150 industry experts, government officials, and local business representatives gathered on November 1, 2017 to celebrate 35 years of Nova Communications, a division of ROCK Networks, being the largest communications systems integrator in Eastern Canada. The DoubleTree Hilton Halifax Dartmouth was the host to Wireless: The Next Frontier, the largest conference and trade show in Nova’s history. This set the stage for ROCK Networks to announce the strategies that will lead the next phase of national growth for the Nova team.

“When you partner with Nova Communications, a division of ROCK Networks, you partner with the number one wireless industry portfolio,” says Nova Communications’ President and CEO, Joseph Hickey. “Leading the innovation in IoT, Security, and Managed Services, our partners and the investment in a physical presence across the nation have primed Nova to be a key player in the wireless industry,” added Hickey.

Since its inception, Nova has provided wireless and mobile communications solutions throughout Canada across various sectors including, construction, public safety, transportation, renewable energy, and manufacturing. This conference acted as a platform to showcase the emerging wireless trends that Nova is in front of as they transition from predominately product sales to a national service sale business model, as part of the infrastructure from the acquisition earlier this year by ROCK Networks.

This transition was highlighted through a series of presentations featuring Nova’s industry-leading partners such as, Motorola Solutions, Zebra Technologies, Apple, and Cisco. The nine breakout sessions covered a wide range of themes that make up Industry 4.0 including the Internet of Things (IoT), Managed Services, Hardware and Software as a Service, Security, and 5G. Two of the sessions were dedicated to recent wireless solutions Nova has implemented, led by the customers themselves—Albert Bahri, Director of Protective Services for Yellowhead County, Alberta, and from the Dairy Farmers of Nova Scotia, Dwane Mellish, Operations Officer, and Heather Boyd, Finance and Operations Associate.

The informative portion of the day concluded with Nova’s President and CEO revealing the expansion strategies that will drive international growth, such as: RockIT Radio as an all-in-one managed service, Hardware as a turnkey service, Nova WiFi Cloud Powered by Cisco Meraki, and Enterprise Mobility Management as an all-encompassing approach to securing and enabling employee use of smartphones and tablets.

The culmination of the day was the original founder of Nova Communications, Gerry Hayward, cutting the anniversary cake to celebrate the vision of continued growth for the company he started 35 years ago. He grew the company to lead the Atlantic Canadian ICT market and will now see ROCK Networks take to national heights.