Telus or Bell better in BC/Alberta???

My Bell contract's up and I need a new phone. Thinking of switching to Telus.

Reasons?
- Poor signal/frequent dropped calls in rural areas - even on the highway between Edmonton and Calgary, which is unforgiveable IMO
- Frequent delays of 10 - 20 seconds between the time I press SND and the time I hear the called number begin to ring
- When someone calls me, there's usually a delay of 1-2 rings between the time the caller hears the ringing on their phone, and the time my cellphone actually starts to ring.

Would really appreciate opinions from anyone who's used both Telus and Bell mobility in western Canada and can compare network quality.

Don't really care that much about customer service -- I don't seem to need to talk to them much, and I already use Telus for landline service so I know there's good and bad with both companies. (Although I'm still *astonished* by the time it took Bell to fix up the mess when they switched billing systems a year or so ago -- their execs should all have been lined up, blindfolded, and shot for allowing that fiasco.)

I've used both, so here's my opinion:

Calgary area, Telus is an excellent provider. Calgary is their hub, and they built a very good network there. Even in the C-train in the tunnels, you won't loose a signal.

As for the rest of the province, both networks are seemingly identical.

The reason you have frequent delays of 10 to 20 seconds after you press "SEND" is due to traffic on the network. The more traffic, the longer it will take to process a call.

When someone calls you, it will never be symmetrical ringing. This, again, is because of the network. When someone calls you, the network needs to find where you are, and then the closest tower to you needs to send a signal to your cellular phone. This takes more time than a landline which is hardwired. Therefore, you will always have that delay in the cell phone.

As for which to go with, either is a good choice over any GSM network. However, I must also point out that Bell plans to be bringing the EV-DO network to Alberta this year. EV-DO (EVolution Data Optimized) is wireless high speed data access for your phone. So, take for example you're downloading ring tones, screen savers, browsing the web, etc. Right now with the 1X network, it's about as fast as dialup internet for your computer. With EV-DO, it'll be about as fast as high speed internet. Around 500 KB/s to 700 KB/s. Bell is the leader in Canada for wireless data connectivity, so that is something to consider.