Rogers Communications has partnered with Ericsson to launch the first commercially-available 5G standalone (SA) network in Canada.
The operator started to deploy its 5G standalone core network in December 2020. In October 2021, Rogers completed the rollout and received the country’s first device certification in October 2021 (for the Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro).
“Achieving Canada’s first 5G standalone device certification and completing our national 5G standalone core rollout underscore Rogers leading 5G network leadership and innovation,” said Luciano Ramos, Senior Vice President of Network Development and Core Engineering, at the time.
“In order for 5G innovation to reach users, compatible smartphones are needed to connect to 5G standalone service and we’re proud of our whole team to have reached this milestone with Google and our long-time partner Ericsson, helping to bring the best of 5G to our customers.”
This week, Rogers has turned on its next-generation service and is now offering it commercially.
“We are thrilled to be the first in Canada to launch a commercial 5G standalone service,” commented Jorge Fernandes, Chief Technology Officer at Rogers Communications.
“This milestone underscores our ongoing leadership in 5G and will bring immediate benefits to customers by increasing coverage, scalability and availability, and improving network response times, enabling a world of new use cases and applications.”
The network has low latency and features edge computing and slicing capabilities to support future enterprise and consumer applications.
“Today’s launch delivers exciting new opportunities and capabilities to industries, businesses, and consumers across Canada,” explained Yasir Hussain, Chief Technology Officer of Ericsson Canada.
“Ericsson is collaborating with our partners at Rogers to deliver 5G advanced services and innovative network solutions to meet the growing demand from Canadian companies and consumers.”
Rogers says that compatible devices should automatically connect to its 5G SA network where available and other major devices will be onboarded later this year.
