Canada's Rogers Communications last week announced a multi-year network plan that includes working with Ericsson, including 5g testing program.
Rogers plans to trial 5G in Toronto and Ottawa, in addition to select cities over the next year. Last week, at Rogers Centre, the companies demonstrated multiple live 5G examples as a part of Rogers 5G testing program.
Participants wore virtual reality (VR) glasses to toss a baseball back and forth, virtually shopped in a retail store, and controlled robots with real-time responsiveness. Rogers also demonstrated Quad-band Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) on Gigabit LTE to show how LAA provides high bandwidth, simultaneously across several devices. Rogers Centre is an ideal real-world testing environment with thousands of connected devices, dense concrete, and high peak data usage.
Rogers network plan includes the continued rollout of its Gigabit LTE network with technology and equipment that is based on the latest global 3GPP standards, including 4×4 MIMO, four-carrier aggregation and 256 QAM.
The company said it will boost and densify its network with small cells and macro sites across the country.
Jorge Fernandes, CTO, Rogers Communications
We’re setting the table to lead on 5G with the right infrastructure, spectrum, partners and investments, so we’re ready when the ecosystem is ready.
Niklas Heuveldop, Head of Market Area North America, Ericsson
The future of our businesses, our industries and our daily lives will be impacted by 5G, led by innovative service providers like Rogers. Rogers is taking a significant leap forward today and we are very excited about the opportunity to jointly develop innovative services and new customer experiences.
