Largest Coverage? Bell or TELUS or Rogers

[ahg]

Which carrier has the best coverage?

Is it Telus or Bell or Rogers

Thanks

[sheytoon]

They're all pretty good, but it depends on your specific location.

Keep in mind that Bell and Telus have the same coverage everywhere except parts of Manitoba.

[Fritz Z24]

which carrier has the best coverage?

Is it telus or bell or rogers

thanks

rogers…!!!!…..!!!!!

[formercanuck]

rogers…!!!!…..!!!!!

If I was between Manitoba and Sault Ste. Marie ... I'd say Rogers.
If I was in Newfoundland, Bellus.
I'll see what roaming (T-Mobile service) lets me use in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia this summer.

[@Class]

I would have to say Bell / Telus have a wider coverage footprint... Rogers is slowly catching up and the only true national wireless carrier with the own towers from coast to coast.

The nice thing about Rogers is through a regulation by the CRTC customers of Rogers and Fido have access to the Bell'us network when needed, and outside of Rogers coverage footprint.

[formercanuck]

just as a note... coverage out east on NB, PE and NS for Bellus and Rogers as well as lte speeds were similar. I had an At&t => Rogers and a TMobile => Bellus.

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[@Class]

just as a note... coverage out east on NB, PE and NS for Bellus and Rogers as well as lte speeds were similar. I had an At&t => Rogers and a TMobile => Bellus.

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Yep, the thing is Bellus is 5 Mhz wide on 700 Mhz in so many markets... Rogers is 10 Mhz wide. Also Bell doesn't own any 600 Mhz, period.

So what you end up getting is typically faster speeds from Bell in the city (and blazing fast) but in the rural parts its more of a struggle to obtain anything above 10 mbps. Bell still has more towers in more places than Rogers.

[formercanuck]

lower bands typically have issues obtaining higher overall speeds with at best 2x2 mimo, while pcs/aws bands get 4x4. From my personal experience, b71 10x10 is good for about 70Mbps in ideal conditions, b2 or b4 10x10 will get you around 100Mbps.
Here in SoCal, on Samsung, I can band select

15 MHz b2 lte (4x4 mimo) around 150Mbps
20 MHz b4/66 lte (4x4 mimo) around 200Mbps
5MHZ b12 lte (2x2 mimo) around 35Mbps max
2 CA 20MHz b41 tdd lte (2x2 mimo) around 230Mbps
10MHZ b71 lte (2x2 mimo) around 70Mbps

n71 15x15 peak 150Mbps
n41 100MHz around 1Gbps

best aggregate on LTE B2 + B66 + B71, a bit over 400Mbps
best aggregate with 5g n41 (100MHz +40MHz) 1890Mbps.

Since I typically didn't stay much in the city, coverage was decent on both. iPhone 12 on At&t did allow me.to get 5g n5 on Rogers. Best LTE on Bell was in Saint John, around 275Mbps.

I do agree that Bell has more sites than Rogers.

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[toolcube]

I suspect that Bell will always have (and more importantly, NEED) more sites than Rogers because they don’t have as much low band spectrum as Rogers does. And they lack n71 completely. Rogers owns the most n71 spectrum…20MHz blocks in many markets. So Bell’s strategy for 5G coverage will need to be site splitting, OR they’ll need to use b5/12/13/17. With that said, they don’t own much b12/13/17.


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[formercanuck]

I don't think they 'need' more sites than Rogers, especially in rural areas, but I do think that they have a plan to make better use of all the sites than Rogers does.
- Home Internet + Replace POTS + Home Phone
Old school POTS is an albatross on Bell.
Eg. St. Joseph's Island. population 2,300. Bell has 6 towers, with spectrum covering from 700MHz to 2600MHz. Rogers has 0.
This is mostly rural farm and cottages. It probably costs a lot to keep up those old POTS lines.
I suspect that Bell can't shed itself from POTS service until it has X amount of wireless. This is why you see many small, rural outposts with Bell.
https://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/...layers=a&pid=0

[toolcube]

I hear you. I don’t think a lack of 600MHz spectrum in those very rural areas matters much, nor do they need more sites in those regions. As you said, b12/13/17 will likely be sufficient. Plus they have low b5 spectrum too. Once that all gets refarmed for 5G, it should be fine for rural.

I was referring to urban and suburban areas with 1.) a complete lack of 600MHz (and Rogers having 20MHz blocks of it), and 2.) owning small blocks of b12/13/17 (and thus not being able to achieve significant throughout on those bands alone), they may need to build more sites and split more cells if they want to have a more consistent 5G experience from a speed and bandwidth perspective. There are areas within Bell’s urban/suburban footprint where sites are too far and too spread out to maintain high band signal, and where more low band would benefit them. Rogers can use their 20MHz of n71 alone for their coverage layer, but can also add their 10MHz of b12, and whatever they have for b5 to blanket 5G across their footprint and maintain somewhat of a more consistent speed experience without much more site densification than they’ve already done. Having said that, cell splitting and using higher bands for 5G might end up being the better approach in my opinion, albeit a much more expensive and time consuming approach.


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[formercanuck]

Having a ton of 600MHz isn't a bad thing for more rural and even some suburban areas, but it doesn't help much in the urban jungle.
Down south of the border, I have T-Mobile, which has deployed B2 (15x15), B66 (20x20), B12 (5x5), B71 (10x10) 'and' n71 15x15 as well as n41 (100MHz + 40MHz).
In rural areas , especially where line of sight isn't a sure thing, as range is far, B12/B71 and n71 work great.
In the urban / suburban areas, I've found B12/B71 and n71 more of a hinderance, except when I go indoors.
This morning ... B2 15x15 gave me 160Mbps/32Mbps. B66 20x20 gave me 205Mbps/50Mbps. B12 5x5 gave me 29Mbps/7Mbps, B71 10x10 gave my 60Mbps/13Mbps, n71 15x15 gave me 110Mbps/45Mbps.will

LTE 3CA with B71 wasn't much better than LTE 2CA w/o B71

In the long term, those higher end bands, as well as higher end modulation will require more sites, closer together.
B2+B66 + n41 (100+40) gives me 1900Mbps on TMobile.

jMost of my experience using Rogers/Bellus has typically been in Northern Ontario.

[@Class]

Rogers owns the most n71 spectrum…20MHz blocks in many markets.
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This is true, do you know of any reason why they don't deploy it as 20 Mhz wide, even in areas where they own it though? I've seen a lot of sites where band 71 (LTE) is only 10 Mhz wide.

[toolcube]

They don’t? That’s news to me. Unless they’ve split it between LTE and 5G in those regions - 10 for LTE and 10 for 5G.

Around here (GTA), it’s the full 20 MHz dedicated to 5G.


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[formercanuck]

is it not contiguous? I know down here in California 10MHZ is b71, and 15MHZ is n71. I suspect it's not a contiguous block where I am, and doesn't aggregate

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