Bell Site at North City Limit Operational

The Bell site at the city limits north on Hwy 17 located behind the old Greenbelt bingo hall as reported in this blog entry is finally operational. 

Bell Aliant FibreOP Roll Out Sault Ste Marie

I recently attended a presentation by the Bell Aliant manager with overall responsibility for Bell’s Fibre to the Home (FTTH) or FibreOP project in Sault Ste. Marie.  FibreOP brings an end-to-end fibre optic connection from the core network to a demarcation point (or demarc) on the customer’s premise. Connectivity within the house is provided by Cat 5 or 6 cables, a standard wireless router or a combination of media.

You will note that it is Bell Aliant and not Bell or BCE that is responsible for the project. Bell Aliant was originally formed to serve the Maritime Provinces by combining the former provincial based operating entities into one. In 2006, parts of Ontario and Quebec were added to the mix, including Northern Telecom and Télébec, with the intent of forming an Income Trust. When new federal regulations came into effect prohibiting Income Trusts, Bell Aliant remained as the principal operating company in the affected area.  

After a successful roll-out of FibreOP in major Atlantic area cities, Bell Aliant decided to roll out the product in the four largest cities in Northeastern Ontario. The Bell Aliant parent company, BCE, issued a press release on 22 May 2013 announcing the project for Sault Ste. Marie.  

The plan is to have FibreOP passing about 50% of the residences in the Sault within the next two years. FibreOP is a residential, as opposed to a commercial, product line. It is intended for residential buildings with four or less units with the emphasis on single unit dwellings.  The project is not proposed for larger multi-unit complexes at this time.

The preferred construction method is aerial cable on existing pole-lines. This is an economically driven decision. This means, if your area of the city has buried or underground cable distribution, it is highly unlikely FibreOP will be coming to your neighbourhood in the near future. 

The plan is to roll out FibreOP from Bell’s downtown location in three phases over the next couple of years. The first will be towards the East end, then the West end and finally the North Central area.

Because of the lengthy construction period and somewhat sketchy coverage, there will not be an extensive marketing effort per se. Areas served by FibreOP will be made aware of the fact by targetted advertising and door-to-door notification.

FibreOP offers three major services: - FibreOP lnternet, FibreOP TV, and FibreOP Home Phone. These services are available as a bundle or individually. 

FibreOP Internet comes in two levels with download/upload speeds of 20/15 Mbps; or 50/30 Mbps. There are no cap limits on the amount of data transfer.

FibreOP TV has up to 223 channels and various hardware offerings available.

Full details of the plans are available at the FibreOP website.

           

CRTC Isses 2013 Edition of Its Communications Monitoring Report

The CRTC released the 2013 edition of its annual Communications Monitoring Report today.

The report summarizes the status of the consumer telecommunications industry in Canada.

The full report can be read or downloaded from this site. A standalone executive summary can be found at this page.

A number of infographics summaries are also available:

Infographic: How are Canadian citizens served by their communication system?

Infographic: How are Canadians served by creators in the communication system?

Infographic: How are Canadians consumers served by their communication system?

Is CDMA a Dying Breed?

There are reports that Telus is considering decommissioning their CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) network within the next two years.  Telus, Bell and Tbaytel currently operate or share CDMA networks in the Algoma District although any new Bell sites constructed since the activation of the Desbarats site in Dec 2010 have not included CDMA capabilities.

The reasons espoused include a diminishing customer base as users switch to smartphones and data,  lack of new handsets with improved capabilities and the chance to reuse the freed up spectrum for HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) and LTE (Long Term Evolution) expansion

Bell and Telus jointly built and converted their primary networks to HSPA in time for the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 and subsequently have been rolling out LTE upgrades. 

In general terms, the new sophisticated smartphones are not amenable to CDMA although there are smartphone model available that will operate in both CDMA and HSPA modes. They are just not available in Canada at this time.

This is one of the features that Verizon would have brought to Canada as they still operate the biggest CDMA network in North America and have CDMA/HSPA/LTE tri-mode phones – for a price. Verizon has indicated they will operate their CDMA network until at least 2021 but like everything in the mobile phone business it is likely subject to change on short notice.

CDMA is often the technology of choice for users who want just voice and limited texting capable in their phones.  Various reports indicate there are about 1Million plus users of CDMA phones in Canada. Many experts consider CDMA the Sony Beta of the industry in that the better technology but lost out in the end.

The carriers need to be careful if they do not want to anger their customer base as they did with their last major network decommissioning when they shut down the analogue networks. At least one western regional carrier is getting their customers ready for an adjustment by offering free exchange of CDMA phones for HSPA to LTE phones. 

Potential Participants in Canadian 700 MHz Spectrum Auction

This is the complete list as published by Industry Canada of the applicants for participation in the 700 MHz spectrum auction to be held in early 2014. The list includes all the major national carriers as well as the principal regional carriers which in the case of the Algoma District include Bell, Rogers and Telus and the regional carrier Tbaytel.

• ·       1770129 Alberta Inc.
• ·         Bell Mobility Inc.
• ·         BH Wave Acquisition Corporation
• ·         Bragg Communications Incorporated
• ·         Feenix Wireless Inc.
• ·         Globalive Wireless Management Corp.
• ·         MTS Inc.
• ·         Novus Wireless Inc.
• ·         Rogers Communications Partnership
• ·         Saskatchewan Telecommunications
• ·         TBayTel
• ·         TELUS Communications Company
• ·         The Catalyst Capital Group Inc.
• ·         Vecima Networks Inc.
• ·         Vidéotron s.e.n.c.

If one connects to this Industry Canada page it has more information about each vendor including a link to the details of the beneficial ownership of each applicant.

The list also includes a number of lesser know vendors that may be interested in very specific regions or perhaps the unpaired spectrum which will be very good for fixed wireless broadband applications. See this blog entry for details of the blocks and the regions covered.

After many weeks and days of speculation, no foreign carriers submitted applications although a couple of foreign companies show up in the beneficial ownership listings.  Also missing were the two carriers formed as a result of the last auction in 2008, namely Mobilicity and Public Mobile. However, Mr. John Bitove who is President and CEO of Mobilicity is listed as a principal of Feenix Wireless Inc. Also The Catalyst Capital Group Inc is financially connected to Mobility

To get on the list, a company had to make a refundable pre-auction deposit of 5% based on projected costs of the spectrum as produced by the government. The next step in the process is scheduled for 22 Oct 2013 when Industry Canada publishes the final list of qualified bidders. The bidders then have until 29 Oct 2013 to submit the remaining 95% of the necessary pre-auction deposits.

Shaw Go WiFi Status in Sault Ste Marie

Judging by the number of times the network “Shaw Open” is showing up during WiFi network scans in Sault Ste Marie, it appears the roll-out of the Shaw WiFi network is going extremely well.

In September, 2011 Shaw announced it was cancelling its plans to enter the cell network marketplace. In its stead, they proposed a WiFi network based on backhaul connectivity through the company’s broadband network. In the industry this is known as mobile data off-loading where data that would normally transit a cellular radio network uses a fibre optic or other broadband network instead.  Recent studies show that the amount of off-loaded traffic is approaching 50% in some jurisdictions. This frees up valuable, and expensive, radio spectrum for more real-time applications such as voice. It also means a user does not need to use expensive cellular (mobile) plan megabytes to view data intensive apps like videos.

Shaw branded their product as Shaw Go WiFi.

The Shaw Go WiFi consists of a large number of WiFi hotspots located throughout an area covered by a Shaw cable plant. Shaw provides the hotspots free to all manner of businesses, offices, public buildings, etc. in the target area.  The ultimate goal is provide as complete coverage of a locale as possible. The system is network agile which means it has the capability to hand-off active connections between hotspots as long as they have an overlapping electronic footprint.   Sources inform me that the maps of the WiFi locations have about a two week lag period from the installation date until they show up on the map.

To access the system, a user needs to be a Shaw customer, have a @shaw.ca email address and be registered through the Shaw Go WiFi website.  You can have more than one device registered. A device is a cellphone, tablet, laptop or any other hardware that can connect to a WiFi network. The number of devices a user can register varies from as few as three to as many as 10 depending on the level of Shaw Internet service you subscribe to. The details are available in the FAQ area on the website.  

The use of the network is free but data usage is charged against the data cap in the plan the device is registered under.

As noted, as of this point in time, you can only use the system if you have a @shaw.ca account. If you live outside the Shaw Internet coverage are, you are out of luck. There are a couple of work arounds. One is to establish Shaw account within the nearest coverage area. This can get a bit pricey as the cheapest Internet price is $50.00, after the $30 introductory offer, for 125 GB of data. Another option is have a friend or relation register your device on their plan and either depend on their kindness to cover your data usage or offer to reimburse them based on your data usage. In the above example the cost for data is 40 cents per gigabyte.

There is little doubt that Shaw Go WiFi is an example of the direction mobile networks are moving as data uses increase exponentially and radio spectrum becomes harder to acquire and more expensive.   While the technology works very well in urban areas, it is less advantageous to rural areas that do not have the underlying backhaul infrastructure or population density.

Tbaytel Data Hub Roaming

It appears the Tbaytel data hub roaming is back in business – kind of.  I gleaned the following from the Tbaytel Community Forum website. 

  

• The Tbaytel policy of only selling Tbaytel data hubs to users for use in the Tbaytel coverage area still applies. This means that unless you have an address north of approximately 6^th Line in Sault Ste. Marie they will not sell you a rocket hub. This is in compliance with the Rogers/Tbaytel operating agreement.
•  As sold, the Tbaytel data hub is blocked from directly accessing the Rogers network through a Rogers’s site infrastructure. In other words it can only access a Tbaytel tower/site. However, Tbaytel will unblock the data hub so you can use it in roam mode while travelling. This is done by calling Customer Care at 807-623-4400. I would be prepared to cite the Tbaytel-Roy thread on the Community Forum as the source for the request. The unblocking setting will remain in force until you ask Tbaytel to change it back
• Tbaytel does offer some good advice about being sure to ensure the US and International Data Block remains in place after the domestic roam feature is activated. Otherwise you may get very large roaming charges if operating near the US/Canada border both north and east of Sault Ste. Marie. In any case, one should confirm what network one is connected to periodically if you are using a data hub in an area that may incur roaming charges.

Data hubs acquired directly from Rogers can roam the Tbaytel network at will and without modification. When I had my Rogers data hub, it was blocked from roaming outside Canada so international roaming was not an issue.