Rogers Wireless


Rogers Wireless Inc. is a Canadian wireless telephone company headquartered in Toronto, providing service nationally throughout Canada. It is Canada’s largest wireless carrier, with 10.8 million subscribers as of Q4 2018, and revenues of just under $15.1 billion in 2018. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rogers Communications.

History

Rogers Wireless was founded by Ted Rogers, David Margolese, Marc Belzberg and Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien. In 1978, future Sirius XM Radio founder David Margolese dropped out of college and founded the paging company Canadian Telecom. Foreseeing that cellular wireless technology would be used for more than simply voice calls, Margolese proposed a plan to obtain a license for Canada’s cellular phone rights. At the time, there were no such licenses or commercial cellular services in existence, as the wireless technology was still in the laboratory and experimental. Needing significant financing, he approached Rogers Communications, which was owned by Ted Rogers, to partner with him. Rogers ultimately joined with Margolese, Marc Belzberg of First City Financial and Telemedia founder Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien to form Cantel, which Margolese named after Canadian Telecom. In 1984, the group was granted Canada’s national cellular license. Cantel launched service on July 1, 1985.
In 1986, Ted Rogers purchased a controlling stake in Cantel, which was at the time Canada’s only national supplier of cellular telephone service. Over the next four years, Rogers bought out his partners, becoming the sole owner of Cantel. Cantel was later renamed Cantel AT&T, Rogers Cantel AT&T and Rogers AT&T Wireless; in December 2003, the company became known by its current name, Rogers Wireless, which led to Rogers purchasing AT&T’s 34% stake in the company for $1.8 billion the following year.

Spectrum Purchases

Through Spectrum auctions, Rogers has made the following purchases of spectrum:
AuctionLicenses WonTotal PriceTotal Population CoveredRegistered AsRef
PCS - 2 GHz 23$393,520,00028,556,783Rogers Wireless Inc.
2300 & 3500 MHz 33$5,912,96516,221,004Rogers Wireless Inc.
2300 & 3500 MHz 49$4,906,7656,654,716Rogers Wireless Inc.
AWS-1 59$999,367,00030,007,094Rogers
700 MHz 22$3,291,738,00033,368,700Rogers
IMT-E - 2500-2690 MHz 41$24,086,27011,637,606Rogers Communications Partnership
600 MHz 52$1,725,006,00035,150,715Rogers

Networks

Rogers operates HSPA+, long-term evolution networks in all of Canada's provinces and offers roaming in Canada's territories.
The following is a list of known frequencies that Rogers employs in Canada:
Frequency rangeBand numberProtocolClassStatusNotes
850 MHz CLR5GSM/GPRS/EDGE2GActive
1900 MHz PCS2GSM/GPRS/EDGE2GActive
850 MHz CLR5UMTS/HSPA+3GActive
1900 MHz PCS2UMTS/HSPA+3GActive
700 MHz Lower A/B/C12/17/13LTE / LTE Advanced4GActiveAdditional LTE band for building penetration and rural coverage in select markets. Also being used to provide LTE Advanced coverage.
850 MHz CLR5LTE / LTE Advanced4GActiveUsed to provide LTE Advanced coverage in select markets.
1700/2100 MHz AWS4LTE / LTE Advanced4GActiveMain LTE band providing complete coverage. Also being used to provide LTE Advanced coverage.
2600 MHz IMT-E7LTE / LTE Advanced4GActiveAdditional LTE band for more bandwidth in select markets. Also used to provide LTE Advanced coverage in select markets.
1900 MHz PCS2LTE / LTE Advanced4GActiveUsed to provide LTE Advanced coverage in select markets.
2600 MHz IMT-En38Sub-6GHz NR5GActive / Being DeployedNSA mode
600 MHz DDn71Sub-6GHz NR5GPending DeploymentTo be deployed in late 2020

GSM

Since 2002, the company's 2G GSM network with EDGE has operated in Canada. It provides compatibility for GSM-based devices, including those frequently used by international travelers. However, this technology is limited to speeds up to 236 kilobits per second, which is only about four times the speed of dial-up.
As of July 2018, some of Rogers coverage footprint is covered by its GSM network, but not its HSPA or LTE networks. These areas include MacKenzie, BC and along the Highway 11 corridor east and west of Kapuskasing, ON. It is unclear what the future is for these areas given that Rogers has already announced that it intends on shutting down its GSM network and because Rogers did not expand HSPA or LTE into these areas despite completing expansion of HSPA or LTE to all other areas by its GSM network years earlier.
Rogers has informed its customers that its 2G GSM network will be discontinued on December 31, 2020.

HSPA+

In 2006, Rogers became the first Canadian carrier to operate a 3G HSPA network, which was upgraded to HSPA+ in 2009. Enhancements included download speeds of up to a theoretical 21 Mbit/s.
Rogers' HSPA+ network coverage is in all Canadian provinces and none of the territories and operating on 850 MHz.
It is impossible to travel between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts in Canada without encountering a gap in cellular coverage as there are areas lacking cellular coverage in both British Columbia and Ontario.

LTE

In July 2011, Rogers was the first Canadian telecom operator to launch a commercial long-term evolution network. In May 2013, Rogers deployed LTE service on its 2600 MHz spectrum in some markets, which the company began marketing as LTE Max. LTE Max is available in a fraction of Rogers' LTE coverage area. On April 17, 2014, Rogers launched LTE service on its 700 MHz spectrum.
Rogers has not announced its goals for expanding LTE coverage across Canada, but announced plans in June 2014 to have LTE coverage expanded to 98.3% of the population of British Columbia by the end of 2016.
According to Rogers, as of December 31, 2016, its LTE coverage reached 95% of the Canadian population.
On March 31, 2015, Rogers Wireless launched voice over LTE, the first carrier in Canada to offer this service.
Cat-6 LTE-Advanced has been available since January 2015, through carrier aggregation of band 4 and band 7, with a maximum download speed of 225Mbit/s.

NR

Rogers launched its 5G network in January 2020 and uses . The company stated that rollout will expand to use its further reaching 600 MHz spectrum later in the year for improved 5G coverage. The initial network deployment will be in NSA mode, with an eventual upgrade to SA mode over the next 12-18 months.
Rogers partnered with Swedish Telecom giant Ericsson to launch its 5G wireless technology. Rogers 5G network is currently live in downtown areas of Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Montreal.

Products

Rogers Wireless carries feature phones, and smartphones that support either Android OS or iOS.

On Demand Mobile

Customers with select smartphones, tablets, computers, LG Smart TVs, Xbox 360 and Xbox One gaming systems can use the Rogers On Demand mobile service, which was renamed Rogers Live before its current incarnation, Rogers Anyplace TV. Rogers Anyplace TV offers TV shows, movies and sports on demand.

Subsidiaries

Fido

In 2004, Rogers bought Canada’s first and, at the time, only other GSM provider, Fido, along with Fido’s partner, Sprint Canada, for a total of $1.4 billion. At the time, Fido had nearly 1.3 million customers. In 2008, Fido was rebranded as a discount network operator with a new logo and cheaper plans.

Chatr

Rogers launched the Chatr Mobile brand in mid-2010 in response to the emergence of new phone carriers Mobilicity, Public Mobile, and Freedom Mobile to directly compete with the new carriers in their coverage areas. Chatr became a cheaper option than Fido, making Fido more of a mid-range offering.

Retail presence

Rogers has its own corporate retail stores, known as Rogers Plus, and also allows third parties to become exclusive dealers. Best Buy and Walmart stores in Canada provide Fido products along with prepaid and postpaid services. Additionally, Loblaw Companies stores sell prepaid feature phones and top-up vouchers. Loblaw stores have a special booth, called The Mobile Shop, where the phones are displayed.

Former retailers

While Shoppers Drug Mart carried only Rogers Wireless prepaid phones at one time, the stores temporarily partnered with Rogers. As a result, Shoppers stores added both prepaid and postpaid products and services for Rogers and its two other brands, Fido and Chatr. As of March 2011, however, Shoppers stores ended their partnership. They only sell prepaid top-up vouchers for these providers.

Criticism

Misdirected phone charges

In 2005, Rogers lost a court case against an Osgoode Hall Law School university professor, Susan Drummond, over a $12,000 charge for overseas calls that was placed on her bill after the phone was stolen, for which the company insisted she pay. Following the case becoming public knowledge, Ted Rogers issued a formal apology and cancelled the charges. Drummond filed a lawsuit, for which she was then also paid punitive and compensatory damages. Drummond and her partner Harry Gefen published further on the case in an SSHRC funded research project, and for which she and her partner were cited by Time magazine as "heroes of the year" in 2007. During her research, Drummond showed that the phones of Rogers executives had been cloned by members of Hezbollah and used to make thousands of overseas phone calls in 1997 and 1998. It also turned up information that Rogers had been allowing phones that they were alerted had potentially fraudulent call patterns to continue to remain functional despite the warning.

Text messaging charges

On July 7, 2009, Rogers Wireless began charging a nominal fee for incoming text messages to customers without a text messaging plan. The change was similar to policies of charging for incoming text message that were adopted in August 2008 by Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility. Some users complained that Rogers had unilaterally changed the terms of their contracts. The company maintained that changes to services and fees are permitted in the "terms of service" document.

Government Regulatory Recovery Fee

Rogers has been criticized for its Government Regulatory Recovery Fee, formerly known as the System Access Fee. The fee ranges between $1.93 to $3.35 per month. On July 4, 2012, Rogers announced it would no longer be charging a separate GRRF fee to new customers, instead raising the price of the Monthly Service Charge. The bills of existing customers would remain the same. An $18 billion class action lawsuit against Rogers, Bell and Telus, originally filed in a Saskatchewan court in 2004 regarding these fees, is pending.

Anticompetitive tactics

Rogers launched the Chatr brand with low-end feature phones and pricing plans similar to that of new entrants such as Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile. Chatr was criticized for being a fighter brand created by Rogers. The brand's "fewer dropped calls" claim was disputed by the Competition Bureau. In 2013, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that Chatr's advertising of fewer dropped calls, in connection with its 2010 launch, was fair and accurate.