In the work-from-home age, increased access to internet connectivity is crucial as the home often now triples as an office, residence, and an entertainment centre. The majority of Rally’s customers live in MDUs in the Greater Toronto Area, many clustered around the central business districts of Toronto, North York and Mississauga. Nokia’s Lightspan MF-2 platform supports both 10G and 25G PON technologies, allowing Rally to deliver high-speed connectivity to each building on its existing fibre access network. Rally is also deploying Nokia’s mesh Wi-Fi technology within its units to provide customers with reliable, secure, and future-proof services.

Rally will manage the network with the aid of Nokia’s Altiplano Access Controller which enables network automation, faster innovation and simplified operations using Software Defined Access Network (SDAN) solutions. In addition, Nokia says that the MF-2 platform leverages it's in-house Quillion chipset technology that enables high performance, low latency, and low power consumption to support Rally’s sustainability goals.

Nokia says it's technology is also certified for use in Rally’s senior care and healthcare environments, ultimately providing connectivity for all of Rally’s customers, which includes 150 hospitals across Canada in partnership with HealthHub Patient Engagement Solutions.

Rally CEO Paul G. Smith said, "Rally is thrilled to partner with a global technology leader like Nokia in offering our customers and clients the latest in Wi-Fi technology, further demonstrating our ability to service the Canadian market, and in our shared commitment to connectivity services, products and solutions that enable a more inclusive and sustainable world."

Nokia VP enterprise and public sector Shawn Sparling said: “Nokia technology is helping Canadians continue to thrive when working from home is the norm. This partnership with Rally will make high-speed connectivity accessible to even more people in the digital era.”

In Australia, NBN Co, TPG and others have deployed FTTB as a solution for MDUs. Larger MDUs sometimes will have multiple wholesale providers solutions in their complexes. This is typically a fibre providing backhaul to a DSLAM located in the basement of the MDU then VSDL over copper to individual units, rather than optical fibre to each unit.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 13 December 2021.