The new 3500MHz 5G system is massively boosting data speeds in Toronto, our initial test results show, making Rogers a competitive carrier in terms of speed for the first time in years.

We're just starting a nationwide drive test of Canada, where we'll see how 3500MHz is performing across the country. Right now, Rogers and Bell users with recent Samsung Galaxy S models or iPhones, as well as Telus users with recent iPhones, can hop onto the spectrum.

From a day's worth of initial testing in Toronto, we found that 3500MHz changes the game. The best Canadian 3500MHz speeds are faster than any US mid-band network, and the system can more than double 5G performance.

This chart isn't exactly apples to apples. Bell shuttled me to its best possible test sites, while Rogers just gave me a coverage map and told me to go to town. Even without visiting the absolute best sites, though, there was a major jump in Rogers performance over 2021. Both of the 2021 results shown are from our drive-test days.

New Airwaves Make a Major Difference

The 3500MHz just about doubles the spectrum available to each of Bell, Rogers, and Telus in Toronto, and it at least doubles performance. The networks are live, and they work with popular phones, so they weren't completely unloaded. Still, though, a lot of old phones are unable to hit the newer airwaves, leaving them clearer than the older allotment.

Adding 70MHz of mid-band to Rogers' current haul pushed speeds to a max of 782Mbps down and 129Mbps up, with latencies frequently at 12-13ms. Outside the Rosedale subway station, where 3500MHz is active, I got 649Mbps down and 93Mbps up. Outside the Lawrence West subway station, also with 3500MHz, I saw 665Mbps down and 119Mbps up.

The difference between 3500 and non-3500 can be really dramatic. In the Leslieville neighborhood, I saw 134-164Mbps down and 29-58Mbps up on Rogers' network without the 3500MHz. Just a few blocks west, the new spectrum kicked in and I got 455Mbps down and 35Mbps up.

Rogers' official coverage map for 3500MHz is pretty detailed, and according to my tests, at least close to true. When I went to spots that seemed indicated as 3500MHz, they all had it; I even saw it at some spots, such as Front and York, that didn't have it on the map that day.

In a string of tests walking along Queen Street through Leslieville, I hit 3500MHz a few blocks in from the official border, but it looks like Rogers' coverage map is largely reliable.

In a highly congested downtown location (at Front and York Streets) we got 249Mbps down on Rogers with the new spectrum turned on; turning it off in our phone's settings, speeds dropped to around 70Mbps down.

Bell, meanwhile, combines its 60MHz and Telus' 20MHz for a total of 80MHz of mid-band, and that means it's still ahead of Rogers on spectrum. Testing on Bell's network, I saw a spectacular speed test of 1,648Mbps, which is better than anything we saw on our nationwide drive test of T-Mobile's network in the US.

At the corner of Yonge and Lawrence, I saw 785-957Mbps down and 77-82Mbps up, with 19-23ms latencies on Bell's network.

Both sets of results are better than what we saw last year on our Toronto drive tests. In last year's drive test, Bell averaged 331Mbps down and maxed at 788Mbps. Rogers averaged 165Mbs and maxed at 459Mbps.

Bell's coverage map wasn't available yet on our testing day, but we were able to kick a device down from 3500MHz to the earlier form of 5G, and then to 4G, in the same location.

Doing so took speeds from 1648Mbps down and 116Mbps up with 3500Mhz 5G, to 858Mbps down and 82Mbps up with standard 5G, and 879Mbps down and 54Mbps up with 4G LTE.

Yes, the standard 5G and 4G LTE speeds were about the same, which shows how much of a game-changer 3500MHz is. In general, Bell's approach to 5G before this was to shift around some existing 4G airwaves and stick a 5G on them; that got you the icon, but not much more performance. Now, though, we're seeing much better performance.

The Future of 5G in Canada

Beyond a certain point, spectacular speed tests don't matter. If one carrier is getting 1Gbps and the other is getting 1.6Gbps, both appear to have a lot of capacity for many people to run the kinds of 20-50Mbps downloading, gaming, and video-streaming applications people generally use while on the go.

Some of the advantage of mid-band is about making sure that you can still have that capacity when things get crowded. That spot at Front and York where I tested Rogers regularly floods with Blue Jays fans

Some of the effects of 3500MHz will appear later this year, or farther down the road. Some of them go beyond the actual capabilities of the airwaves.

Last year, the CRTC ruled that the Big Three could be forced to rent their network out to new entrants, but only if the new entrants had some of their own airwaves, and did some of the buildout work. That would allow Videotron and Cogeco to start offering mobile service in Toronto and other parts of the country, based in part on their relatively small allotments of 3500MHz and more on renting the Big Three networks. They've said they want to, but haven't delivered more concrete plans yet.

In the US, Verizon's and T-Mobile's new mid-band capacity has led to a major expansion of their wireless home ISP services. So far, Bell and Rogers haven't focused on that, but I expect that Sasktel, Xplornet, and TBayTel, among others, will eventually use their 3500MHz to beam home internet to new customers.

We're looking forward to testing the new technology on our Fastest Mobile Networks Canada road trip, starting next week.