TORONTO – As 5G (Gigahertz) wireless takes “Canadian broadband to the next level,” Allison Linehan, president of Xplornet Communications, is determined that rural residents won’t be left behind.
“Since our inception almost 15 years ago,” he told the audience at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Wednesday (before Minister Bains laid out ISED’s new spectrum plans), “innovation has been pivotal to our progress. Our unique problem has been to give rural Canadians a chance to live where they want to without compromise.”
Xplornet currently provides wireless broadband access to about 800,000 rural Canadians across the country through wireless means, whether fixed, mobile or satellite and will begin to serve Manitobans with mobile phone service later this year. (Lenehan also noted that Canada has led the way in introducing wireless broadband, and other countries such as the United States, Japan and Australia are now “jumping on the bandwagon.”)
The company itself is based in rural Canada in Woodstock, New Brunswick, a town with a population of 5,200 and a place, Lenehan said, “with friendly neighbours and a strong sense of community.” Xplornet has demonstrated that rural residents can enjoy the “spectacular countryside” while having access to the same things their urban counterparts have: “the latest news, the coolest movies and the newest technological innovations that make life easier.”
During the past five years Lenehan’s company has invested millions of dollars in its networks and with the launch of two new satellites last year, the company currently has five in its arsenal. Xplornet is on track to fulfil its promise of delivering packages of 100 Mbps (megabits per second) nationwide by 2020. “The speed gives rural Canadians the opportunity to participate in the use of broadband equally with urban Canadians without limitation,” Lenehan said.
In looking ahead, Lenehan realizes that 5G is the wireless future and he wants to ensure that rural Canadians have equal access to its advantages as their urban cousins do. “With its low latency and high reliability, 5G networks can return us to better times,” he said, highlighting digital house calls by physicians as one welcome rural application with their attendant high-resolution imaging and access to diagnostic equipment. “There are also significant 5G applications for resource-based industries, such as oil and gas and open mining, and there are 5G crop-monitoring systems.”
Xplornet is currently working on a rural-focused 5G trial program. “The need for flexible use 5G spectrum, especially with the inevitable convergence of fixed and mobile broadband, will dominate our rural landscape for years ahead,” Lenehan said. “As such, our spectrum policies must be inclusive. Better still, with the quantum of bit- and high-band spectrum becoming available, it can be inclusive. Our spectrum policies no longer need to prioritize some Canadians over others.”
