Freedom Mobile is now enabling LTE for customers with 3G plans that are no longer in-market.
The Shaw-owned wireless brand sent out emails and text messages on November 7th, to customers on older plans with a link to an FAQ on how to enable LTE speeds. Freedom also confirmed via its Twitter support account that 3G customers are being upgraded at no additional cost.
Excited former 3G-only customers have sent speed tests of up to 58Mbps download speeds to MobileSyrup.
https://twitter.com/freedomsupport/status/927941211134025728
The news arrives courtesy of Freedom’s network expansion, which provides more phones with LTE service.
In its FAQ, Freedom notes that while its LTE now works with more phones, some are still incompatible — which can be checked by entering the device IMEI into the carrier’s online compatibility checking tool.
Freedom has also made its LTE upgrade process much more transparent, with a dedicated ‘LTE Upgrades’ page that details how and when it plans to deploy its newly acquired 2500MHz spectrum and upgrade a portion of its existing AWS-1 spectrum.
The LTE upgrade timeline Freedom has unveiled shows the improvements progressing at a fair clip; by mid-November the carrier hopes to light up the following locations:
- Abbotsford, BC
- Airdrie, AB
- Barrie, ON
- Brantford, ON
- Kingston, ON
- Kitchener-Waterloo, ON
- London and Woodstock, ON
- Ottawa, ON
- Peterborough, ON
- St. Catharines, Hamilton and Niagara, ON
- Windsor, ON
In December, it expects to get to Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, as well as Vancouver and Whistler in BC. By Spring 2018, it wants to have the Greater Toronto Area fully covered.
To be clear, these locations are already by-and-large covered by Freedom’s Band 66 LTE network. But unlike Band 66, which is a new AWS-3 spectrum that has only gained support from device manufacturers within the last year, the upgrades will implement Band 7 and Band 4 LTE — bands used by each of the Big Three Canadian carriers and supported by “the vast majority of phones” currently used on its network, according to Freedom.
The carrier recently overhauled its rates, now offering a marquee 10GB for $50 LTE monthly plan.
Source: Freedom Mobile 1, 2
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