In the beginning: Rogers vs. The Old Phone Companies
Both Bell and Telus are descendants of the “traditional” phone companies’ wireless services. Bell is based in Ontario and Quebec; Telus is based in Alberta and BC. There are other descendants of the traditional phone companies in other areas: SaskTel in Saskatchewan, MTS in Manitoba, Aliant in the Maritimes, Télébec in Quebec. All of these provide coverage in their original areas. These descendants started out with analogue mobile phones, and for a long time they provided service using the “CDMA” standard.
Rogers is a descendant of the original phone companies’ original wireless competitor, who started out with analogue mobile phones, and eventually went to the “GSM” standard.
So that’s the first and biggest division. Rogers vs. The Old Phone Companies.
The Old Phone Companies start to compete with each other
However, with deregulation and competition, things got interesting. Bell and Telus began invading each others’ territories. Telus now has a skyscraper in Toronto, for example, and Bell sponsored the Vancouver Olympics. Bell also now seems to control Aliant in the Marities and Télébec in Québec.
But that doesn’t stop them from joining forces when necessary
Then on top of the Olympics came the iPhone. Bell and Telus realized that they didn’t want Rogers, as the only GSM carrier, to get all the lucrative roaming fees from Olympic visitors (most of whom would be using GSM phones). And the iPhone, the hottest thing since sliced bread, wasn’t then being offered in a CDMA version, which meant that Rogers could gain millions of customers at Bell and Telus’ expense.
So Bell and Telus bit the bullet around '08-'09 and built a complete–and shared–network overlay, replacing most of their CDMA networks with the third-generation (3G) of GSM, also known as HSPA. Now they could host Olympic roamers and offer the iPhone too. Rogers was upgrading their GSM network to the same HSPA standard.
The other regional companies, such as SaskTel, started to add HSPA.
New entrants, new spectrum
At the same time, new phone companies were started as new spectrum, the 1700-MHz band, was released for mobile use. In Ontario and points west, these were Mobilicity, Public Mobile, and Wind Mobile. Videotron shut out Wind in Quebec for the new spectrum.
These new entrants had to build new networks and so their coverage areas are limited to the larger cities. They have roaming agreements on other networks for travelling, though. Because they use the new spectrum, they may not be completely compatible with many phones. The iPhone will not work on Wind’s HSPA network, for example.
Discount brands
Each of the big three have a discount brand: Solo is Bell’s discount brand; Fido is now Rogers’ discount brand (used to be a separate company), and Koodo is Telus’ discount brand. Rogers also owns Chatr, and Bell owns Virgin Mobile in Canada.
What to do?
So, basically, it boils down to a) Bell & friends, b) Rogers, and c) the new guys. Go with who has coverage where you are going to be, which in rural NL would seem to be Bell.