Canadian carriers complete trials of two-way wireless video calling

Service will create largest video calling audience in North America

TORONTO, Feb. 24 /CNW/ - Canadian mobile phone users are one step closer to video calling friends, family, and clients across competing mobile networks as Bell, Rogers and TELUS today announced the successful completion of two-way mobile video calling trials between carriers. Video calling lets clients create a 'see-what-I-can-see' connection with other callers, enabling them to do things like share special moments or get advice on a birthday gift before they buy.

Mobile video calling is currently available through several carriers in Canada, but both callers must be on the same carrier's network using compatible handsets. When inter-carrier mobile video calling is launched video calling will be possible across multiple carrier networks and will create North America's largest two-way mobile video calling community.

"We are proud to be part of the first inter-carrier partnership in North America to enable clients to call each other using video capabilities," said Stephen Howe, chief technology officer for Bell Mobility. "By breaking down the barriers between video calling clients in Canada, we anticipate strong demand for the service - as we saw with past inter-carrier initiatives such as text and picture messaging."

"The trial uses inter-carrier mobile video calling to take video communications to the next level, creating a much larger video-calling community, and providing customers with greater flexibility and freedom in the way they communicate," said Upinder Saini, vice president of new product development at Rogers Communications. "This is an exciting development for wireless users in Canada and marks a major milestone for video calling."

"Mobile video calling is a richer communications experience for family, friends and business contacts," said Ibrahim Gedeon, chief technology officer at TELUS. "This successful trial with Bell and Rogers is a milestone in the Canadian mobile community."

Bell, Rogers and TELUS each offer video calling handsets that support the internationally accepted open 3G-324M Video Telephony standard, ensuring compatibility with other systems and carriers supporting the standard.

About Bell

Headquartered in Montréal, Bell is Canada's largest communications company, providing consumers and business with solutions to all their communications needs, including Bell Mobility wireless, high-speed Bell Internet, Bell TV direct-to-home satellite television, Bell Home Phone local and long distance phone services, and IP-broadband and information and communications technology (ICT) services.

Bell is proud to be a Premier National Partner and the Exclusive Telecommunications Partner to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Bell is wholly owned by BCE Inc. (TSX, NYSE: BCE). For information on Bell's products and services, please visit www.bell.ca. For corporate information on BCE, please visit www.bce.ca.

About Rogers Communications Inc.

Rogers Communications is a diversified Canadian communications and media company. We are engaged in wireless voice and data communications services through Wireless, Canada's largest wireless provider. Through Cable, we are one of Canada's leading providers of cable television services as well as high-speed Internet access and telephony services. Through Media, we are engaged in radio and television broadcasting, televised shopping, magazines and trade publications, and sports entertainment. We are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RCI.A and RCI.B) and on the New York Stock

Exchange (NYSE: RCI). For further information about the Rogers group of companies, please visit www.rogers.com.

About TELUS

TELUS (TSX: T, T.A; NYSE: TU) is a leading national telecommunications company in Canada, with $9.6 billion of annual revenue and 12 million customer connections including 6.5 million wireless subscribers, 4 million wireline network access lines and 1.2 million Internet subscribers and 170,000 TELUS TV customers. Led since 2000 by President and CEO, Darren Entwistle, TELUS provides a wide range of communications products and services including data, Internet protocol (IP), voice, entertainment and video.

In support of our philosophy to give where we live, TELUS, our team members and retirees have contributed $158 million to charitable and not-for-profit organizations and volunteered more than 3 million hours of service to local communities since 2000. Nine TELUS Community Boards across Canada lead TELUS' local philanthropic initiatives. TELUS was honoured to be named the most outstanding philanthropic corporation globally for 2010 by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, becoming the first Canadian company ever to receive this prestigious international recognition.

For further information: For media inquiries, please contact: Julie Smithers, Bell Media Relations, [phone], [email protected]; Michelle Ghandour, Rogers Media Relations, [phone], [email protected]; Jeremy Baxter, TELUS Media Relations, [phone], [email protected]