’s a lot cheaper to lie than to invest in your infrastructure right? Anyone considering useing Bell as their service provider (shudder) should do some homework first.

    • Pinoe

      you do know that their HSPA+ is at 42mbps right

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