TORONTO — Rogers Communications announced today it has launched the first commercially available 5G standalone network in Canada and one of the first globally.
This follows the completion of Rogers’ rollout of its national standalone 5G core network last year and the first 5G standalone device certification in Canada, explains a press release.
“We are thrilled to be the first in Canada to launch a commercial 5G standalone service,” said Jorge Fernandes, chief technology officer at Rogers Communications, in the release. “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.”
Prior to this, Rogers offered 5G non-standalone service, which used a mix of next-gen and prior-gen RAN (radio access network) with prior-gen core. The company is now offering service based on next-gen 5G RAN and next-gen core.
Built exclusively with network partner Ericsson, the Rogers 5G standalone (SA) core network “has been built from the ground up based on the latest cloud native technologies, enabling more advanced wireless capabilities like ultra-low latency, network slicing and mobile edge computing and expanding Rogers 5G footprint,” the press release reads.
“Rogers 5G SA is built to scale massively and will support the unprecedented growth of IoT devices in the years to come. 5G Core and 5G RAN slicing enables Rogers to deliver innovative new services to customers such as dedicated private networks, public safety applications and access to edge compute for AR/VR consumer applications.”
With the launch of Rogers’ commercial 5G SA service, wireless customers with 5G SA capable devices, such as the Google Pixel 6 and the Google Pixel 6 Pro, are now able to connect to the 5G SA network.
“Wireless customers with capable devices will automatically connect to the 5G SA service where it has been rolled out and Rogers will be onboarding other major devices later in the year,” the release says.
A Rogers spokesperson told Cartt.ca via email the company’s 5G SA network has been launched for customers nationally.
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