I took my daughter to camp and my Blackberry on Telus gets no signal 40km west of Mississauga.There was no signal for a few miles until I got back on main road.Coverage area is all of southern Ontario,What gives,Does Rogers or Bell work better in remote areas of southern ontario?

No Blackberry/data experience but I travel a lot in southwestern Ontario - Guelph/KW and north-west - and get much better reception with Rogers than I did with Telus. It's one of the reasons I wanted to switch. I assume in most of the area, Telus is piggy-backing off Bell Mobility and would expect the same problems with Bell.

Telus uses the Bell Mobility network in Ontario and East to the Maritimes

Bell Mobility uses the Telus network in AB + BC

So whenever you hear Telus or Bell saying that their network is better than the other guy, you know that it is all marketing BS.

We need more competition in the wireless market in Canada

That doesn't make sense, Clearnet had a national network (although I suspect, like Fido, it was mainly in urban areas) and Telus bought them. Telus wouldn't have given up the Clearnet towers in the East, so surely in urban areas in Ontario and parts to the east, Telus has their own towers?

Telus has native coverage in Toronto and other parts of Ontario. Telus phones roam on Bell but prefer Telus coverage first.

In Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver and possibly Victoria, Bell has native coverage but their phones roam on Telus, preferring Bell wherever possible.

If you have a weak but unusable Telus signal in Toronto, your phone will lock on Telus and you won't be able to make a call, so there is a difference in the quality of the coverage.

As for rural coverage, check the coverage maps and bear that some phones are better than others. Does your phone support analog coverage? If I recall, some parts of remote Ontario are still analog only on the Bell network. If your phone doesn't support analog mode it won't get coverage. Even if the coverage is digital, on the fringe analog can work and digital can fail, so that can make a difference too.

Rogers is all digital so this is a moot point with them. GSM phones output a little more power than Bell/Telus' CDMA phones (1W vs. 0.6W) so that makes up for the fringe issues.

GSM phones can actually output 2 watts (correction from the above post) when the handset is rated at power class 4.

The Clearnet PCS network was a good 1900 mhz network, but they would fall back on roger's analog when they had no digital (CDMA). When Telus came to Ontario (Before the merger/aquisition) they used Bell's spectrum, so their phones were different they also incorporated 800 mhz cdma and 1900 mhz cdma and 800 mhz amps, while the clearnet phones only picked up 1900 mhz cdma and 800 mhz analog. After the aquisition, a lot of clearnet customers had to replace their phones. Some Telus customers are using the phones which have dual cdma frequency 800/1900, which pick up telus's 1900 and bell's 800, but they can not seemlingly hand off without dropping the call. Other telus phones picking up 1900 mhz only, have no analogue to fall back on and will thus, give an image of poor coverage. It is actually the proper coverage its showing because telus relies on bells network to give the image of a stronger network.

I guess coverage is all a matter of perspective. I was with Rogers and when I visited Newfoundland, their coverage was pathetic. Literally, less than 5 minutes outside St. John's and zero signal. I switched to Telus and can explore small towns and villages with full signal strength. I'm sure the reverse may be true in other areas. You have to see which works best for where you want to use it.

I guess Danny Williams hadn't developed a mobile phone company when he sold his cable tv business to Mr Rogers. Based on the time I have spend in NL, I would doubt anyone could build a business case for installing the infrastructure for a second wireless, and GSM, network over thousands of square kilometres of rock while Telus and Bell Alliant can share the CDMA network constructed with monopoly profits.

The perfect provider doesn't yet exist. That's why I have a prepaid CDMA phone (Virgin) to complement my postpaid GSM phone (Rogers).

If I used a CDMA provider as my primary provider, I'd complain about the lack of phone choice (I love being able to switch phones at will without any intervention or action required), but when I'm out of Rogers coverage I get a little annoyed. Having the prepaid phone takes care of that.

The metro St. John's area isn't that big, and is (relatively) densely populated. There aren't any large stretches devoid of population, just stretches devoid of Rogers' coverage. It matters little to me how Aliant/Telus got their coverage, the fact is, they do and my phone works. In my Mom's hometown, just 10 minutes from downtown St. John's, Aliant/Telus erected a new tower giving the area full coverage just a year ago, long after losing their monopoly. Rogers has zero coverage there.

In Atlantic Canada, I believe Telus has their own towers in major centres. I was told they have their own here in Halifax, but in the rural areas of the province, I'm roaming on Aliant towers for the most part.

Decent agreement they have going, I'd say. My coverage and service with Telus here in NS is much more comprehensive than Rogers, which seems to be going it alone in the towers department.

In the Maritimes Bell (Aliant, Virgin Mobile, PC Mobile) have much better coverage than Rogers but I recently learned that Bell enjoys superiority in much of Quebec and at least the Toronto area. I spent some time there recently and talked to ambulance and police people who have to go all over the place and in emergency situations they will use nothing but Bell.

In the Maritimes Bell (Aliant, Virgin Mobile, PC Mobile) have much better coverage than Rogers but I recently learned that Bell enjoys superiority in much of Quebec and at least the Toronto area. I spent some time there recently and talked to ambulance and police people who have to go all over the place and in emergency situations they will use nothing but Bell.
I'm not surprised that Bell dominates in Quebec since that's where its head office has been and where it has been the monopoly phone company and a major employer for decades. Likewise in the Maritimes, Bell Mobility is riding on the wings of the monopoly phone companies. Customer volume means the company can afford to build out its network with more towers and more capacity. As and if Rogers can add clients the infrastructure will be expanded I expect, but the company has to determine how much debt to take on to expand the network relative to the potential to gain new customers. (Virgin and PC Mobiie don't operate their own networks so the quality should be the same as Bell everywhere. Outside the major urban centres, Bell and Telus share networks depending, primarily, on who was the legacy monopoly phone company.

Rogers has been independently rated as having the clearest reception and I have witnessed this in the Greater Toronto Area since switching to Rogers earlier this year. The strength and clarity of the signal in marginal areas such as underground bus platforms has amazed me - Bell and Telus just display "no service" in such areas but Rogers clients are chatting away. I often have a Telus and a Rogers phone in my pocket and only the Rogers is getting a signal. Calls in Rogers have noticeably less static/noise.

Your comment about police and ambulance workers doesn't really make any sense to me. They don't use the public celluar network for official business; they do use whatever equipment is given them based on long-term contracts the city signs with providers to build and operate secure mobile communications systems. I know from a close friend who works in bus/streetcar communications for the Toronto Transit Commission that the TTC will not use any public cellular network for security reasons. I think it's a dumb and expensive policy, but if the bus company believes it needs its own network you can be sure the cops won't be carrying Virgin Mobile any time soon. (Underground communications is another matter and I understand why the TTC has to have its own system for the subway)

If police and ambulance workers prefer Bell for their personal use, it probably has more to do with discount pricing than with the service. For example, Royal Bank employees can get a wonderful rate on their personal cell phone packages because RBC has its corporate account with Bell. A close friend complains about the customer service and quality of service he gets from Bell Mobility but at about 1/2 the going market rate he's willing to put up with it.