История Rogers Wireless: от Cantel до лидера канадской мобильной связи.

Canadian wireless telephone company
The company was originally started by David Margolese as an expansion of his pager firm, Canadian Telecom, formed in 1978. With the 1983 introduction of AMPS, the first North American standard for cell phones, Margolese started plans to expand the company into this new market. This required large amounts of capital. A group of private investors consisting of Margolese, Ted Rogers, Marc Belzberg and Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien formed the newly renamed Cantel in 1984 and opening for service in July 1985. Rogers purchased a controlling interest in the company in 1986, and bought out all of the shares of the other members by 1990. Starting in 1984, he also purchased an increasing share of CNCP Telecommunications, who operated a number of microwave relay networks suitable for carrying long distance calls. AT&T purchased a share of the new company, which also allowed Cantel to avoid using Bell Canada lines for access into the U. S. where possible. In 2003, the company was renamed Rogers Wireless, and in 2004 Rogers bought out AT&T's remaining shares. The same year, Rogers purchased Microcell Solutions, today known as Fido, Canada's first user of GSM systems as opposed to the more widespread (in North America) CDMA. The company then expanded GSM service throughout their network. Rogers Wireless has remained Canada's leading wireless provider throughout its history. This was aided in its early Cantel years by the slow uptake of cellular service by Bell Canada and the limited capital of smaller players like BC Tel and Shaw Communications. The use of GSM proved to be a major boon when the iPhone was released in 2007 and only ran on GSM. This handed the company exclusive access to this product until 2009 when Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility agreed to share towers and switch/upgrade to UMTS/HSPA in time to capture the lucrative international market as part of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Today, Rogers retains its preeminent position with widespread service, continued acquisitions, and the use of fighter brands like Fido and Chatr.

Rogers Wireless was founded by Ted Rogers, David Margolese, Marc Belzberg and Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien. In 1978, future Sirius XM Radio founder David Margolese dropped out of university and founded the paging company Canadian Telecom. Foreseeing that cellular wireless technology would be used for more than simply voice calls, In 1984, the group was granted Canada’s national cellular license. In 1986, Ted Rogers purchased a controlling stake in Cantel, which was at the time Canada's only national supplier of cellular telephone service. Over the next four years, Rogers bought out his partners, becoming the sole owner of Cantel. Cantel was later renamed Cantel AT&T, Rogers Cantel AT&T and Rogers AT&T Wireless; in December 2003, the company became known by its current name, Rogers Wireless,

Rogers operates GSM, UMTS, LTE, and 5G NR networks in all of Canada's provinces and offers roaming in Canada's territories.

Rogers previously operated an AMPS/D AMPS network in the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands in Canada. The network was shut down on May 31, 2007.

Since 2002, the company's 2G GSM network with EDGE has operated in Canada. Other devices can still connect to the 850MHz 2G GSM network in existing markets as of September 2023.

In July 2011, Rogers was the first Canadian telecom operator to launch a commercial long term evolution (LTE) network. In May 2013, Rogers deployed LTE service on its 2600 MHz spectrum in some markets, which the company began marketing as LTE Max. LTE Max is available in a fraction of Rogers' LTE coverage area. Rogers has not announced its goals for expanding LTE coverage across Canada, but announced plans in June 2014 to have LTE coverage expanded to 98.3% of the population of British Columbia by the end of 2016. According to Rogers, as of December 31, 2016, its LTE coverage reached 95% of the Canadian population. On March 31, 2015, Rogers Wireless launched voice over LTE (VoLTE), the first carrier in Canada to offer this service. Cat 6 LTE Advanced has been available since January 2015, through carrier aggregation of band 4 and band 7, with a maximum download speed of 225 Mbit/s.

Rogers Wireless carries feature phones, and smartphones that support either Android OS or iOS.

Customers with select smartphones, tablets, computers, LG Smart TVs, Xbox 360 and Xbox One gaming systems can use the Rogers On Demand mobile service, which was renamed Rogers Live before its current incarnation, Rogers Anyplace TV. Rogers Anyplace TV offers TV shows, movies and sports on demand.

In 2004, Rogers bought Canada’s first and, at the time, only other GSM provider, Fido, along with Fido’s partner, Sprint Canada, for a total of $1.4 billion. At the time, Fido had nearly 1.3 million customers. In 2008, Fido was rebranded as a discount mobile virtual network operator with a new logo and cheaper plans.

Rogers launched the Chatr Mobile brand in mid 2010 in response to the emergence of new phone carriers Mobilicity, Public Mobile, and Freedom Mobile (previously Wind Mobile) to directly compete with the new carriers in their coverage areas. Chatr became a cheaper option than Fido, making Fido more of a mid range offering.

Rogers has its own corporate retail stores, known as Rogers Plus, and also allows third parties to become exclusive dealers. Best Buy and Walmart stores in Canada provide Fido products along with prepaid and postpaid services. Additionally, Loblaw Companies stores sell prepaid feature phones and top up vouchers. Loblaw stores have a special booth, called The Mobile Shop, where the phones are displayed.

While Shoppers Drug Mart carried only Rogers Wireless prepaid phones at one time, the stores temporarily partnered with Rogers. As a result, Shoppers stores added both prepaid and postpaid products and services for Rogers and its two other brands, Fido and Chatr. As of March 2011, however, Shoppers stores ended their partnership. They only sell prepaid top up vouchers for these providers.

In 2005, Rogers lost a court case against an Osgoode Hall Law School university professor, Susan Drummond, over a $12,000 charge for overseas calls that was placed on her bill after the phone was stolen, for which the company insisted she pay. Following the case becoming public knowledge, Ted Rogers issued a formal apology and cancelled the charges. Drummond filed a lawsuit, for which she was then also paid punitive and compensatory damages. Drummond and her partner Harry Gefen published further on the case in an SSHRC funded research project, and for which she and her partner were cited by Time magazine as "heroes of the year" in 2007. During her research, Drummond showed that the phones of Rogers executives had been cloned by members of Hezbollah and used to make thousands of overseas phone calls in 1997 and 1998. It also turned up information that Rogers had been allowing phones that they were alerted had potentially fraudulent call patterns to continue to remain functional despite the warning.

On July 7, 2009, Rogers Wireless began charging a nominal fee for incoming text messages to customers without a text messaging plan. The change was similar to policies of charging for incoming text message that were adopted in August 2008 by Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility. Some users complained that Rogers had unilaterally changed the terms of their contracts. The company maintained that changes to services and fees are permitted in the "terms of service" document.

Rogers has been criticized for its Government Regulatory Recovery Fee (GRRF), formerly known as the System Access Fee (SAF). The fee ranges between $1.93 to $3.35 per month. On July 4, 2012, Rogers announced it would no longer be charging a separate GRRF fee to new customers, instead raising the price of the Monthly Service Charge. The bills of existing customers would remain the same. An $18 billion class action lawsuit against: Bell, Rogers, and Telus, originally filed in a Saskatchewan court in 2004 regarding these hidden fees, is still pending.

Rogers launched the Chatr brand with low end feature phones and pricing plans similar to that of new entrants such as Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile. Chatr was criticized for being a fighter brand created by Rogers. The brand's "fewer dropped calls" claim was disputed by the Competition Bureau.