When Rogers launched their LTE (Long Term Evolution) network in Ottawa they also announced that Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver will be turned on by the end of 2011. Toronto is happening this Wednesday (September 28th) and we’ve now been informed that Montreal and Vancouver will also be turned on as well! According to the internal doc we received it shows there will be a 2-phase rollout for each city, in addition, the 28th will also bring expanded LTE coverage in Ottawa. “Phase 1” is live on the 28th, “Phase 2” will be sometime “later in the year”.
For Phase 1 in Vancouver, LTE coverage is located in the heart of Vancouver, Richmond and Burnaby. Then during Phase 2 the coverage will expand into Colquitlam, Delta, Langley, Maple Ridge, North Vancouver, Surrey and West Vancouver. Montreal Phase 1 LTE will initially cover Dollard-Des-Ormeaux, Montreal and St.Laurent. Similar to Vancouver, Phase 2 coverage will expand to reach Boucherville, Laval, Saint-Constant, St-Eustache and Terrebonne. Toronto has the best Phase 1 coverage which spans in the core of the city, spreading outward into Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke. Then Rogers is kicking it up a gear with its Toronto Phase 2 rollout, customers in Brampton, Oakville, Mississauga, Markham, Pickering, Richmond Hill and Thornhill all benefit from LTE speeds (peak download speeds of up to 150 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 70 Mbps).
The only device that’s currently available on the Rogers “Beyond 4G” network is the LTE Sierra Wireless U313, but there will be smartphones and tablets coming. It’s known that the LTE Samsung Galaxy S II and the HTC Puccini tablet will be available soon, plus the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is rumoured to come out later this year.
Bell is the other carrier that has activated LTE in Canada, currently live in Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph, with plans to roll out in “additional Canadian markets this year and through 2012”.
So there you have it, Rogers will be rolling out all their LTE launch cities within a couple days.
We’ll have more info soon!
(Thanks tipster!)
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