Network World

Supreme Court to say Thursday if Wind Mobile case goes ahead

2012-04-23T17:46:00Z

It’s been just over two and a half years since the Harper cabinet overturned a decision by the CRTC, the federal telecommunications regulator, and issued an operating licence to the parent of Wind Mobile.Since then competitor Public Mobile has been trying to get the courts to recognize that was an unfair decision to other carriers.

On Thursday it will find out if Canada’s top court will take the case. The Supreme Court of Canada said this afternoon that’s when it will announce if it will give Public Mobile leave to appeal the case, which centres on the powers of the federal cabinet.

The startup, which operates a network in Toronto and Montreal, wants the courts to say the benefit Wind got from the cabinet should be available to all wireless carriers. In the first round, a Federal Court judge ruled in Public Mobile’s favour in February, 2011 and quashed the cabinet’s decision. But four months later the Federal Court of Appeal overturned that decision.

The fight started in the fall of 2009 when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said Wind's parent, Globalive Wireless Management Corp., hadn't proved that it wasn't controlled by its financier, Egyptian-basedOrascom Telecom.

Under the Telecommunications Act, foreign companies can directly and indirectly hold up to 46 per cent of a telecom carrier. But the act also says the carrier has to show it isn’t controlled by outsiders. In Globalive’s case, the CRTC said the fact that Orascom provided almost all of Wind’s financing, plus its brand name, gave it too much clout.

But prodded by then-Industry Minister Tony Clement – whose department had already approved Globalive’s carrier licence – the cabinet said that because daily control of Wind would be in the hands of Canadians it met the conditions of the law.

Orascom has since been bought by Amsterdam-based VimpelCom Ltd.

End to sideloading causes uproar among RIM devotees

2012-04-09T03:56:00Z

Word that Research In Motion soon won’t allow owners of its PlayBook tablet to convert – or sideload -- unapproved Android apps to run on the device caused an uproar on the weekend among certain passionate owners of the device.

Since the first tweet went up last Wednesday on CrackBerry.com, there have been 318 posts on the topic, some expressing outrage and vowing to ditch their PlayBooks if sideloading is blocked.

It’s a tough call for RIM: On the one hand it wants to attract developers, who prefer to write for the larger Apple iOS and Android audience. On the other, it doesn’t want to look like its trying to create a closed application market.

A poll started Sunday has 48 against ending sideloading, 36 in favour and 32 saying it should continue until PlayBook subscribers have a good selection of Android apps.
Sideloading allows PlayBook users to have applications that aren’t written natively for RIM’s tablet. There’s a long list including Netflix, Skype and Kindle.
PlayBook’s recent OS 2.0 upgradeallows approved Android apps to be available through BlackBerry AppWorld. PlayBook owners had been waiting months to see a flood of Android apps written for PlayBook to suddenly appear, but developers have been slow to convert their products.

Apparently RIM wants to end the ability to sideload in the next operating system upgrade as a way to entice Android developers to port their apps.As RIM VP of developer relations Alec Saunders tweeted last Thursday,“piracy is a huge problem for Android devs, and we don't want to duplicate the chaotic cesspool of Android market.”
The response was immediate. Below are a few snippets from the debate on CrackBerry.com. Click here for the full thread.

--“I think anyone who doesn't sideload at this time is missing the boat big time,” wrote Michel Souris. “It makes the PB into a real tablet and fun to use. Current apps on the App World are pale imitations of the richness of variety in the Android Market and similar. Without sideloading the PB is the worst tablet in the world. Period. “
--“I refuse to jump ship,” wrote DAnklaud, “but they are making me "walk the plank" with this behavior.
--“As a developer I think it's bad for eco-system because it’s another problem to the developer wanting to quickly test things (especially while working on many devices),” wrote a poster with the name Magnesus. “I often put my Android apps on Dropbox to quickly test it on all my Android devices without connecting every one of them. Without sideloading it would be pain in the you-know-what. But I'm only a small developer, I don't know what others think.
--“Unless RIM can convince devs and help speed up the process of porting android apps and the likes to the PB, they stand no chance in this market (both smartphone and tab) and when/if they disable side loading,” wrote SumthinNew.
--“The problem is that as long as sideloading can freely be done by anyone, native PlayBook apps can be pirated with effectively no effort at all,” wrote peter9477. “There are many leading PlayBook apps which have lost probably thousands of dollars in sales because of piracy, and RIM is taking steps to help protect their developers from that.
-- “This discussion has been around for a while,” said conix67. I firmly believe disabling side loading does benefit developers in general, and a totally necessary move when RIM is trying to make PB/BB10 more attractive platform for developers. Developers want that security when investing in PB/BB10 platform. Making their work easily pirated won't encourage them at all. More developers = more apps => benefit to consumers.”

I hope to be at BlackBerry World in Orlando at the end of this month, when I’m sure this will come up.

Update on Canadian wireless public safety network

2012-03-08T21:16:00Z

I’ve been behind in watching the news south of the border and missed a significant decision last month.

On Feb. 24, President Barak Obama signed legislation that approves the setting aside of the so-called D-block of 700 Mhz spectrum for a national public safety wireless network.As I wrote last fall, Canadian police, fire and other first responders have been urging Ottawa to do the same up here so agencies on both sides of the border will be able to communicate with each other more easily. They have been waiting for the Americans to act.

Meanwhile, with the Conservative government still wrestling over the rules for the upcoming 700 Mhz auction, Ottawa didn’t want to move ahead of the U.S.

In the two weeks since the U.S. decision Industry Canada has been silent.

In an interview Wednesday, Supt. Pascal Rodier of the B.C. Ambulance Service, a co-chair of the Tri-Services committee, which has been leading the lobbying by emergency responders, expressed the hope that Industry Canada will now confirm the government will protect some spectrum in the 700 MHz band for public safety uses.

“We’re sitting here with baited breath hoping for the right decision,” he said.

As telecom consultant Mark Goldberg wrote last week, last August Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the government will reserve spectrum, although he didn’t say how much.

The Tri-Services committee is hoping it will be 20 MHz across the country, although only 10 MHz was set aside in the U.S.

Unlike the Americans, who will build a single emergency network, the Canadians want a network of local or regional wireless systems that will talk to each other. Exactly how the Canadian system will be run isn’t clear. Emergency responders will let wireless carriers here build the networks, but they want control over who can use it.

While we’re waiting for Ottawa, Rodier said one side benefit of the U.S. move is that Canadian wireless carriers are more open to talking to the Tri-Services Committee about details like that. For the past three years, with one exception their doors have been closed, he said.

On the other hand, the door to Industry Minister Christian Paradis’ office has suddenly been sealed to all wireless lobbyists. Rodier said his group wanted to meet with the minister right after Obama inked his name to the legislation to no avail. “We’ve been told they’re not meeting anyone right now,” he said, because an auction rules decision is pending.

What to make of Juniper's QFabric test

2012-03-07T04:08:00Z

Juniper Networks has released what it says is record-breaking independtent test results for QFabric, the company’s single layer data center architecture. But what does it really show?

Conducted by Network Test, the trial strung together 1,536 10Gigabit Ethernet ports and simulated data centre and cloud traffic to show QFabric can handle massive amounts of data without a performance hit.

“The test provided the value and robustness of QFabric architecture,” Kishore Inampudi, Juniper’s senior product marketing manger for data centres told me on Tuesday. “We were able to achieve consistent performance at large scale,”.

The report is just part of the war of wordsbeing waged by Cisco Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Brocade Communications Systems, Avaya Inc. and others who are fighting to persuade IT managers their solution for converging data centre architectures is the best. QFabric was announced just over a year ago, while switches to support it started being released in September.

Along with Juniper, most competitors started releasing data centre fabric solutions – which collapse the number of layers in the data centre from three to two or one, depending on the vendor -- last year, following Cisco. So the fact is fabrics are new technology with few case studies. That’s why equipment makers are eager to show some evidence their solution has legs.

The fact is also Juniper wouldn’t have publicly released a test if QFabric hadn’t passed it. Juniper says QFabric can scale up to 6,144 10GbE ports.

“Test like this are useful in that it gives and you an idea what these tech. products can do,” said Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, told me, “but they are engineered by tech vendors. People do have to look at it through that lens.”

The only way an IT department can determine if one company’s fabric outperforms another it to test it in their own environment, he said.

That Juniper [Nasdaq: JNPR] doesn’t have a case study or a customer willing to talk – including Bell Canada, an early adopter -- is an indicator of how young the technology is.

Performance studies are fine, Kerravala adds, but he’d really like to learn how easy it is for an enterprise to migrate to a fabric architecture and interoperate with existing gear.

Me, too.

(You can download the Network Test report here)

More wireless pressure on Ottawa

2012-02-08T21:40:00Z

The SeaBoard Group, a Montreal-based telecommunications consultancy, isn't known for holding back on its unhappiness with federal telecom policy. Today it threw another log on the fire it has builtat the feet of the Harper government over its long-overdue policies on theupcoming spectrum auction rules and foreign telecom ownership.

SeaBoard's witty and sometimes acerbic managing directorIain Grant has insisted for some time that the governmentensure incumbent carriers don't overwhelm new operators like Wind Mobile,Public Mobile and Mobilcity in the auction and that it toss away any limits on foreign ownership. The 42-page report repeats these arguments, but with additional weapons suggesting there still isn't enough wireless competition here.

For example, it notes that in a recent investment note Bank of America Merril Lynch predicted Bell Mobility and Rogers Communications willlikely follow the lead of Telus Communications Corp., which recently raised itsrate of itsentry-level Koodo brand by $5 a month when it added voice mail and calling party ID as a bundle. It also shifted to per-minute billing, effectively increasing its rates.

How much competition can there be, the SeaBoard report asks, if the investment community foresees no pressure on publicly-traded carriers to hold back from rate increases?

The report also wonders why the new operators can sell unsubsidizedhandsets for less than the carriers, who presumably have better buying power. For example, Mobilicity and Wind sell the BlackBerry Torch 9810 for $499.99, while Rogers sells it for $549.99 and Bell and Telus sell it for $599.99. Mobilicity sells the HTC Amaze for $549.99, Wind sells it for $569.00 and Telus for $599.99.

And should we feel sorry for the incumbents who have to build networks across a vast country? No, says SeaBoard, which offers figures from the big three's financial reports suggesting their capital and operating expenses are less than carriers in the U.S.

Doubtless Bell, Rogers and Telus have been sending their own appeals to the cabinet.

I've said before that the government is between a rock and a hard place. Having already leaned over for new entrants in the last auction,it would prefer not to do it again. I suspect, however, it knows Wind, Mobilicity and Public Mobile are too fragile at the moment to do that.

Meanwhile, we await word from the Prime Minister and Industry Minister Christian Paradis.

Canadian broadband ranking debate gets another weapon

2012-02-02T21:05:00Z

The country's big three Internet carriers have complained for some time that they get a raw deal from studies suggesting Canadians aren't getting good value from its Internet providers. Now Rogers Communications Inc. is waving a study it paid for as evidence the carriers do better than experts say -- at least for fixed broadband.

Authoredby the Montrealtelecommunications consultantcy LeMay-Yates Associates Inc., the study in particular takes a swipe at the reports by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The OECD report and others are used as weapons at regulatory hearings and before Parliament to show more competition is needed in the industry.

In its most recent report, covering 2010, the OCED ranked Canada 25th in the cost of a megabyte of data and 23rd in speeds offered by carriers -- based on advertised speeds. LeMay-Yates calculates Canada ranked 12th in cost and 15th in average speed -- using a different method of calcuation. It took the results of Internet subscriber tests on the Web site Speedtest.com, letting it claim it used speeds users are likely to see. To get an average,it also weighed the numbers by the market share of Internet service providers to even things out (for example, an ISP may only cover a small area).

I won't get into the details of the methodology, except to say any study has to make some guesses and massage some numbers to make measurements meaningful. LeMay-Yates, for example, tries to factor in the possibility that people who have really fast Internet service might run Speedtest more than others. Or maybe it's the other way around. That's one of the problems with using Speedtest.

The fact is download speeds can vary for a number of reasons, and there are always bundles and special pricing that affects the cost per megabit. And in the past 12 months the country's cable and telco carriers have been pushing speeds faster, so almost any study is out of date by the time it's published.

Note that the CRTC in its latest Communications Report used speedfigures from Akamai to show Canada ranked second out of eight large countriesin average fixed broadband speeds in 2010, and, using advertised speeds, we were third out of six countries in average price per month for Internet service with speeds of between 10 and 20 Mbps in 2010

Still, I'm not moved by a study that says we're not as bad as some say. That's not reassuring.

You can get a copy of the LeMay-Yates report here.

The latest OECD report is here.

The CRTC report is here.

Bell to end Internet traffic throttling

2011-12-20T19:22:00Z

Almost four years afterBell Canadastarted throttling traffic of its Sympatico Internet customers, the telecom carrier has promised to stop the controversial practice in March, 2011.

Owned by BCE Inc., Bell said in a letter Monday to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that while the slowing of certain peer-to-peer traffic was necessary in 2008 to ensure all customers were getting adaquate speeds, upgrades to network capacity means it's not longer important.

The decision, it said,is a direct outcome of last month's CRTC decision allowing Bell and other wholesale providers of Internet connectivity to offer capacity-based billing to independent Internet service providers (ISPs).

The capacity-related rate scheduleties wholesale rates to the amount of capacity customers use. In theory, those who use more pay more.

So ends -- for the time being at least -- a controversial act by Bell. It caused an uproarwhen it askedCRTC to allow throttling of traffic not only to its own customers but also to subscribers of independent Internet service providers who buy wholesale connectivity from it.

Throttling is called by the CRTC an economic "Internet traffic management practice" (sometimes called traffic shaping) which it allowed in 2009 under certain conditions. ISPs have always felt that Bell [TSX:BCE] had no right to impose traffic management on them, or that itis necessary. But Bell said it needed throttling as an economic disincentive to subscribers who could abuse their ability to download unlimited amounts of videos, games and other large data files.

Bellhopes capacity-based billing will mean ISPs set rates that will be the disincentive to abuse.

Those wholesale rates are set to come into effect in February. However,some ISPs unhappy with the capacity decision may appeal.

The Leafs and Ottawa's telecom policy

2011-12-12T06:03:00Z

The announcement that Bell Canada parent BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. – normally arch telecom rivals – are teaming up to take control of the company that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs and basketball’s Raptors (MapleLeaf Sports and Entertainment, or MLSE)has been analyzed relentlessly from a number of angles over the past two days.

Most observers note that it ensures the most lucrative sports franchise in the country won't fall into one telecommunications giant's hands at the expense of the other, and it keeps a third party from taking control over the valuable sports broadcasting rights.

But here’s another way of looking at it: Both Bell and Rogers are sending a message to Ottawa: We’re not going to stand still while you push us around on telecommunications policy.

The deal – should it be approved – poses problems for Ottawa in terms of competition and media concentration. The partners have already said they’ll divvy up Leaf broadcasting rights that the team owns for their own properties, Rogers’ Sportsnet and Bell’s TSN.

But Bell and Rogers are in no mood to do the Harper government any favours, a party they had hoped would be on their side. After all, it was this government that soon after it was elected told the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that the regulator was to lean in favour of the market doing its work.

What it got instead was a number of rulings that favour competitors: A 2008 spectrum auction that set aside frequencies for new entrants (and forced Bell, Rogers and Telus to spend more than they expected on spectrum); a cabinet order overturning the CRTC that allowed Wind Mobile’s parent to open its doors with a lot of foreign financing; pressure on the CRTC from the PM and Industry Minister Tony Clement to ditch a favourable decision to Bell on usage-based billing; and, if reports in the Globe and Mail are accurate, another loss on the upcoming spectrum auction rules.

If Bell [TSX, NYSE: BCE] and Rogers [TSX: RCI.A and RCI.B] haven’t already quietly sussed out the government’s feelings on the partnership, I can imagine a conversation going this way: “You guys have kicked us enough. Growth in our core businesses is slowing, wireless is the real growth area and you’re squeezing us by leaning over backwards for Wind, Mobilicity, Public Mobile and Videotron. We’re got obligations to our shareholders. This is about revenue growth. You owe us.”

I suppose the government will suppress a tear and reply that Rogers and Bell found no trouble coming up with $1.32 billion to buy the Leafs et al. And though it’s early days, it looks like Bell, Rogers and Telus still have about 90 per cent of the wireless market.

My point is, though, that this deal isn’t merely about the Leafs or broadcasting. It’s also about Ottawa’s telecom policy and what it plans to do.

Nokia Siemens sells WiMAX business

2011-11-29T16:08:00Z

Nokia Siemens Networks continues to shed non-core businesses as it tries to cut its debt load. Today the company said that it is selling its complete WiMAX product line to NewNet Communications Technologies LLC, a Connecticut-based manufacturer of fixed and wireless equipment and support software for carriers.

According to a press release, NewNet would buy for an undisclosed price the complete NSN WiMAX product portfolio and staff who work on the line, as well as active customer and supplier contracts. Approximately 300 NSN employees in Chicago and China will be asked to join NewNet. The companies expect the deal to close before Dec. 31.

The move can be seen as another blow to WiMAX, which loses the backing a major equipment maker.

"The addition of the WiMAX business would enhance the breadth of NewNet’s product portfolio, R&D capabilities, customer relationships and our overall market position in providing wireless infrastructure solutions to carriers on a global basis. We are thrilled at the prospect of welcoming a world-class group of WiMAX pioneers and thought leaders to the NewNet team,” Ron Pyles, president and CEO of NewNet, said in the news release. “NewNet recognizes there is enormous potential in providing outstanding products, support and services to operators who have already invested heavily in WiMAX technologies as well as those who will do so in the future. We are committed to serving the market with an industry leading roadmap and innovative product migration options.”

Why Wind's banker blew a gasket

2011-11-22T22:05:00Z

Wind Mobile financier Naguib Sawiris dropped into Hogtown last week and ended up saying uncomplimentary things about the Harper government.

Because our foreign telecom investment rules haven’t changed since his Orascom Telecom Holding (now part of VimpelCom) plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into Wind,Sawiris told the Globe and Mail he was misled by the Tories and “totally” regrets his decision.

“They take our money and leave us to the dogs,” he is quoted as saying, the four-letter word apparently describing certain wireless competitors. And, he vowed, Wind won’t bid in the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction unless Ottawa sets aside spectrum for Wind (and presumably other new entrants like Mobilicity, Public Mobile and Videotron) as it did in the 2008 auction.

Telus lawyer Michael Hennessy quite properly branded this blackmail, although there is some truth here: Without some sort of protection – either a set aside or a limit on how much spectrum carriers can buy – new entrants won’t get a millimetre more in frequencies. So why would they participate in the auction?

In fact, some incumbent carriers have been doing a bit of blackmail on their own, warning they won’t be able to extend their next-generation LTE wireless coverage to rural areas if the auction is structured so they don’t get enough 700 MHz spectrum.

Rogers Communications hasset up a Web site encouraging the public to lobby MPs not to allow any restrictions on the next auction.

Sawiris is reflecting the impatience of all wireless carriers with the Harper government, which promised to announce new rules for foreign telecom investment in the fall of 2010. Then the government said that because the investment rules could affect who could bid in the spectrum auctionit had to examine both rules together. We’re still waiting.

A new paper by the SeaBoard Group, a Montreal-based telecom consultancy, notes – as others in the industry do – that Ottawa has been dithering about investment change for some years. In the mean time wireless is growing so fast that by 2015 communications

facilities will need to deal with five times the traffic handled by Canada’s networks in 2007. “That will take investment,” says the paper. “For the large former monopoly providers [that is Bell, Rogers and Telus], it will be a struggle. For the challengers to those former monopolies [Wind etc.], the task will be Herculean. Removing the impediments to non-Canadian capital would make the task less daunting, and it would lower the costs for all – even the incumbents.”

And its not just wireless companies that are affected, the report says. MTS Allstream wants more investment so it can expand its fibre optic network across the country.

“There is urgency to this issue,” says the report. “We must address the foreign investment question – and soon – because to delay longer would be significantly disruptive to the continued development of competition in Canada’s communications marketplace.”

Industry Minister Christian Paradis owes an explanation.

U.S. private sector leads in closing digital divide

2011-11-11T21:10:00Z

Earlier this year the chairman of the U.S. telecommunications regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), challenged broadband providers to come up with ways of getting more low-income Americans on the Internet.

On Wednesday, a group of cable operators and a computer recycler came up with an answer: A program called “Connect 2 Compete” under which cablecos will offer US$9.95 a month service for poor households with a cable connection, and the recycler will sell refurbished PCs and laptops for US$150.

Where’s the leadership in this country?

According to our telecom regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), at the end of 2010 just over 25 per cent of Canadian households didn’t subscribe to an Internet service. Money plays a role. According to a Statistics Canada survey last year, 54 per cent of households with incomes of $30,000 or less didn’t have Internet.

Why is this important? When it launched its digital strategy consultation over a year ago, the Harper government explained that “it is essential that all Canadians have the skill sets to be able to access, use and interpret a growing and increasingly complex range of digital information. As the rapid development and adoption of technology continues, effective participation in the labour market and society will be increasingly dependent on digital skills.”

The Connect 2 Compete initiative is one way the private sector can help. “We have the means of doing the same identification” of the poor,” telecom consultant Mark Goldberg told me. In the U.S., those eligible are families in a federal school lunch program. Here it could be families eligible for the National Child Care Supplement. “We don’t need this to show up as an extraordinary item in the government’s next budget. What we need is leadership, either from the government or an association or member of the [ICT] community.”

Worth thinking about.

(Meanwhile, where is that federal digital strategy?)

Lifting the veil on fabric deployments

2011-10-20T14:20:00Z

The favourite f-word on everybody's lips these days is fabric. That shows what a sheltered life I lead, because most of the people I talk to are in IT.

The fabric they're talking about, of course is not the stuff drapes are made of but network fabric that unifies switches and servers in data centers and even across the enterprise.

Even since Cisco Systems Inc. outlined its FabricPath strategy for consolidating network layers, equipment makers have been putting out their own versions. The problem, industry analsyts say, is that there are few public case studies available to help guide organziations in implementing a fabric strategy.

This morning Juniper Networks announced that BCE Inc.'s Bell Canada is using its QFabric architecture to build a data centre for offering managed services solutions. Unfortunately, Bell can't make staff available yet to the press to discuss what it's doing, how hard it is to doand the efficienciesit has gained.

In a pre-announcement interview, Mike Marcellin, Juniper's vice-president of systems strategy and marketing, told me that Bell -- a long-time Juniper customer with a traditional three-tier data centre architecture -- hasn't deployed its new converged architecture yet. And that's about as much as I can report so far.

By coincidence I was talking yesterday to Zeus Kerravala, former vice-president of enterprise research at Yankee Group, who has left to set up his own company called ZK Research, about the claims equipment makers put out about the scalability of their fabrics.

"Frankly, we don't know how big they can scale because we're in early deployments," he said. The market for fabric is "wide open" and the winner will be the vendor who can demonstrate value through detailed case studies.

"We really don't have a good industry benchmark on how to evaluate fabrics," Kerravala added: Should it be by the number of server-facing ports in one fabric? Port-to-portlatency? Do you need one fabric, or can a data centre support two to support thousands of servers?

I look forward to talking to Bell and other Canadian organizations about their fabric experiences.

Montreal student's smart phone a design award finalist

2011-10-13T20:31:00Z

Montreal's Felix Lorsignol is among 20 finalists for this year'sJames Dyson Award for student design, for his Research In Motion-based smart phone for children.

Dubbed the BlackBerry Peer, the proposed device is mainly aimed to exploit the camera of a BlackBerry-based smart phone with colourful covers to attract youngsters. An intuitive interface should encourage youngsters to use the camera to explore the world. The software would include apps that make it easy to play with images with filters and special effects.

But it also has wireless connectivity so parents can keep in touch with their children if they wander away.

Toronto's Michal Prywata and Thiago Caires were also among the finalists for their proposed artificial limb.

The award, founded by Britishvacuum-cleaner inventor James Dyson. The International winner will be awarded the equivalent of CDN$16,000, plus another $16,000 to his or her university.

Shaw chooses Cisco for Wi-Fi network

2011-09-12T21:35:00Z

Shaw Communications hasn't wasted any time getting ready for the Wi-Fi network it intends to build in Western Canadian cities. The Calgary-based carrier said Monday it has selected Cisco Systems Inc. to be the equipment supplier for its "extensive" network.

In a news release Shaw said the network will be available to its cable and VoIP home phone subscribers in various markets, but it didn't name the cities. Nor did it detail how wide the network will be within each city, but it did say Wi-Fi would be in "thousands of locations."

Shaw [TSX: SJR.B]will buy Cisco's [Nasdaq: CSCO] CRS-3 Carrier Routing System and use its ASR 5000 and 1000 series routers in the network. But apparently the way is open for other companies to supply the outdoor access points that will transmit signals to end users, for the release is silent on APs.

On Sept. 1 the carrier said it decided to build a series of municipal Wi-Fi mesh networks using free spectrum rather than a cellular network using the $190 million worth of spectrum it bought in 2008 because competition is increasingly making cellular a tough business.

Unlike cellular networks, which cover entire provinces, cities and towns, it is expected that Shaw's Wi-Fi network will only cover downtowns and large public spaces like shopping malls and convention centres.

A Wi-Fi network won't appeal to people who want the mobility cellular offers, but itcould beappreciatedby the thousands of people in downtown Calgary, Edmonton and other cities in Shaw's orbit who carry Wi-Fi equipped tablets, laptops and cellphones. It won't let Shaw compete with BCE Inc.'s Bell Mobility, Rogers Communications, Telus Corp., Mobilicity or Wind Mobile in the cellular and high speed wireless business, but it will give the cableco a mobility platform.

Construction of Shaw Wi-Fi will start late this year, with commercial deployment promised in the spring of 2012.

AT&T, T-Mobile and Belus

2011-08-31T19:49:00Z

News thatthe U.S. Justice department will move to block AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile may resonate on this side of the border. Why? Because there have been persistent reports that Bell Canada’s parent BCE Inc. would like to go to the alter with Telus Communications Co.

We often follow merger trends in the U.S., and if the government there has trouble cutting down the number of competitors in a regulated industry, odds areOttawa will too.

As our colleagues at Network World U.S. write, Justice has concluded that the proposed merger would significantly damage competition in the wireless industry. It also believes any efficiencies gained by combining AT&T/T-Mobile spectrum would we undone by the damage to consumers by cutting the number of national carriers to three from four.

Up here, financial and industry analysts have been wondering for years when “Belus” will arrive. One argument is they already share so much: Western-based Telus and Eastern-based Bell formed a partnership with their CDMA networks. In 2009 they shared construction of an HSPA network.

Two years earlier, when BCE [TSX, NYSE: BCE] was struggling over its ownership, Telus almost made an offer for Bell before changing its mind.

Then the rationale for merger was the debut of new wireless entrants and increased competition Bell and Telus [TSX: T, T.A; NYSE: TU] would face. How much market share could they afford to lose? Surely they could justify a marriage as a way to save costs in the face of those terrible startups (with the fledgling networks).

Well, several years on and Bell is back as a publicly-traded company and on surer footing. Apparently the Bell-Telus friendship hasn’t extended to partnering on construction of their next-generation LTE networks (although, once their HSPA network was built upgrading to LTE would be relatively easy).

Still, business often believes that bigger is better.

On the other hand, Bell and Telus coming together would drop the number of truly national wireless networks down to two from three. If AT&T can’t sell the benefits of an acquisition in the U.S., how could Bell and Telus sell it here? At the end of last year the two of them combined had roughly 60 per cent of all wireless subscribers.

There will be mergers in the wireless business here. Not all of the new entrants will survive as independents. Bell, Telus (or Rogers) might swallow one of them. But Belus? I don’t think so. The Harper government tilted the rules of the 2008 AWS/PCS spectrum auction to encourage new more wireless competition, not less. And my bet is that Conservatives won't be shaken by moans thatWind Mobile has a big backer in VimpelComLtd.so Ottawa shouldn't again set aside spectrum for new entrantsin the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction, or liberalize foreign telecom ownership regulations. But that’s for another column.