To celebrate the anniversary of its launch of LTE back in 2011, Canadian carrier Rogers has detailed an aggressive expansion plan, aiming to bring the high-speed service to 60 percent of the Canadian population by the end of the year. The new rollout — a major increase on the carrier's current 35 percent coverage — will bring LTE to smaller cities such as Hamilton, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Waterloo, the location of ailing BlackBerry maker RIM's headquarters.

Rogers currently offers a fairly standard range of LTE devices, including flagship smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S III, the HTC One X and the Nokia Lumia 900, as well as an own-brand dongle and a MiFi mobile hotspot. The news of its LTE expansion yesterday coincided with a swathe of similar announcements from US carrier AT&T, which is rolling out the service to new cities in Texas, New York, North Carolina and elsewhere.