Canada’s first LTE network is LIVE!

By: RogersStacey

July 7th, 2011 a 11:02am

Rogers today launched Canada’s first Long Term Evolution (LTE) network and Ottawans are the first in Canada to experience the latest global wireless technology. This fall Rogers will roll out LTE to Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, with another 21 markets in 2012. And later this year, Rogers customers will be able to get their hands on the first LTE smartphones from HTC and Samsung.

LTE delivers higher speeds and lower latency than 4G HSPA+ which means a better experience for customers using highly interactive applications like multi-player gaming and rich multi-media communications. And it will deliver more usage capacity which means more users can access the network at top speeds simultaneously.

At launch, the LTE Rocket stick will be capable of maximum theoretical download speeds of up to 75 Mbps on the Rogers LTE network. Typical download speeds can range from 12 Mbps to 25 Mbps. As device selection evolves, maximum theoretical download speeds will increase to up to 150 Mbps.

Ottawa LTE network coverage spans a broad area from Arnprior, Ontario in the west to Orléans, Ontario in the east and includes the Hull and Gatineau regions of Quebec. Starting today, Ottawa customers can pick up Rogers first LTE-enabled device, the LTE Rocket™ stick, at these four Ottawa-area locations:

Rogers Plus, 11 Selkirk St.
Rogers Plus, 1379A Woodroffe Ave.
Rogers Authorized Dealer – Wireless Express, 205 Richmond Rd.
Rogers Authorized Dealer – Go Communications, 901 Carling Ave.

Customers in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver can reserve LTE Rocket sticks through the Rogers Reservation System, which will be extended to accept Rocket stick reservations until 9:00 a.m. EST, Monday, July 11. The Rogers Reservation System allows you to secure a place “in line” for the device. For instructions on how to use the system, check out our post from June.

For our customers in other cities: fret not! Sign yourselves up at IwantmyLTE.ca to be notified when LTE is coming to your area. You’ll also get updates on the roll-out of LTE and what LTE means for you as a Rogers customer

Back in April, we announced that Rogers would launch its LTE network this year in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver, with an additional 21 markets by the end of 2012. Then in June, we announced the LTE network would be coming to Ottawa this summer, and we also announced the launch of the Rogers Reservation System, as well as the availability of our first LTE-enabled device, the LTE Rocket™ stick.

You can learn more about Rogers’ LTE network by visiting www.rogers.com/lte.

Ottawans: Tell us about your firsts this summer! What’s the first thing you’ll do with your new LTE Rocket stick in-hand?

Stacey Fowler is a regular contributor to RedBoard

Rating: 3.1/5 (32 votes cast)

Categories:

Network, news, Wireless

Tags:

Long Term Evolution, LTE, LTE Rocketstick, Network, Ottawa, Rogers LTE, Rogers Reservation System, Sierra Rocket Stick

50 Comments

Jonathan says: July 7th, 2011 a 9:39pm

Well done Rogers… Now show us some love and bring us some LTE phones…
Ann Monis says: July 8th, 2011 a 8:56pm

Rogers and Telus-Bell “LTE” is really AWS. Which is still in the 3G category, 4G wont be out for a while. Seeing true 4G will be LTE-Advance which lets people download at 1 Gbps (theory).

So the new prices that Rogers just put out, is just to steal from people who wont really look into it.

AWS “LTE” = 3G (21 Mbps) [1700 MHz]
HSPA+ = 3G (21 Mbps) [850/1900 MHz]
LTE = 3G (100-300 Mbps) [700 MHz]
LTE-Advance = 4G (1 Gbps)

Plus the LTE standard in the US is 700 MHz, which wont be auctioned off in Canada until sometime in 2012.

Plus if you read about the USB modem, it uses AWS and HSPA+.
Dave says: July 9th, 2011 a 9:51pm

As some have mentioned, this kind of major infrastructure rollout costs tens or hundreds of millions to implement. High costs come with cutting edge tech especially in a country as huge as Canada is physically. Come back on 3-5 years and hopefully the prices start coming down.

I’m looking forward to getting this myself.
Darryl says: July 11th, 2011 a 1:47pm

Great news about LTE availability and the ability to utilize it on the new Rocket Stick.

What about the Rocket Hub? Any timelines on that availability?
- RogersElise says: July 12th, 2011 a 2:39pm
  
  Not at the moment Darryl.
Steve says: July 27th, 2011 a 11:00am

Too funny. Their overage charges are $0.25/Mb – which is $250/Gb :) Fun. Watch one streaming movie on your LTE enabled device and pay a fortune. Awesome. Good job. Snort.
Fred says: August 3rd, 2011 a 11:04am

Looks good but without at least a 50G or unlimited package at a reasonable amount, this is no better than anything else out there.