What is Bell Mobility?

Bell Mobility is the division of Bell Canada which sells wireless services in Canada. Bell Mobility boasts over 5.5 million subscribers as of March 2006 and the most rate plans of any provider in North America. As of July 2006, Bell Mobility has assumed responsibility for the former Aliant wireless operations in Atlantic Canada as part of a larger restructuring of both Bell and Aliant, and continues to do business there as Aliant Mobility.^[1]

Virgin Mobile Canada, Bell-owned Solo Mobile and PC Mobile operate as MVNOs on the Bell Mobility network.

Equipment

Their cellular network utilizes AMPS, CDMA, PTT, 1xRTT and, as of November 2005, EV-DO technology.

Their handset lineup includes phones from LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sanyo, PDAs from Kyocera, Motorola, palmOne, RIM and UTStarcom, and data cards from Sierra Wireless and Kyocera.

Advertising campaigns

As part of their current media advertising campaign in print and on TV, Bell Mobility features a pair of anthropomorphic CGI beavers named Frank (voiced by Norm MacDonald) and Gordon (voiced by Ken Hudson Campbell) ^[2], who constantly get into misadventures which lead to Frank getting flustered with the antics of the dimwitted Gordon.

The Frank and Gordon ad campaign ranks at the top of the most-loved and most-hated advertisements. Analysts covering a potential restructuring of BCE suggested getting rid of the mascots. They have also criticized some of Bell Mobility's initiatives as failing to tap the market, such as offering expensive full-length movies (while rival Rogers Wireless offers YouTube clips). Analysts also suggested converting from CDMA to GSM, as this would allow Bell Mobility to benefit from revenue generated by visitors' roaming, and because most new cell phones are designed for GSM first before CDMA. ^[3]

Controversy

Many of the bell mobility phones are crippled in that they do not allow file transfers. Bluetooth and USB cable based file transfer abilities are not possible in software on many of the Bell phone offerings. This prevents users from transferring movies and pictures taken with the phones leaving sending the data through the cell network as the most convenient yet expensive option. Ways around these limits are to get a phone with an external memory card, or to use software tools like BitPim to access the files(after installing drivers).

References

External links

• Bell Mobility Official Website
• Bell Wireless Data Solutions Official Business-oriented website.
• Aliant Mobility - currently remains on the Aliant website

This box:  •  • [ edit] Canadian mobile phone companies
Major network operators
Bell / Aliant Mobility Rogers Wireless TELUS Mobility
Regional network operators
DMTS Mobility ICE Wireless MTS Mobility NorthernTel Mobility NMI Mobility SaskTel Mobility Tlbec Mobilit TBayTel Mobility
Mobile virtual network operator
7-Eleven Wireless Cityfone DCI Telecom Fido PC Mobile Petro-Canada Mobility Primus Canada SearsConnect Solo Mobile uWho Wireless Videotron Virgin Mobile Canada

•  • [ e] BCE Inc.
Corporate Directors	Richard Currie • Andr Brard • Ronald Brenneman • Anthony Fell • Donna Kaufman • Brian Levitt • Edward Lumley • Judith Maxwell • John McArthur • Thomas O'Neill • Jim Pattison • Robert Pozen • Michael Sabia • Paul Tellier • Victor Young
Assets	Bell Aliant (45%) • Bell Canada • Bell ExpressVu • Bell Mobility • Bell Sympatico • CTVglobemedia (15%) () • Telesat Canada