It isn’t dancing cats, but I like this video anyway.

This is what will be on the signboard at The Toronto Congress Centre to greet delegates for The Canadian Telecom Summit from June 4-6.

As this posting goes live, we are starting our move into the Congress Centre to be ready for everyone to arrive on Monday. Early next week, the Canadian Telecom industry gathers for the 11^th annual Canadian Telecom Summit, which opens Monday.

We hope you will join us – but please register in advance in order to avoid being disappointed.

A number of companies and industry leaders are speaking at the event for the first time. Others are familiar faces.

We do our best to keep the sessions fresh and relevant.

For many, The Canadian Telecom Summit is a chance to meet with colleagues, suppliers and clients to connect and to do business.

There is a trade delegation from Austria joining us this year and we have delegates attending from every province and territory, as well as Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

I hope you will be with us in person. You can teleconference all you want, but there is nothing yet that replaces face-to-face encounters, whether meeting officially or just casually meeting while waiting for the barista to finish pouring your double-shot 2% latte – no sugar, thanks. Ièm sweet enough.

Through the years, these chance meetings have been invaluable for many of our regular delegates. Sometimes, you donèt even know who you needed to meet, until after you met them. As an aside, there is an important message in there for the people who drafted our soon-to-be proclaimed, e-commerce inhibiting anti-spam laws. But I won’t get into that now – maybe over a drink on Monday evening at the cocktail reception.

Follow the event on Twitter using #CTS12. I will try to post links to some of the news coverage from the event.

 

There is a mobile app for The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit.

Thanks to our Mobile Solutions partner, Tech Mahindra, this year’s event offers a way for delegates to connect with each other and participate using mobile devices.

The app is available for Android, Blackberry and iOS platforms.

To make use of the app, go to the registration page, set up an account and set the amount of information that you want to share with other participants at the event. You will receive an email with follow-up login instructions.

Tech Mahindra will have a help desk on site.

The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit opens on Monday (June 4). Have you registered yet?

Will you be with some of the most influential leaders of the Canadian & International ICT industry who are gathering next week at The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit?

No other event matches The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit for the depth and breadth of topics covered and issues debated. No other event presents a complete picture of current and expected trends & developments. Come see why The Canadian Telecom Summit has become Canada’s must-attend conference.

With more opportunities than ever to learn, network and do business, if you are involved with or impacted by Canadian telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology, you need to be at The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit.

Join your colleagues for 3 days of spirited discussion and networking, next (June 4-6, 2012) at the Toronto Congress Centre.

Register today for The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit.

For the complete conference agenda, visit http://www.telecomsummit.com – you can download the conference brochure here.

Be sure to mark the dates for next year in your calendar: June 3-5, 2013.

Vancouver introduced a novel modular utility pole at the New Cities Summit in Paris last week. According to the story in the National Post:

To clear its streets of cellphone towers, parking meters, Wi-Fi terminals, streetlights and even community message boards, the city of Vancouver is pushing forward with a scheme to compress all the technologies together into specialized “Vancouver poles” planted throughout the city.

I have been participating in a task force to help my local community develop a telecommunications infrastructure protocol for dealing with carrier requests for local land use consent. I have been supporting an idea for for the city to leverage its existing vertical real estate, including poles, towers and buildings. As wireless carriers expand their networks for capacity (as opposed to coverage), tower height requirements are reduced; can more of the carrier needs be integrated into replacements for existing lighting, traffic and electric poles?

“We’ve been seeing an almost exponentially growing demand for data,” said Mr. Johnston. “So, we’ve been trying to find a way to integrate cell phone infrastructure into the urban landscape in a way that does not detract from the aesthetic and view qualities of the city.”

As wireless traffic climbs — and infrastructure expands in response — Mr. Coupland predicts that poorly-managed cities could become “as cluttered as a kitchen junk drawer.” “I like to get rid of as much crap as possible from the visual environment,” he said.

Is there an opportunity for cities to develop partnerships with wireless carriers to develop a next generation streetscape, with new energy efficient lighting, reducing clutter while delivering more reliable and diverse competitive wireless coverage?

Greg O’Brien has an important commentary on Cartt.ca – he wants it accessible to all, so he has reproduced it on tumblr for those who don’t have access to his must-read industry newsletter.

I DARE ANYONE TO disagree with this statement: “A child without access to the Internet will find life increasingly difficult in the information age.”

That was how Greg reported what National Cable and Telecommunications Association president and CEO Michael Powell said during his keynote speech [pdf, 133KB] yesterday at the 2012 Cable Show in Boston.

Many Americans still are not online and that needs to change. Cable is working to increase adoption by partnering with the FCC to launch a low cost broadband service to low income families across America. This is critical because a child without access to the Internet will find life increasingly difficult in the Information Age.

It has been way too easy for most leaders to equate broadband leadership with rural subsidies.

It isn’t about access. It is about affordability. Most households with a computer have broadband connections. There are too many households that don’t even have computers.

Last Wednesday, I wrote about the need to find a leader who will step up to the challenge of providing all school kids in Canada with the tools to compete in a digital economy.

As Greg wrote:

In the U.S., if a family qualifies for help under the National School Lunch Program, and isn’t already a broadband customer, they can sign up for a $9.95 per month broadband connection (with no installation charges, a low-cost or free modem and a minimum 1 Mbps download speed promise), access to other agencies and programs offering discounted computers, security software and training on how to use their new connectivity, too. The pilot project is wrapping up in San Diego, with a national rollout beginning here in September.

Such a program works from a business perspective, too. We’re not talking about substituting a bunch of $40/month subscriptions for ones at $9.95. These low-income customers will be newcomers who previously couldn’t afford broadband. We’re talking about homes already in the ISP’s footprints which currently are generating no Internet revenue.

This kind of program needs to be launched in Canada. No child should be without access to the Internet in a digital Canada.

Who will lead this initiative? Will it be a CEO from a major ISP or a government leader, such as the Industry Minister, the CRTC Chair or our Governor General? We need a leader willing to take a bold step for Canadian kids to compete in the information age. Who will step up to the challenge?