Bell, Rogers Launch Fast Mid-Band 5G in Canada
Bell(Opens in a new window) and Rogers(Opens in a new window) both announced the launch of mid-band 3.5GHz 5G in Canada, a move that will boost mobile-phone users' performance across the country.
Rogers came out with its announcement first, saying 3.5GHz is coming to Nanaimo today and to "Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver" not too far in the future.
Bell then followed by announcing its own network as "5G+," and the company says it will have "peak theoretical download speeds of up to 3 gigabits per second." Bell is launching first in Toronto, Canada's largest city, and it's aiming to cover 40% of the Canadian population by the end of 2022.
Users of Telus will also get access to the Bell radio network where it's available.
The network will work with phones that support band n78. Bell says that includes the iPhone 12, 13, and the new SE; the Galaxy S21 and S22; and the Google Pixel 6. Phones may need firmware updates, but they'll come pretty quickly.
We also reached out to Telus and Videotron, which also own 3.5GHz spectrum, but they didn't respond in time for this story.
Like many things in the two countries, mid-band in Canada is similar to what you've seen so far in the US, but just a bit different. It ranges from 3450-3650MHz, which in the US would be the 3.45GHz band largely leased by AT&T and Dish, as well as part (but not all) of the adjacent CBRS band.
In Toronto, Bell's first market, Bell and Telus share 80MHz of new mid-band spectrum. That's more than Verizon is using of C-band, but not quite as much as T-Mobile uses for its "Ultra Capacity."
In Nanaimo, Rogers' first market, Rogers has 70MHz of mid-band spectrum. (The map below shows the allotments in many metro areas across the
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