Telus and Bell hammer nail into the coffin of UMB

Posted by Paul Lambert Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

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Telus and Bell Canada’s long-awaited decision to opt for LTE for its next generation technology almost certainly signals the end of Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), the next generation of CDMA technology.

Bell and Telus, Canada’s second and third largest operators respectively, join a long list of CDMA operators that have opted for LTE over UMB, and their decision will probably force the hand of CDMA operators who have yet to commit to LTE to do just that.

Such is the commitment to LTE from major CDMA operators, including Verizon Wireless, that UMB may never actually be commercialised – a major blow to the CDMA community.

Canadian CDMA players Telus and Bell say they plan to build WCDMA networks on top of their existing networks and have announced plans to migrate to LTE-based services.

“Bell’s transition to the global 4G LTE standard with a combined EV-DO- and HSPA-network path aligns us with more than 30 major carriers worldwide planning a similar move to LTE,” Stephen Howe, senior vice president of wireless networks and chief technology officer at Bell Mobility, was quoted as saying.

Telus and Bell, which have had a network-infrastructure-sharing deal since 2001, have selected Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Huawei as infrastructure providers for the national network overlay.

Bell said that it intended to continue to support and expand its CDMA/1xEV-DO network while it rolled out the WCDMA/HSPA network.