Article content

TORONTO — Whether it’s a person streaming video on their smartphone or a health care organization sharing genomic data with a university, C-suite telecom executives predict demand for mobile data and bandwidth to explode by 2021 – and they argue a fifth generation mobile network and more fibre is needed to support the traffic.

Mobile video traffic will grow 55 per cent annually in the next five years, Ericsson Canada Chief Technology Officer Dragan Nerandzic said Monday at the Canadian Telecom Summit, an industry conference in Toronto attended by about 500 people.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Mobile data and bandwidth demand to skyrocket by 2021, requiring 5G network: telecom execs Back to video

“That means our networks have to support the tremendous growth of data,” Nerandzic said. “The industry is at an inflection point.”

A 5G network will be needed to support the traffic along with new technologies such as driverless cars, he said. Already, Ericsson’s 5G test in Japan saw wireless speeds of more than 20 gigabits per second, he said, a speed that competes with fibre.

Zayo Group CEO Dan Caruso, whose company bought Allstream’s nationwide fibre network in 2015, said it’s the “beginning of a revolution” of data demand in industries including transportation (driverless cars), retail (smart big box stores) and health care (data sharing). Bandwidth is needed for innovation in these industries, Caruso said, citing drones that deliver packages as an example.

Financial Post