Rogers LTE launch wrap up

Here's a wrap up of Rogers LTE launch in Ottawa. I have some videos related to the launch after this.

LTE is available now in Ottawa. Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto to follow this fall. In 2012 25 of Canada's largest cities will have LTE.

At launch the only compatible device is Roger's LTE rocketstick (Sierra Wireless U313). Smartphones from Samsung and HTC are coming.

LTE is running on AWS, it will also run on 2.5Ghz and eventually 700Mhz (Assuming Rogers wins some in the upcoming spectrum auction).

Rogers gave me a Rocket Stick with service at the event. It's a Sierra Wireless U313 USB modem - $79 on a 3 year or $179 straight up. I had to leave Ottawa about 2hr afterwards so I didn't have a lot of time to test it.

If you're familiar with Ottawa I started testing at a restaurant in the Rideau Center. There was low signal - 1/5 bars. Even so I was able to get 6mbps down and 1mbps up. Next I went upstairs to the bridge which connects the Center and the Bay. There I managed an impressive 45mbps.

Later I hopped on the airport bound 97 bus where I ran numerous tests. All in all I was observed average speeds of around 20mbps. Rogers claims real world speeds of 12-25mbps. While it's true the network was brand new with probably very few users the speed is pretty impressive.

So LTE is clearly faster than HSPA+ but is it worth it?

Most of Rogers' LTE demos revolved around streaming video. Streaming video can use a lot of data. Let's assume you have a Slingbox Pro HD which can stream at up to 8mbps along with a home connection which can upload at 8mbps. 8mbps consumes 1MB of data per second. So 1 hr of video would consume 1MB x 60 seconds x 60 minutes = 3.6GB of data.

Here's Rogers pricing model for LTE:

$45/1.5gb
$60/3gb
$75/6
$90/9
$10/GB overage after 9GB

So, at 8mbps you can consume 9GB of data in 2.5hrs. Really, Roger's LTE pricing model should be:

$45/1.5gb, lol
$60/3gb, omg
$75/6, wtf
$90/9, omgwtfbbq
$10/GB overage after 9GB

Still, I get it. Rogers is the only Canadian network with commercially available LTE right now so really they can charge you whatever they want for it. There's also the matter of how you're going to use the data. If you're just using it on your phone a good HSPA+ connection is usually adequate for whatever you're going to do.

I'm sure eventually LTE prices will come down as competition increases or as more apps which will really benefit from HSPA come along.

Turning the LTE network on:


More LTE demos in the Rogers LTE bus:


Review of the Sierra Wireless U313 LTE modem: