Purists might gnash their teeth, but users mostly won’t care that Rogers will change the nomenclature of its HSPA+ “3G” network to “4G” on May 9, 2011.
Effective May 9th Rogers will call its HSPA+ network, technically 3G, a “4G HSPA ” network.
Rogers says this “is simply a network name change” to align with the International Telecommunicaitons Union standards and also to “bring up on par with Bell and TELUS and close the perceived gap”. In other words, the mobile broadband access market has shifted. Despite the fact that most consumers likely could not tell the difference between a 4G and an HSPA+ 3G network, the marketing platform around 4G has become important.
TELUS announced their new “4G” network in February and Bell closely followed in March 2011. Soon after SaskTel and MTS both declared their networks were also being marketed as a “4G” network.
Rogers simply has to keep pace, in the marketing wars. Of course, that also creates another problem, namely how to market 4G in its Long Term Evolution variant.
Verizon Wireless can fairly clearly make an argument that its 4G network differs clearly from its 3G network in terms of speed and latency. It will be a bit harder to draw the distinction between a good HSPA+ network and an LTE network, in many cases, since field tests show an HSPA+ network can offer experienced speeds as high as some LTE networks.
Rogers to officially become a “4G HPSA ” network on May 9th | MobileSyrup.com