Canada's service provider Rogers Communications has announced the launch of LTE network technical trial with Ericsson Canada in the Ottawa area.

"Our customers increasingly want anywhere, anytime access to information, communications, entertainment and transactional experiences on their device of choice," said Nadir Mohamed, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc. 

Ericsson, in co-operation with Rogers, has been conducting LTE lab testing at its Ottawa Research and Development facility comparing speeds and performance of LTE technology in multiple frequency bands. Rogers will expand on this testing and move to a comprehensive technical trial of LTE on both low and high band frequencies across the Ottawa area.

"Through this trial we will validate how LTE technology will perform in real world situations across a variety of spectrum frequencies in urban, suburban, and rural environments," said Bob Berner, EVP, Network and Chief Technology Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.

The technical trial will initially use recently auctioned AWS spectrum. Rogers is also working with Industry Canada to secure a development license to use 700 MHz spectrum for the trial.