Rogers Wireless comes to Prince Rupert

On March 13th of this year, Rogers officially launched GSM services in Prince Rupert. This was the first stage of a 10 million dollar investment by Rogers to provide full GSM service between Prince George and Prince Rupert.

With the recent growth of Prince Rupert, thanks to the port and cruise industries, bringing GSM in only makes sense. Gordon Nelson a Rogers Vice President is quoted as saying:

You have a lot of activity going on in the city with the expansion of the port, the cruise ship industry growth ant it’s a great tourist destination. The Prince George corridor is very, very important to our customers. This level of expansion will enhance our connection to the world.

Currently there are four operational sites in Prince Rupert stretching to the Terrace area. It is hoped that by June this will increase to 17 including enhanced Terrace coverage. Smithers, Kitimat and Hazelton may be online by next year.

This is a huge deal for Rogers as until now truckers hauling in this corridor leaving Prince George have not been able to use their phone outside of Vanderhoof and even then only if they are lucky. This has put Rogers at a huge disadvantage in Northern BC. It has been the primary reason Rogers has often been the last choice among consumers when looking to buy a cell phone in the area.

But the addition of Rogers GSM between Prince George and Prince Rupert will go a long way to changing that. It will mean that not only can people in Smithers for instance enjoy GSM data speeds but that people in Prince Rupert will be able to use the iPhone when it hits the Canadian market. It means people in this area now have a choice they did not have previously and they now have a more exciting a choice of phones.

If Prince Rupert takes off and becomes the international hub everyone expects, and people from all over come with their GSM phones in hand, this can only help both Prince George and Prince Rupert on the international stage.