MONTREAL – The fifth generation mobile network is still in the testing phase, and the Internet of Things is still in its infancy. We’re a few years away from gigabit speeds on wireless or a non-trivial number of people having to program their toaster with their Wi-Fi password.
But Manon Brouillette (right), CEO of Vidéotron, thinks we need to be preparing for the future rather than reacting to it. And that’s the message she sent when speaking to the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal on Tuesday. “If we’re going to be part of this in the future, now is the time to invest,” she said.
Brouillette came to the lunch-hour speech straight from announcing a new partnership with Ericsson and Montreal university partners for what they call “Canada’s first open-air smart living lab” – a space where students and researchers can test innovations related to smart living under real-world conditions. Vidéotron will be contributing not only its network but its researchers and its “privileged links with clients,” Brouillette said.
The École de technologie supérieure, an institution in the University of Quebec system, will be the host for this space.
The first project will be “smart dorms,” in which dorms at ETS will be equipped with smart objects, and data collected from them used to manage the living environment.
Beyond that, there will be a committee composed of leaders from the project partners that will create a roadmap and develop more projects, Brouillette said.
Vidéotron’s CEO described changes that will come with 5G networks — faster speeds, negligible latency allowing for real-time communication, and “extreme density” in coverage allowing more devices to connect — and said that we have to anticipate the challenges and questions of the future now. As an example, she said, better real-time communication technology would allow a surgeon in Montreal to operate on a patient in a small region.
For Vidéotron’s own network there wasn’t much news to share on Tuesday. No announcements about its mobile network, and Brouillette told Cartt.ca after the speech that the company’s position on building fibre-to-the-home hasn’t changed. It will continue with its “hybrid fibre” network with fibre backbone and cable into individual homes. (It recently told the CRTC the same thing).
“It’s a question of return on investment,” she said. “The moment when we have to invest in technology to increase speed, then we’ll select the best technology at the best price.”
So far, the hybrid fibre network is enough to meet clients’ data needs. But when everyone’s thermostat is checking its email, that might change…
Photo by Steve Faguy
