Rogers launches 5G service

[Triguy]

https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/03/06/rogers-5g-network-canada-samsung-galaxy-s20-5g/

[Korth]

@darlicious 

"True North Affordability" is just politician lies, smiling and saying what (they think) you want to hear without any serious belief/intention of actually letting/making it happen.

If they promise "all average Canadians" will have basic phone service which costs less then ... the Average Revenue Per User reported by the Big Three to their shareholders must also become less ... or the "above average" service costs will have to skyrocket high enough to keep numerical averages (and ARPUs) at their existing (and ever-inflating) values.

Those ARPUs aren't going to go down, the Big Three have colluded in 

dragging and clawing them steadily upwards for years, they won't let their profit margins (or their stock values) dwindle without a fight.

[darlicious]

With rogers launching 5G in Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto and giving free access to its infinite plan holders its the start of the big three brainwashing program of convincing Canadians they need this service. After providing free access to the minimum 10gb $75 plan holders til next March they will start charging an extra 20% premium with the flat rate of $15....making the lowest cost infinite plan $90+tax. With awesome speeds and all the other bells and whistles rogers will still drastically lower your data speed once you hit your plan data limit. Nothing like giving you a more expensive way of burning thru your data faster just to slow it down to a crawl. Unless of course you choose to get a more expensive plan with more data. Pretty sad to pay north of $100 a month for your mobile service that doesn't even include a device subsidy or true unlimited data.

[Korth]

@Pawprints1986 

Not all 4G phones support 3G.

Not all 4G phones support 2G.

Not all 3G phones support 2G.

The phone logic chip/board and radio hardware have to support the earlier protocols. Sometimes they don't because fewer/simpler parts is lower cost and smaller bulk and longer battery life.

The phone firmware/software have to support the earlier protocols. Sometimes they don't because extra code just bloats the system, makes things slower and more complex and less reliable.

Sometimes the ODM (manufacturer) or the OEM (brand, carrier) deliberately wants to include and exclude specific radio subsets. So they don't have have to pay for radio licenses/certifications on new devices, so they can't be forced to pay for radio trespasses caused by their devices.

[Pawprints1986]

So, I'd imagine that phones that have 5g are also capable of 4g and even maybe still 3g? So that way their phones can still be used widely ?

[yanzhiqiang]

I dont need 5G

[Korth]

I would've bet on Bell being the first to launch 5G in Canada because they seemed to have the most invested in recent big hardware technologies/deployments.

Or maybe even Freedom - simply because they would only need to upgrade their dense "Zone" networks instead of sparse all-over-Canada networks.

Telus actually launched a 5G pilot some years back. And it apparently generated good feedback. But it evidently didn't pan out. I'm guessing it was just a newest LTE thing being marketed as 5G because it was better than base 4G.

There's already about a dozen 5G-capable SoCs available for wireless manufacturers. But they can't fully utilize 5G without 5G-capable radio hardware, and they can't embed this radio hardware without FCC/CRTC licensing and testing/certification. None of the Big Three hold all the licenses to all the 5G radio bands in all the areas their networks service, so even Rogers can only deploy some 5G in some areas.

[Pawprints1986]

So, if you're like me and love running devices right into the ground before upgrading, this is the carrier to stay on probably... I'm happy with even the 3g but definitely 4g capable

[srlawren]

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@TrevorL wrote:

Does 5G only work on certain phones? Will we all have to upgrade eventually? 

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@TrevorL yes, phone hardware support is required, as new radios and associated hardware are needed. In 2019 and early 2020, 5G-capable phones were relatively rare; however, since Qualcomm has added it as mandatory feature their 2020 flagship Snapdragon 865 chipset, and I believe it's also optionally available on the mid-range 765 chipset, you will see it on a lot of recent and upcoming new phone models. 

Even on "5G" capable devices, there is complexity, in that there are multiple types of 5G, working on different frequencies.  I forget the terminology and specific details, but one flavour works on very high frequency radio waves and offers VERY fast data throughput speeds, BUT, requires a LOT more towers to have coverage since high frequency signals don't travel as far before degrading beyond usefulness.  Another flavour uses lower frequency signals, giving speeds similar to or a little better than 4G LTE, but has much better coverage capabilities than the higher frequency variant.  Some providers offer one or the other or both, and some phones offer one or the other or both.  It will all be a bit confusing for another year or two before more universal support from carriers and devices on all flavours of the tech become fairly common-place.

[This was all a gross over-simplification naturally but it will have to do for now.  :)]

[TrevorL]

Does 5G only work on certain phones? Will we all have to upgrade eventually? 

[Pawprints1986]

I would imagine that if 5g becomes mainstream, we'd move to 4g and 3g would become obsolete? Eventually?

Sorry I know this is a little older, just got curious is all

[yanzhiqiang]

We are still on 3G and very happy with it .

[srlawren]

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@Triguy wrote:

https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/03/06/rogers-5g-network-canada-samsung-galaxy-s20-5g/

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@Triguy that's a milestone, to be sure.  I don't think I'd let 5G support be the deciding factor for me if I were shopping for a new provider (or new phone) today, however.