Rogers Wireless, formerly known as Rogers AT&T Wireless, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rogers Communications. Rogers purchased Fido in November 2004, creating Canada's largest wireless carrier, surpassing Bell Mobility in subscriber volumeFact: date=July 2008, and is Canada's only Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network.

History

Rogers began with an Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) network, and later moved to the IS-136 standard before finally moving to a GSM network in the 1990s. At various times the service was sold under the names Cantel, Cantel AT&T, Rogers Cantel AT&T, and Rogers AT&T Wireless. Their network is GSM standard but development is now focused on UMTS, HSDPA, and EUL service. Both the AMPS and IS-136 networks have been decommissioned, and the networks were shut down on May 31, 2007.

Prior to the Rogers acquisition, the wireless business was known as Cantel Communications and Cantel AT&T.

In 2007, Rogers created a music festival in downtown Toronto, "The Rogers Picnic". The inaugural Rogers Picnic, created by Rogers Wireless was on July 29, 2007 and was held at the outdoor venue, Historic Fort York in Toronto. The second annual Rogers Picnic took place on July 20, 2008 at the same venue.

Services

Rogers offers the following services:

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE on the 850 and 1900 MHz bands (Also known as 2G GSM, or 2.5G in the case of EDGE)
• UMTS/HSDPA on the 850 MHz bands (Also known as 3G GSM)
• Mobitex/GSM/GPRS/EDGE BlackBerry handheld devices
• Wireless Data Services
• Two way messaging
• Two Way Video Calling
• Live Mobile TV
• XM Radio Mobile
• Video on Demand Mobile

Rogers Wireless carries phones made by Apple Inc., Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, HTC and RIM. A large majority of the Rogers' customer base uses its GSM/GPRS/EDGE network, but the primary focus for development and new customers has been on its UMTS/HSDPA/EUL network. Rogers Wireless claims to be the only Canadian Wireless Provider to offer a complete, independent coast-to-coast network spanning all Canadian regions excluding the Territories.

In February 2006 at the 3GSM Conference in Barcelona, Rogers announced that testing for their 3G/3.5G UMTS/HSDPA network would be complete by March 2006. The network was brought online for select markets on November 2, 2006. UMTS/HSDPA is available in most major cities in Canada with further expansion in 2008. So far, users are reporting performance in the 2-3 Mbit/s range on the HSDPA network, and 1 Mbit/s using UMTS. All Rogers Wireless HSDPA-enabled Node B's support up to 7.2 Mbit/s downlink speeds and are current to Ericcson/3GPP Release 5. EUL, also known as HSUPA, is expected to be in service by 3rd quarter 2008.

Rogers Wireless offers the following Wireless Business Applications to its customers: Mindit Assist, AskMeNow, Sales Anywhere, NewsClip, bbTV, FPinfomart Mobile, Connection Manager, eOffice