Cities and rural communities across Canada will see significant economic and quality-of-life benefits as 5G is deployed.
According to a new report commissioned by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and developed by Accenture Strategy 5G will add 250,000 new permanent jobs to the economy by 2026. It also estimates that 5G impact will reach $40 billion CAD of annual GDP contribution by 2026.
The report, “Accelerating 5G in Canada – Benefits for Cities and Rural Communities“ examines how the deployment of 5G can benefit both cities and rural communities. It highlights 5G as a key enabler for a number of...
According to a recent media report, Canadian key intelligence agencies - the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) - are divided over whether Ottawa should block Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. from supplying equipment for this country’s next-generation 5G wireless networks.
CSE and CSIS were tasked with conducting a cybersecurity review to evaluate the risks as well as the economic costs to Canadian telecoms and consumers of blacklisting the equipment supplier. The Americans and Australians -- who are partners with Canada, Britain and New Zealand in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network -- have...
Rogers Communications, together with the University of British Columbia (UBC), announced the launch of what it claims to be Canada’s first 5G-powered smart campus in North America as part of their strategic partnership to advance 5G research in the country.
“With 5G at our doorstep, we’re focused on bringing together Canada’s brightest minds to research, incubate and commercialize applications that will transform the way we live and work,” said Jorge Fernandes, Chief Technology Officer, Rogers Communications in the press release. “Our work with UBC is helping design and test Canada’s 5G blueprint and today’s announcement is a critical milestone as...
Ericsson has extended a 5G security partnership with Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, through a new industrial research chair awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
The main objective of this Industrial Research Chair (IRC) program is to develop a series of solutions to improve the security of cloud and edge computing virtual infrastructures based on network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN), with special application to virtual radio access network (vRAN). The new knowledge and technologies that would be transferred to the industrial partner and the Canadian telecommunications industry through this research include...
ENCQOR 5G (Evolution of Networked Services through a Corridor in Québec and Ontario for Research and Innovation) industry partnership announced that Canada's first publicly accessible 5G mmWave service is now live at Invest Ottawa, and will be rolled out to the other ENCQOR 5G sites in Quebec and Ontario in the coming weeks.
The ENCQOR 5G initiative is funded by the governments of Canada, Quebec and Ontario as well as leading industry players Ericsson, Ciena, Thales, CGI and IBM. ENCQOR 5G is coordinated by Innovation ENCQOR, and delivered in Ontario by Ontario Centers of Excellence and in Quebec by Innovation...
A new GSMA report highlights North America's global 5G leadership. The report - The Mobile EconomyNorth America 2019 - part of GSMA’s ongoing Mobile Economy report series was published at MWC Los Angeles by GSMA Intelligence, the research arm of the GSMA.
The study sees a rapid expansion of 5G coverage across the US and Canada and estimates that by the end of 2022, 24% of connections on the continent will be on 5G networks, rising to 46% by 2025 – equivalent to 200 million 5G connections.
High subscriber penetration coupled with historically high consumer spend on mobile services means the...
In my previous post I argued that if Canada wants to succeed with its AI-focused innovation agenda, it should also be at the forefront of 5G innovation and development. Canada could get ahead in the global 5G race not by being the first to 5G, but by being the first to roll out 5G in the right way - addressing cybersecurity, linking development of AI and 5G, addressing regulatory and policy prerequisites, etc.
Canada could leap ahead in development of both, 5G and AI, by tackling them collaboratively rather than in parallel but separately as is the case now. One...
Canada has been investing in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for longer than most of the industrialized world. Dr. Geoff Hinton of Google helped ignite the field of graphics processing unit (GPU) deep learning at the University of Toronto. Then he became chief scientific advisor to the Vector Institute, which in collaboration with the University, aims to produce the largest number of deep learning AI graduates and innovators globally. Meanwhile, Montreal, Quebec prides itself as the birthplace of AI. It’s the home of computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, who is another pioneer of AI technology. Hundreds of AI researchers...
Emerging Technology and Geopolitics of 5G
There are several reasons emerging technology is a highly competitive industry, notwithstanding the race for intellectual property that can be licensed by burgeoning markets for revenue. A first-mover advantage is often a way to lock in relationships that can lead to long-term infrastructure commitments, integration support services, and service delivery platform development. As the adage goes, “Whoever owns the platform, owns the customer.” This race to be the first to establish technological platforms and lock-in their customers is increasingly becoming politicized. And 5G, the next generation of cellular mobile communications technology, is the best...
Since the dawn of the 21st Century, the ways in which people and organizations that use the Internet experience, perceive and act in the world is radically changing. We interact with physical objects and systems well beyond our sight and comprehension. Our cars, homes, factories and public transportation are controlled increasingly by computer chips and sensors. This interconnectedness already exceeds much of last century’s science fiction imaginings, but is poised to accelerate even more dramatically with the advent of 5G.
Popular telecom carrier driven expectations about the speed and capacity of 5G consumer mobile service tend to obscure the broader...
Canada’s rankings in innovation has lagged that of other peer nations for decades despite government efforts to address this issue. Considering its success in developing research programs at its universities, its mediocre rankings overall in technology development is disappointing. Those programs alone have not been enough to translate into entrepreneurial innovation.
A 2017 C.D. Howe Institute study points out that, even though Canadians have been at the forefront of breakthroughs in emerging technologies, in many cases, the chief beneficiaries of those breakthroughs have been other nations’ economies. Canada needs to take a stronger role in building an environment in which...
Targeted cyberattacks against critical infrastructure (CI) are increasing on a global scale. Critical systems are rapidly being connected to the internet, affording attackers opportunities to target virtual systems that operate and monitor physical structures and physical processes through various modes of cyberattack.
When people think of cyberattacks, their minds often go first to the financial sector. After all, that’s the type of attack people hear about most frequently; it’s where the money is and it’s what seems most natural for cybercriminals to target. Enterprises frequently focus on such cyber-enabled financial crimes to the point that they give too little thought...