This morning I stumbled upon this press release that Rogers put out, announcing that they have launched their 21Mbps HSPA+ network. This is would be a first in North America, and I cannot find any handsets that will currently support this sort of speed, so really your only option to take advantage of this, would be to buy their new Rocket Mobile Internet Stick, which retails for around $74.99 on a contract according to the release.
Understandably, the service is initially only available in the major centers of Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal according to the release. I am pretty sure that Rogers will roll this out to other areas based on demand.
To me this is a clear sign that Rogers are definitly wanting to compete in the broadband Internet Service provider market, and I imagine that they are thinking that they have a cachet with their service being based on a cellular network, and therefore has the attraction of being available anywhere one may travel. Interestingly, Rogers also has a broadband Internet service based on WiMax (802.16) in the 2.5GHz spectrum profile. I wonder if this will scavenge some customers from their WiMax service, or if they will end up with a bundle that includes WiMax as well as HSPA+ for those times when you are away from home? The latter may make them more attractive than other ISPs, particularly if they keep the pricing competive and refrain from their usual 3-year contract approach to the hardware.
If you want to find out more head on over to http://www.rogers.com/fastest and check it out…
