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Telus, Koodo, and Public Mobile priority

powerg21
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

Hello fellow members,

 

I was told by a friend that in an event that the cell towers are congested with traffic, TELUS gives first priority to TELUS customers, and Koodo and Public Mobile customers get lower priority. Does anyone know if this is true?

 

16 REPLIES 16

They certainly have the ability to differentiate services with different priority settings. Prior to doing so, they would most likely set up some kind of agreement with Bell so both companies have the same strategy.

@sheytoon said: "The 3 brands (Telus, Koodo, PM) have the same admission and congestion control settings for their subscribers.".

Presumably the key missing word is "currently"? Given that Telus can distinguish PM 3G accounts from others and throttle speed, I'm not sure other access control features could be introduced. I do know giffgaff in the UK has lower priority on its parent O2 network when congestion occurs.


>>> ALERT: I am not a CSA. Je ne suis pas un Agent du soutien à la clientèle.

I was wondering when the bat signal was going to be employed and like clockwork @sheytoon  has answered the signal. I'm happy to see I was correct with my answer but @sheytoon could explain it with the right terminology.

Thank ou for bring truth to the forum again @sheytoon .  Always great to have your correct information to dispell misinformation.

@powerg21 

The 3 brands (Telus, Koodo, PM) have the same admission and congestion control settings for their subscribers.

 

That means the network, whether on native Telus RAN, Bell RAN, or Sasktel RAN, will treat those users equally. Radio resources are not reserved in advance for any user.

 

ARP, QCI, and Access Class values were the same last time I checked, and I don't anticipate that has changed.

 

VoLTE calls (Telus, Bell, Koodo, Virgin) have higher priority than LTE data. PM has not enabled VoLTE yet, so their voice calls are handled by the 3G network. That means voice calls may behave differently on PM during congestion, but other than that it's all equal.

 

First responders who are part of a special subscription are prioritized with different values for the settings mentioned above. This is currently offered on Bell.

https://business.bell.ca/shop/medium-large/mobility/mobile-broadband-first-responders


@computergeek541 wrote:

@darlicious wrote:

@powerg21  Telus (cell phone tower) can't distinguish between cell phone signals which provider between pm, koodo or telus that is calling to be able to prioritize one over another. 


In some cases, carriers can prioritize some users over others if those customers are part of an emergency or essential service.  I know that's not what's being discussed, but I would say that the possibility for prioritizations is there.


@computergeek541  Agreed absolutely emergency/essential services can be prioritized over regular customers and the t of s reflects that services may not be delivered in that scenario. But whether they could do it within "regular" customers I'm not sure of....emergency services have a reserved portion of "signal" as mandated by law.

Yes I would think it possible as well. I tend to doubt that the ability to prioritize within TELUS brands would actually be "in use" though but I know nothing about such stuff. 

Landline phone exchanges frequently had this ability as well. Doctors, hospitals, police, fire etc all had a higher priority that would be left with the ability to place a call in the event that "Line Load Control" had to be implemented due to some sort of emergency. All phones could be called but only phone lines marked as higher priority could initiate a call keeping network traffic maneagable. Electro-mechanical telephone exchanges in use into the 80's and even the 90's were typically provisioned to allow an 8 to 10% rate of call initiation with an equal number of lines reacheable to complete those calls to.

 

AE_Collector


@darlicious wrote:

@powerg21  Telus (cell phone tower) can't distinguish between cell phone signals which provider between pm, koodo or telus that is calling to be able to prioritize one over another. 


In some cases, carriers can prioritize some users over others if those customers are part of an emergency or essential service.  I know that's not what's being discussed, but I would say that the possibility for prioritizations is there.

@powerg21  Telus (cell phone tower) can't distinguish between cell phone signals which provider between pm, koodo or telus that is calling to be able to prioritize one over another. Only that your number is on their network. During high call volumes where access may be restricted would only be based on the call volume on the HSPA (3G) network or the LTE (VoLTE) network.(not available to pm customers.)


@Ed404 wrote:

@powerg21 wrote:

Telus and Rogers are different networks so I am not comparing that. I use to be with Telus and during a firework event that happened in Vancouver, the network was congested and I could not make a call.  I was just wondering about priorities among the 3 carriers that Telus owns.


All the providers here share the same towers so how about the priorities among Bell, Rogers and Telus.


As you've stated, some of the towers/locations are the same between Rogers and Telus but there is nothing to prioritize between the two. They are seperate networks running on different radio frequencies. There are also many "towers"/locations that only have have equipment for one of the other. Rogers does not share a single network with Telus.


@Ed404 wrote:

All the providers here share the same towers so how about the priorities among Bell, Rogers and Telus.


Sharing towers is only a physical location thing. There would be no sharing of anything else at a site beyond possibly the equipment room and AC power feed with backup. And most I see around here still have their own equipment room at the base of the tower. Now obviously there is more sharing between Bell and TELUS at some locations but I think even that is mostly going to be at more remote locations.

 

AE_Collector


@Ed404 wrote:


All the providers here share the same towers so how about the priorities among Bell, Rogers and Telus.


While they may share the same towers in many areas, I rather doubt they share the same towers everywhere, since Rogers' coverage map looks a fair bit different than Telus/Bell's.

 

That, and if they do, in fact, share tower(s) around here, I seriously wonder about their comparative signal strengths, because where I live, I get a poor signal with PM(Telus), and previously with Lucky(Bell), but with a Rogers(Rogers, Fido, Chatr) provider, the signal is a fair bit better.

Ed404
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@powerg21 wrote:

Telus and Rogers are different networks so I am not comparing that. I use to be with Telus and during a firework event that happened in Vancouver, the network was congested and I could not make a call.  I was just wondering about priorities among the 3 carriers that Telus owns.


All the providers here share the same towers so how about the priorities among Bell, Rogers and Telus.

totalUser
Mayor / Maire

Well Telus customers get call support volte and full lte speeds, Koodo gets call support full and lte speeds, public doesn't get any off it. So here is at least the priority I see.

I don't know how complex and expensive would be to keep taps on every phone that asks for a signal. If I was in their place and if it was easy/cheap/at least reasonable I would probably prioritize when it comes to high paying customer. Is it ok? I don't know

powerg21
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

Telus and Rogers are different networks so I am not comparing that. I use to be with Telus and during a firework event that happened in Vancouver, the network was congested and I could not make a call.  I was just wondering about priorities among the 3 carriers that Telus owns.

Ed404
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@powerg21 wrote:

Hello fellow members,

 

I was told by a friend that in an event that the cell towers are congested with traffic, TELUS gives first priority to TELUS customers, and Koodo and Public Mobile customers get lower priority. Does anyone know if this is true?

 


I'm not certain that's how it works, but that could be the case because Telus customers are paying much more than Koodo or Public Mobile users. @CS_Agent are you able to shed some light on this. Thanks

 

Similarily when the tornados went through Dunrobin and Gatineau the cell towers were overloaded and I was with Telus at the time and my service worked just fine, but my brother's Roger's phone didn't work.

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