Sasktel joins 4G Flim Flam

Just before the announcement of the mega merger south of the 49th, cellular carriers T-Mobile and AT&T started questionable advertising that touts their current HSPA networks as '4G' Even though Neither company has turned on any towers that have been upgraded to LTE a true fourth generation cellular network technology. 

Now just eight months after introducing 3G, Sasktel is promoting their HSPA network as being 4G.  Actual true 4G service in Canada is still a couple of years away, one of the frequency bands required for LTE, the 700 MHz band doesn't officially available until after August 31st when the television broadcasting industry requinishes that frequency band. 

The first LTE 4G services in Canada ared going to come from the big three carriers Telus, Rogers, and Bell that will be a few years.  LTE service from the regional carriers are several years away.  Even Sasktel isn't planning a network upgrade to LTE until 2015 - 2018. 
Word coming through the grapevine is that Rogers is planning to start offering LTE in Saskatchewan by 2012.  Despite bashing Rogers gets in Saskatchewan that is unjustified, stupid, and just plain wrong.  It's real 4G and not the same 3G with a 4G label that's dishonestly slapped on.

Dual Mode iPhone 5? Potentially Yes

Just a couple of months out of the gate the CDMA based iPhone 4, is going to be supplanted by an iPhone 5 as early as September an early sign that there will be a single model iPhone 5 that supports both CDMA and HSPA networks comes from an announcement from the Chief Financial Officer, Fran Shammo of Verizon Communications that next iPhone will be a Global model that would support both CDMA for Verizon's network and GSM for roaming outside of North America. 

Would it make sense to make a iPhone CDMA/GSM hybrid for Verizon and a HSPA only version for AT&T?  Would it make more sense to make a single model that supports both CDMA and HSPA to sell to all carriers that sell iPhones?  It would be cheaper for Apple's manufacturing partners though. 

A hybrid CDMA/HSPA iPhone would be beneficial to Canadian subscribers on Telus and Bell that still have some parts of their networks in remote areas that have not been upgraded to HSPA that are still CDMA only.  For smaller Canadian carriers MTS, Sasktel and TbayTel that launching the iPhone on April 26th, they still have large portions of their networks that will be CDMA only for a year or two to come.