About Bell Canada:
Bell Canada is one of the big 3 telecommunications companies in Canada, has over 13 million phone lines and is based in Montreal, Quebec.
Mobile Internet Plans:
These plans are for people who know how much surfing they will be doing each month and are somewhat consistent. If you use up to 500MB then you will pay $35 per month while $40 a month gets you up to 1GB of data. $55 provides up to 3GB of data and $65 gets you 5GB. In addition, on this plan users get unlimited Wi-Fi at over 2000 Starbucks and McDonalds across Canada.
Mobile Internet Flex Plan:
This is designed for people who don’t have consistent internet usage each month. The way it works is that you start off every month at the lowest fee, and if your usage goes up, you move to a new price bracket along with your data consumption. So for up to 500MB per month, your price will be $35. If you use more than this, you move up to the $45/1GB bracket. If you use more than 1GB, then you need to pay $60 to access up to 3 GB of data. If you consume between 3 and 5GB of data you will have to pay $70 in that month.
When you sign up for either of these services, a $35 once-off activation fee will be charged. Any extra data used within that month beyond 5GB will be charged at 5c per MB. If you overrun this while in the United States, each MB will cost you $3.
Hardware:
Bell offers a few wireless stick modems:
The Novatel Wireless U998 comes with free connection manager software, has up to 32GB of storage (Micro SD), is compatible with HSPA+ networks, is quad-band and has speeds of up to 21mbps.
Their 4G Novatel Wireless U547 Turbo Stick is completely 4G compatible and can download at up to 42mbps. It has a hinged USB connector for awkward USB ports, a Micro SD card slot for up to 32GB of storage and is compatible with Mac or Windows. Once plugged in it will automatically download some software called Mobile Connect which is used to interface the stick with the Bell network.
The Novatel Wireless U950 Turbo Stick reaches speeds up to 7.2 mbps, comes with Mobile Connect, is PC and Mac compatible and is quad-band as well.
What Is 4G?
4G is the new, ultra high-speed internet successor to 3G and previously 2G. It is defined by an Internet protocol that runs above 100mb per second. It is hoped that 4G will finally bring high-speed internet to mobile devices such as tablets, mobile phones and laptops. While 3G does a good job, it is prone to reception issues, speed issues, and the lack of high-speed CPU chips in mobile devices doesn’t help either. While many protocols exist for the 4G standard such as LTE and Wimax, the only unifying factor is the speed. Older technologies such as GPRS and WAP were considered 2G.