TELUS Mobility CDMA2000 1XEVDO Wireless Network, Canada

In June 2002, TELUS Mobility launched its CDMA2000 1X wireless network in Canada after completing market trials in May of the same year. The 1XEVDO upgrade was implemented in 2004–2005.

The TELUS Mobility 1X service's top speed now since the adoption of 1XEVDO technology in 2005 is as high as 700kbps under optimal conditions, while achieving average speeds of about 500kbps. Other benefits are higher call capacity and improved battery life for 1X user equipment.

The 1X network was initially rolled out in Canada's major urban centres including Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa and Quebec City. TELUS Mobility has also entered into a roaming agreement with Verizon Wireless in the USA for seamless cross boarder communications.

TELUS Mobility had about 2.6 million subscribers at the time of the 1X network launch, which has now grown to 4.5 million (2006). TELUS is the largest telecommunications company in Western Canada, with more than $7.6bn annual revenue and 4.8 million network access lines.

VELOCITY WIRELESS MOBILE COMPUTING

In November 2005 TELUS Mobility launched its national wireless high-speed network, offering clients in Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver access to the internet, email servers and other data networks at speeds at least six times faster than previous mobile data services.

The new system has typical download speeds of 400kB to 700kB per second and possible speeds of more than 2MB per second. TELUS Mobility plans to extend the wireless high-speed service to other urban centres in 2006.

Based on the CDMA 1XEVDO standard, the newest third generation (3G) wireless data technology available, wireless high-speed was built with network infrastructure solutions provided by Lucent Technologies and Nortel.

The TELUS connection manager software, also provides mobile computing clients using portable PCs and a TELUS Mobility PC card with one-click access to the best available wireless network and built-in acceleration software that can increase data access speeds by two to three times on wireless high-speed or 1X data networks through data compression.

NetScreen security solutions provided firewall and Virtual Private Network (VPN) functionality for the wireless high-speed network.

RADIO NETWORK EQUIPMENT

In 2002 Lucent Technologies entered into an agreement with TELUS Mobility for the supply of 3G mobile network infrastructure, equipment, software and services. Lucent delivered CDMA2000 1X equipment including channel cards and software to upgrade existing Lucent base stations previously ordered by TELUS.

In Western Canada, TELUS drew on Nortel Networks for the supply of CDMA2000 1X packet core, access and radio equipment to serve Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, and Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta.

Nortel Networks IP-enabled network, in addition to allowing for advanced data services, doubled voice capacity for the TELUS network.

TELUS MOBILITY BILLING SYSTEM

TELUS Mobility was the first Canadian wireless provider to introduce pay-as-you-go services. Ordering a new billing system from Portal Software facilitated the step. The Infranet Wireless billing solution supports pay-as-you-go billing and also allows tracking accurately subscribers' usage of advanced data services offered through the 1X network as well as accounting for revenue distribution among the more than 100 strong array of third-party content partners.

TELUS Mobility's pricing model is based on a flat rate as well as the amount of data downloaded through the network, rather than minutes spent online. Infranet Wireless allows for billing per content for both prepaid and postpaid subscribers while accounting for multiple content partners.

1X COVERAGE EXPANSION THROUGH ROAMING AGREEMENT

By the end of 2005 TELUS Mobility 1X was available to around 90% of the Canadian population.

Between the commercial launch in 2002 and 2005 TELUS Mobility added network coverage for an additional one million potential subscribers in Atlantic Canada including New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. This was achieved through a reciprocal roaming / resale agreement with Aliant Mobility.

LEAD CONTRACTORS

TELUS Mobility entered into infrastructure agreements with Lucent Technologies in Eastern Canada and Nortel Networks in Western Canada.

Portal Software was chosen as billing system provider for advanced data services.

On the service side, TELUS Mobility entered into an agreement with Openwave for download technology that delivers images and polyphonic ringtones to users on demand from their PCS phones, with item charges levied on subscriber phone bills. TELUS Mobility also worked with Sun Microsystems to offer Java-based applications.

Data Solutions Channel partners include Charon Systems Inc., Citrix Systems, Inc., Compugen Systems Ltd., Gibraltar Solutions Inc., Hewlett-Packard, LOGICORP, Metafore Corporation, MicroAge, PC Corp, Quiettouch Inc., TELUS Enterprise Solutions Inc., TELUS Solutions D'Affaires, ThinApse Corporation, TLD Computers Inc. and Veritech Informatique Inc.