Tuesday I attended the Canadian Telecom Summitt 2011 #CTS11… Canada’s leading and largest telecommunications industry event.

Media sits at the back.

There were big-name keynote speeches all day, heads of Telus, HP, Rogers, Microsoft, Bell and CRTC people.

This is how I learned we got a new Minister of Industry two weeks ago, Christian Paradis.

Congratulations on your new job! Please protect Canada.

Made some new friends both IRL and online during it, hi guys! Keep in touch.

The most interesting topic of today was the 700 MHz Spectrum.

You can’t just go around blasting signals haphazardly, where and whenever you wish.  Depending on what you’re doing, depends on which frequency you transmit/broadcast/communicate on.

Below shows (some) of the MHz spectrum and its allocations.  See the band where I added the text, flanked by ‘mobile’ and ‘broadcasting’?

That’s the 700 MHz band, and it’s soon up for sale.

(See the full diagram here)

It was once owned by the broadcasters, and was used to broadcast analog TV.

Now the government owns it, and is about to sell it.

The auction will take place late 2012.  The gentleman above is in charge of said auction.

It’s a powerful spectrum which can penetrate walls. This makes it ideal for broadband communication. It also has a great range and can travel long distances; one tower broadcasting 700 MHz can cover 20 miles.

Think of it like… it’s the Ferrari of spectrums.

Tweets and fun facts from today.

Many of the talks re-inforced my theory about how the future internet will be designed, I talk about it in my video, About UBB – Usage Based Billing, fast-forward to 0:31.

Then I invited myself to the stage.

And gave an impassioned speech.

While everyone was at lunch.