As wireless carriers look to drive revenue from data, there's a lot of talk about next-generation networks - be they UMTS, EVDO, 1X, etc. During Rogers Communications' fourth-quarter conference call last week, CEO Nadir Mohamed talked a lot about HSDPA, which is the seen as the evolution of UMTS technology.
In a recent report, TD Securities said it was impressed with Nortel's technology during demos at the 3GSM show in Cannes. "Nortel was only vendor actually willing to show off HDSPA in public view using a standard PC card as the consumer terminal," TD said. "Most other vendors hid their “solution” from inspection by conference-goers. Nortel hooked up a HSDPA-enabled base station to the existing commercial UMTS network in Cannes (built by Nortel last year, owned by Orange).
TD also came away from Cannes with some questions about how carriers are going to drive revenue from wireless broadband technology. Most executives, it discovered, were strong on hyperbole but vague on details. The two big questions are what applications wll be pumped down the pipe (e-mail, music, real Web, etc.) and how much people are willing to spend for mobile speed.

For people looking to see how Cisco's doing in the telephony market, Cogeco Cable said todaythat its residential telephony service, which will be launched later this year, will use Cisco's network technology, including IP softswitches and voice gateways. I guess the folks at Nortel can't be too happy about missing out on the business. Cogeco's interconnectivity to the PSTN and long-distance routing will be done by Telus Corp.

Last week, Virgin Mobile USA announced it passed the three million subscriber barrier - a eye-catching achievement given the business, which rides on Sprint's wireless network, has been around for only three years. Despite Virgin's success, there does not seem to be enthusiastic interest in MVNOs in North America. One reason is the carriers probably believe there is plenty of grow left in the market without having to use partners to generate growth. In Canada, where penetration is only approaching 50%, it will be interesting to see the Virgin-Bell Canada MVNO partnership, which will launch March 1. It it works, maybe Telus and Rogers will climb onboard. If Virgin makes life miserable for Bell, Rogers and Telus by attracting pre-paid users and people unhappy with paying for minutes they do not use and network access fees, Bell could regret the day it got into bed with Richard Branson.
I would not under-estimate Virgin's appeal. There are plenty of people out there who want a wireless phone but unhappy with what's out there right now. Hopefully, Virgin will show there is an appetite for choice and this will encourage the CRTC to give competition a boost by introducing local-number portability. It may even encourage the fat and happy carriers to offer customers more choice in packages and devices.