Canadian operator Rogers Communications unveiled what it described as the country’s first commercial standalone (SA) 5G network, highlighting immediate advantages in terms of coverage and scalability alongside the opportunity to introduce new use cases.

The company’s SA 5G deployment uses Ericsson kit. Its launch follows several national “firsts” related to the latest architecture including attaining certification for use of the Google Pixel 6 device range on the network and completing work on a SA 5G core ahead of peers.

Rogers – Canada’s largest operator with 11.3 million connections according to GSMA Intelligence – noted the latest generation of 5G would cut latency and introduce network slicing capabilities. It added its rollout was one of the first globally.

The operator said it had been “built to scale massively and will support the unprecedented growth of IoT devices in the years to come,” while pointing to potential new services including dedicated private networks, applications in public safety, and the AR/VR consumer space using edge computing.

Alongside the already certified Google handsets, Rogers expects to add “other major devices” later in 2022.