- He spent a year without the internet, then came back online. Why? Could you spend a day / week without the web? http://t.co/92TSJwDiqK ^eo
Our take on 4G and LTE
April 28th, 2011 a 11:09am
For several weeks, our largest competitors have been using the term 4G to refer to HSPA+ technology that Rogers first introduced back in 2009.
We’ve been trying to stay out of the name game. Our belief all along has been that what matters to our customers isn’t what we call today’s technology but what comes next. That’s why we announced yesterday that we’ll be launching Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver this year and bringing it to 21 more markets by the end of 2012.
Meanwhile, our customers are telling us they’re confused because different carriers are using different names to refer to the same technologies. So while we initially thought we wouldn’t need to follow suit, we will begin referring to our HSPA+ network as 4G over the next few days. This change will provide consistency for our customers and also aligns with the most recent definition of 4G from the International Telecommunications Union, which says 4G is any technology that shows a substantial level of improvement to previous 3G networks.
But there’s no comparison between HSPA and LTE, which we’re calling “beyond 4G.” Thousands of you have already visited iwantmylte.ca to express your excitement about LTE and to enter for a chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get behind the wheel of a professional race car.
Visit the site for a chance to win and to let us know where you want your LTE!
Keith McArthur is Senior Director of Social Media at Rogers
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I would prefer we follow the American companies in their network naming. We all watch tv / commercials from the US and we all try to compare our services and prices to theirs. We pretty much get most of our information from American websites. What does Sprint and Verizon and AT&T call LTE and 4G?
Seems that elsewhere 4G and LTE go hand in hand and not HSPA+. Maybe instead of joining the problem and making it bigger you should address the problem.
In the end it’s all marketing speak to trick customers into thinking there getting something better than the competitor offers.. Maybe just giving facts would be better..
Really most people have no clue what edge vs 3g vs 3.5g vs 4g vs lte actually means. It would be better to just let people know what each does/offers/provides and then they can see the benefit or judge for themselves which is best.
Different companies do different things. Verizon has their LTE 4G network, AT&T call their AWS network 4G, TMobile only had HSPA+ 4G, but is now AT&T, and Sprint has Wimax
Hrm, and where do you see Telus and Bell going on about 4G? I’ve yet to see a single advert (regardless of medium) from either of them that says they have 4G networks.
Wouldn’t it be better if Rogers took a stand for honesty and accuracy in advertising, rather than being “just another follower”?
Considering HSPA is a “3G” technology (regardless if it’s HSPA or HSPA+) and LTE is a “4G” technology, naming things any other way is doing your customers a huge disservice.
It’s marketing shenanigans like this that cause people to distrust telcos. :(
Bell and Telus both call their HSPA(+) 4G. They jumped on that as soon as it was deemed legal to do so.
1G, 2G, 3G, and 4G are literally “generations” (hence the ‘G’) of cellular technology. LTE is 4th generation.
eVDO(built on CDMA tech), EDGE(built on GSM), HSPA(and its derivitives) are all 3rd generation tech.
Like Keith had pointed out in the article, the ITU deemed any upgrades to HSPA that move it towards LTE as being classified as 4G.
Although I disagree with caving to “peer pressure”, I am glad that Rogers is only now switching their use of nomenclature to ease the minds of customers, as they were the only odd man out in Canada.
Personally, I refuse to refer to HSPA as anything but 3G…but I’m stubborn that way. :P
Wow, what happened to your statement below:
“…we won’t use [4G] to refer to the HSPA+ technology that Rogers first introduced in North America in 2009. When Rogers says 4G, we mean LTE.”
Provide consistency and align with ITU definition??? Are you serious? How about being a leader in the industry and not following Big Blue and Big Green?
Rogers has a tremendous opportunity to launch LTE first and call it true 4G. What a waste of effort. Sometimes I wonder what marketing people get paid for.
To correct the other readers… HSPA is commonly referred to as 3G, HSPA+ and WiMax were referred to as 4G (thanks sprint!) while all along LTE was really the only true 4G technology – I blame the American companies and handset makers trying to one up the apple machine, really.
Becoming more and more like TV makers these days… Ratcheting up the confusion with lingo to make a sale, tech savvy people will see through it but the uninformed buyers don’t know the relevance of what they’re buying.
Thanks for all the feedback.
As some readers have already pointed out, various carriers around the world have been using the term 4G to refer to non-LTE technologies for the past few months.
@anon – you’re right that we originally said that for Rogers, we would only refer to LTE as 4G. That’s the point of this post – we wanted to be transparent about the change and the reasons behind it.
I’m surprised at Rogers changing their stance on the use of the name “4G”. Don’t be a lemming by following Bell and Telus who advertise on their website offering 4G when consumers know they haven’t rolled out their LTE network. Until Rogers launches LTE the network should continue to be labelled as 3.5G when referring to HSPA+. Be better than your competitors, not the same. Learn from others such as in the USA where both AT&T and T-Mobile received a lot of negative publicity for renaming their 3G networks as 4G when only Verizon has a LTE network. As a tech savvy consumer for both business and pleasure I will continue to view Rogers HSPA+ as 3.5G because that is what it is. When you officially launch LTE I will be more than happy to call it 4G.
This “iwantmylte.ca” seems to be a rip-off from “iwantmyonepointsix.com” which Michael Schmidt started. HAH!
In any case, when are you guys starting to carry LTE enabled devices running Android? And please don’t tell me “we can’t comment on devices which we do not carry yet”…..
*sigh*
Well, I was quite proud of Rogers back on Feb 16 on the redboard post from Keith, differentiating HSPA and LTE, saying that only LTE will be called 4G. I was disappointed to learn that Rogers has changed this stance, probably for 2 reasons:
-Peer pressure, with the need to keep up with the Jones’ so to speak, as most other carriers adopted the 4G terminology for the HSPA networks
-Keep things straight with the customers, due to some confusion for those less familar with the technology definitions.
Oh, well, l guess I can still give credit to Rogers for “holding the line” for 1.5 months, until buckling due to pressure…
BTW, 8.5 Mb/sec download speeds at the lake in Manitoba, wow, nice speeds for a smartphone! Seems like the MTS/Rogers network deal worked out :-)
What’s funny is that for the longest time, you kept telling customers that you will NOT be referring to your network as 4G, now you are going to be. Typical.
Nice to see that most of Saskatchewan still doesn’t have 2G
All I have to say is that I am disappointed that Rogers has elected to do this.
Holding out and waiting till LTE (the real 4G) came online would have been much better as then Rogers could have pounded Bell and Telus into the dirt with their data speed capabilities.
Oh well, I guess its just another example of how Rogers, Bell and Telus follow each other around in a circle copying one another without offering any real competition or choice.
so what do you call LTE when it’s out, 5G?
Beyond 4G? That’s dumb. “hey man! cool phone, is it a “beyond 4G” phone?”
yeah, not going to happen, Rogers will stand alone as the company that does that.
Nice to hear, BUT… in New Brunswick and most of the Maritimes we’re still limited to 2G. What are the plans to roll out higher speeds for us?
I think Rogers can name it whatever they like. I just want to know if the base data plans are going to change. At those speeds we’ll be blowing through the 500 mb / 1 gb in no time.