You might recall that in late July, Fido announced that they were going to light up LTE access for their users. This week, Fido announced that LTE is live in those cities. More cities are coming soon and in terms of devices that support LTE, they have a mobile hotspot that allows you to share your LTE connection with your friends. I’d expect smartphones to appear shortly so that as many Fido users can get some LTE love.
Archive for LTE
LTE Is Live For Fido Users In Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal And St. John’s
Posted in Commentary with tags Fido, LTE on September 1, 2012 by itnerdRogers LTE Now Live In Moncton NB…. And They Have A New Ad Too
Posted in Commentary with tags LTE, Rogers on August 21, 2012 by itnerdRogers ongoing plan to rule the LTE world continues with their announcement of LTE in Moncton NB:
Starting today, Moncton customers will have access to the Rogers LTE network with theoretical download speeds of up to 75 Mbps, with typical download speeds ranging from 12 Mbps to 25 Mbps. * These speeds are significantly faster than those Canadians experience on any other 4G HSPA+ wireless network.
More details can be found on RedBoard. But one of the main one that I’d like to point out is that a lot more cities are going to get the LTE love shortly:
Upcoming LTE launch cities include Trois Rivières, Sherbrooke, Quebec City, Kingston, Ajax, Pickering, Oshawa, Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Niagara, Windsor, Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, London, Barrie, Sudbury, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Kelowna, Whistler, Abbotsford and Victoria. More cities will be launched in 2013
Nice! Since I’m talking about Rogers, let me toss one more thing. Rogers has a new ad campaign called “Rogers vs. Milos Raonic and Brett Lawrie.” For those of you not familiar with those athletes, Raonic is Canada’s top tennis player and Lawrie is the Canadian superstar playing for the Toronto Blue Jays. The campaign supports the new Rogers Ultimate Bundle which includes TV, Home Phone, and Internet. The point of the campaign is to demonstrate how fast the Internet in the new bundle is via some challenges that compares each athlete to the speed of Rogers Internet. You can find out more and see the ads on RedBoard.
Fido Rolling Out LTE In Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and St. John’s
Posted in Commentary with tags Fido, LTE on July 26, 2012 by itnerdFor the last year or so, Rogers customers have been getting all the LTE lover. But now Fido customers can get some of that love too:
“We are thrilled to offer the benefits of LTE network technology to Fido customers this year,” said Steven Sarfin, senior director of marketing, Fido Solutions. “Our focus at Fido has always been on providing the best value to our customers. With data plans starting from $10/month, affordable LTE service is a perfect complement to the exclusive FidoADVANTAGE programs like FidoTRADE™, Fido LiveANSWERS™ and FidoDOLLARS™ our customers already enjoy.” Sarfin added.
But having LTE requires having devices that leverage that as well. Fido has that covered:
Coming this summer, the Fido Mobile Hotspot will be the first LTE-enabled device available from Fido. This device creates a Wi-Fi hotspot wherever, and whenever customers need it, and wirelessly connects up to 10 Wi-Fi capable devices simultaneously. LTE-enabled smartphones will be available at Fido later this year, and all of the Fido LTE-enabled devices are capable of running across Fido’s 4G HSPA+ network which covers 96 per cent of the population of Canada.
So. if you’re a Fido user it sounds like you’re going to get all the LTE love that you can handle this summer.
LTE On Rogers Turns One…. And 28 Cities To Get A LTE Present From Rogers
Posted in Commentary with tags LTE, Rogers on July 9, 2012 by itnerdAs Rogers LTE turns 1 year old, the news has hit the wires that 28 new cities will get LTE by the end of the year:
Rogers is continuing to expand its LTE network, expanding coverage in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Calgary and Vancouver, and adding a number of new cities from coast to coast with the plan to cover approximately 60 per cent of the population by the end of the year. Rogers plans to launch LTE in Moncton, Trois Rivières, Sherbrooke, Quebec City, Kingston, Ajax, Pickering, Oshawa, Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Niagara, Windsor, Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, London, Barrie, Sudbury, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Kelowna, Abbotsford and Victoria. More cities will be launched in 2013.
It really seems that Rogers is being hyper aggressive about getting LTE to as many people as they can before Bell their competition can do the same. In theory, that means that users win which should be a good thing. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Rogers LTE Now Available In Calgary And Halifax
Posted in Commentary with tags LTE, Rogers on April 2, 2012 by itnerdRogers continues their aggressive expansion of their LTE network by expanding into Calgary and Halifax. Here’s the details that “my best friends at Rogers” sent me:
I wanted to pop you a quick note to let you know that today we’re launching LTE in two new cities, Calgary and Halifax, and in the coming months we’ll be bringing LTE to Edmonton. Rogers LTE network now reaches close to 12 million people or one third of the Canadian population. By the end of the year, it will reach nearly 60 per cent.
For more details about the launch you can check out RedBoard and for all LTE information you can visit www.rogers.com/LTE
One other thing that I note from the RedBoard post is that two new phones will be available for Rogers LTE customers. Coming soon are the Nokia Lumia 900 which runs the Windows Phone OS and the HTC One X, the first smartphone in Canada designed with Beats Audio by rapper Dr. Dre.
Clearly Rogers wants to rule the LTE universe in Canada. Will this make you want to upgrade to LTE? Post your comments below please.
Review: Rogers LTE Network – Part 4: The Wrap Up
Posted in Products with tags LTE, Rogers on October 7, 2011 by itnerdSo I’ve lived with Rogers LTE for a week. The question is, what do I think about it?
First, it’s FAST. I got speeds of 20+ Mbps downstream in various parts of Toronto. While it’s not the 75 Mbps that they advertise, it’s noting to sneeze at. Second, the Sierra Wireless Aircard 313U that I reviewed was a very nice piece of kit. Easy to install and easy to use. The coverage at least in Toronto largely means the 416/647 area code. I did some further testing and found that it their coverage does creep into the suburbs outside of Toronto, but I would not bank on coverage deep into the suburbs. Two things that I should mention on that front. First, that’s likely to change as LTE gets extended by Rogers. Second, this is likely going to be the case in Ottawa, Montreal, and Vancouver as well. The only part that I would give Rogers LTE falls down is the price. It’s not cheap. The average consumer isn’t going to be using LTE anytime soon and I suspect that some business users might be turned off of going to LTE as well. If the price for LTE drops, they will have a winner on their hands because everything else about Rogers LTE rocks.
Review: Rogers LTE Network – Part 3: The Plans
Posted in Products with tags LTE, Rogers on October 6, 2011 by itnerdThe big question that I’m being asked is what does LTE go for on the Rogers network. Let me start with their current “must have” plan. A 10GB data plan for $52.93 per month on a 3 year plan. That’s a limited time offer, although I have no word on when this offer ends. Other plans include:
- $47.93 for 2GB
- $62.93 for 4GB
- $77.93 for 6GB
- $92.93 for 9GB
One thing I’ll point out is that if you blow past your cap at a given level, you get bumped up to the next level. Having said this, none of these plans can be described as cheap. But the 10GB data plan is your best choice if you must have LTE. I for one as a business user won’t be paying these kind of prices for LTE even though I can write this off as a business expense. They’re just too high for my tastes. Many others will likely share that view. I suspect that this will affect the adoption of Rogers LTE.
Tomorrow, I’ll wind up this review with my closing thoughts.
Review: Rogers LTE Network – Part 2: The Network
Posted in Products with tags LTE, Rogers on October 5, 2011 by itnerdSo I spent half my day driving around testing Rogers LTE Network. I traveled all over the Greater Toronto Area and I discovered something interesting. When I connected to the Rogers network from the Dundas St. and Highway 403 which is the border between the Toronto suburbs of Mississauga and Oakville, I got this result from the Rogers Connection Manager:
Hmmmm…. No LTE. So when I did my Speedtest.net test, I wasn’t shocked by what I got as a result:
While it’s still faster than my DSL connection, it’s not LTE. I got similar results in the Toronto suburbs of Markham, Pickering, and Vaughn. I checked the Rogers LTE coverage map and discovered that the LTE coverage in Toronto largely means the City of Toronto. Don’t expect to get LTE speeds very far outside the the 416/647 area code. The same is likely true in Ottawa, Montreal, and Vancouver. This will of course change as Rogers extends the LTE network to cover more of the population.
The good news is that in areas with LTE coverage, I got similar results to yesterday in terms of speed, that is 20+ Mbps, which is what Rogers says you should get. Hopefully as time goes on users will also see speeds approaching the maximum speeds that Rogers has been advertising which is 75 Mbps.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the plans that are available for LTE users which I think will be the deciding factor as to how popular this technology will be.
Review: Rogers LTE Network – Part 1: The Modem
Posted in Products with tags LTE, Rogers on October 4, 2011 by itnerdRecently, Rogers launched their LTE Network in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. The big deal about LTE that it is the top of the food chain when it comes to wireless Internet access. The speeds that you can expect to see are up to 75 Mbps downstream. I was itching to give this new LTE network a try and Rogers obliged by sending me a Sierra Wireless Aircard 313U USB modem. Now, installation of the modem is dead easy. On my Mac I simply plugged it into a free USB port, it then prompted me to install some software which was resident on the device, and reboot. Done. Finished. Easy. After the reboot, I connected to the Rogers network using their connection manager and the first thing that I did was go to speedtest.net to see how fast I was going. Here’s what I got:
Okay. I’m not getting 75 Mbps. But this is way faster than my DSL connection. I’m testing this in my home office in the west end of Toronto. I’ll be going around the city over the next few days to see if my speed changes as well as to test Rogers coverage. I did a bunch of other common tasks such as grab my e-mail, watch a TV show online, and play a couple of rounds of Team Fortress 2. No slow speeds here.
Back to the modem. One of the things I like about this modem is that it has a MicroSD slot. That way you can stick a 16 or 32GB MicroSD card and get some storage as well. Cool feature.
So, so far I am impressed by what I see. The question is, will the network live up to the hype. Tune in tomorrow for a test from Oakville, Mississauga, and Brampton. Will I get faster speeds? Will I get LTE coverage? You’ll have to check back to see.
Flaws In The LTE Protocol Can Lead To Epic Pwnage
Posted in Commentary with tags LTE, Security on March 5, 2018 by itnerdResearchers at at the University of Iowa and Purdue University have uncovered 10 different attack vectors that exploit flaws in three critical protocol operations of the LTE mobile network that we humans have come to depend upon to keep us connected to Facebook and Instagram.
All the attacks fall under one bucket which is called the authentication relay attack. These attacks allow hackers to connect to an LTE network without credentials, as well as to masquerade as a target’s device. Plus they can eavesdrop on phone calls and text messages, knock devices offline, and even spoof emergency alerts. In other words they can do some bad stuff and get away without getting caught. Here’s what researcher Syed Rafiul Hussain told ZDNet:
Among the 10 newly detected attacks, we have verified eight of them in a real testbed with SIM cards from four major US carriers.
And:
The root cause of most of these attacks are the lacks of proper authentication, encryption, and replay protection in the important protocol messages.
This sounds similar to something that I wrote about that centered around Canadian carriers getting a failing grade when it came to security last year. Now one of the US carriers named has already implemented a fix. But I wonder if those carriers in Canada who didn’t measure up when it came to protecting their customers from stuff like this have done so. Never mind the other US carriers or carriers elsewhere. It would be really reassuring if they call came out and spoke to this so that we didn’t have to assume that they weren’t taking the security of their networks seriously.
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