Mr. Sean Bolger:

I am glad the Chairman asked the question. There is another understandable misconception that when people speak of 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G, it is always about mobile technology. We are talking about 5G mobile services powering driverless cars, the future digital economy, the Internet of things, artificial intelligence, remote technologies and remote automation of farm machinery. To do this there would need to be an extensive additional build of masts because current masts do not have the coverage to support such services. That is as it relates to 5G mobile technology. 5G fixed technology is a completely different build and network. It is not built for what I have just described but specifically and totally to deliver high-speed broadband from fibre in the mast directly to premises. It does not require a massive additional build of masts because the technology is not like that used to connect to a small mobile phone, which will not function properly unless the user is near a mast or outside a building. 5G fixed broadband will put an outdoor antenna on a premises. It is being deployed around the world. In the United States, for example, Verizon, AT&T, Google Fiber and Sprint have all started to roll out 5G fixed broadband as an alternative to fibre to the home. That is because technology has advanced so much.

High-speed data cannot be delivered across a long distance with a mobile phone. If there are thousands of mobile phones using a service, the signal is variable. A fixed broadband network using 5G limits the number of people on every mast to guarantee that the service can be provided with high quality to those people. It does not need many extra masts because it can reach longer distances. In Canada, this distance has extended to 30 km but it depends on how we would like to build our network. In our network, approximately 13 km is the maximum distance we would allow, giving us a large range. This means distance can be covered much faster.

It is very important to note we are talking about two totally different technologies.

In relation to some of the challenges in rural areas, which other people mentioned, is it line of sight, for example? Yes, it is largely line of sight to get the kind of quality of a connection one wants but one is talking about new technologies. Without going off too far, beamforming is one, which basically directly focuses the signal. Things like trees or massive MIMO allow for the signal to be picked up from multiple locations. If one has a mast and a connection on a house, whatever is in between will block one. When one is building a national network, one is talking about multiple sites, so the signal can come from different directions and because it is also used in beamforming technology, it can direct the connection directly to one.