From time to time on Spark, we hear from listeners who are frustrated with the fact that they’re stuck on dial-up, and don’t inhabit the downloading, video-watching, world we describe on Spark. Now, the digital divide is a serious problem, and one we’re keen to look into more, but while we were thinking about how to cover it, we realized that “rural broadband” is a bit of a tongue twister! As we started thinking of it: “rural broadband: it’s hard to say, and even harder to get!”
We’d love it if you’d help us make a ‘sting’ for our show. Just call in to our toll-free (in Canada) hotline, 1-877-34-SPARK, and say “rural broadband” five times fast. We’re not asking you to do this out of the goodness of your heart, either. We’ll pick one name at random and give that person a snappy SPARK re-usable grocery bag. Just say your name, phone number and ‘rural broadband’ five times fast. (We won’t put phone numbers on the air).
Thanks for your help!
Original Image by derekp
I was just contemplating the rural broadband conundrum this week. When i went back to visit the old Golden Star and found this article!
http://www.bclocalnews.com/kootenay_rockies/thego…
It is all about how the community is developing its own rural solution. I love the idea and think that Australia has a head start with it FTTH network and $42 billion to creating the network.
This is one long episode that i would listen too!
Local solutions are an excelent way to go. i get satelite broadband from the company Xplornet. i wonder why companies such as Bell don't get involved as this would increase competition. i would also like to know more about Industry Canada and/or CRTC licensing rules and how these impact competition from companies in say the United States.
I think people are living more spread out and distance solutions are increasingly new technology such as satelite or the dirigalbe idea that was floating around a few years ago would be worth locing into. The key I think is to have few licensing rules so as to encorage competition of both wired and wireless internet.
I do not have Broad Band and I have Xplornet. My average down load speed is 0.75KBs.and it costs $90 plus tax. Heavy rain or clouds cause it to drop out.But try and complain to xplornet. They are useless. It is all the customers fault.
Base broad band is 1.5KBs. According to Industry Canada Industry Canada through the CRTC asked providers where in Rural Canada is not supplied with Base high Speed. Companies like Barrett , Xplornet's head office reported to the CRTC that Most of Canada has high speed. I have the figures that shows we do not. But when they are getting $90 per month fro their customers why wouldn't they .
The Governments of Canada and Ontario have grants available for Canadians to upgrade to the Internet high Speed Base.
The providers want to supply Wireless. This is like the start of Cell Phones everyone has a different service and each time they change or up grade the service the consumer payes through the nose.
We need Fibre Optic cable and a lot of it is out there. It had been laid down 20 years ago. But Bell feels that the CRTC is unfair to them so that are saying screw the consumer. I think they are right as far as being treated unfairly. But the are a terrible company for lying about whats out there and making the consumer suffer. They are also the main cause of Canada's demise in the Modern Industrial World.
Darkest Africa has High Speed. Iraq has high Speed supplied by Bell with our Tax Dollars. The Carribean Has High Speed assisted by Bell. and our Tax Dollars. But the Canadian Rural Taxpayer. All he gets is a bunch of lies from the Executitive Customer Service.
Try and talk to Karen Sherritt@bellaliant.ca she is the CEO but controlled by Bell Canada. Bell owns 44% and retains Management Control.
It would be possible to bring broadband to rural areas. This depends upon how much broadband providers are willing to invest in the installation of fibre optic cable, routers, and other equipment for long distance data transmission.
Much of the fiber optic installations are found adjacent to railway lines. Qwest Communications has its fiber optic lines along Union Pacific lines, of which Anschutz, Inc (of Denver) owns substantial shares of both companies.
Likewise, T3, another broadband company has fiber optic lines installed along the tracks of its owner, Norfolk Southern.
Hence, it is possible that the two major systems (CN Rail and CP Rail), could get involved in providing access to broadband.
Of course, another factor in providing access has to do with the geography, especially in the NWT, Nunavut, and Yukon of which permafrost prevents such installations from taking place.
Satellite broadband is a lot simpler and its getting to be more common.
repeat:
Satellite broadband is BS.
Geosynchroneous birds are USELESS for two-way high-speed communication. They are two far away!
Stick with earth-bound fiber-optic or possibly in the future, lowflying Iridium-type multiple satellites.
Please get off of this Satellite fascination!
BS.
At least for rural southern Quebec.
Bell has pulled Fibre-optic all over our rural neighbourhood.
All they have to do is plug in some end-user equipment, commonly known as DSLAMS.
I live in the deep woods, and there is a F-O wire just 3/4 of a mile from me. It services only our telephones.
With a bit of extra blade equipment I could have hi-speed.
But Bell don't want the politicians (Quebec and Canada govts) to know this.
BAH!
What the world needs is a non-profit that takes all these creative commons videos and podcasts and puts them in public libraries and mail-orders them non-commercially to places remote and broad-band-less.
Why not a for profit?
A non-profit would permit the operation to run on a donation model, and to easily distribute NC creative commons materials. I see it as a work of a non-profit rather than a business model for a for-profit.
If someone could do it on a for-profit basis, with appropriate royalties to those who seek them, that's of course fine, too.
Alas, non-profit operations too often have members that drop-out, or who once their immediate goals are realized, lose interest.
And then the "for-profit" coyotes take over.
If ya want non-profit, you not only have to work for it, but you have to maintain an interest and keep your work-ethic.
I have seen too many not-for-profit systems go to weeds when their members lose interest.
Basically it has to be run as a FOR-profit business- and any profits (there should be) be returned to the members, either as $$, or perhaps visually recognizable improvement (equipment upgrade?), or golly! a dance/party with free booze, or a ski trip etc.
Otherwise your non-prophet… oops, profit! is doomed…
There's Xplornet and there are also American companies like WildBlue or StarBand. I'm not sure if these are legal in Canada, if they are grey market or if they work. I think the licensing rules are important to discuss.
One limiting factor to satellite internet and phone service is the high cost of launching satellites but hopefully with satellite launching going from government agencies like NASA to private corporations there will be competition and prices will drop.
I don't think that Satelite is the way to go. It is very hard to get a clear signal on a cloudy day. Whilst i do think there is a market for it in remote locations. I think that coming up with a wireless or hard wire solution is better. I have found on all the satelite connection from Xplornet have had quite a lag and at times are slower than dialup.
I have satellite and it works good unless its really cloudy, sometimes better than satellite tv. the thing is to provide traditional broadband to isolated homes becomes expensive, perhaps it can be done but if it is not profitable the likely reason is that there are better ways the money can be spent.
Forget the satellite, Jack!
There is FARRR too much latency when you have to communicate through a node that is 35,700 Km away-
and don't forget the signal has to go THERE and then BACK and then, the reply to you has to go there and then back again!
This is a trip of 144,000 Km, not to mention shorter delays in land-line circuits.
AND: This is if you live at the equator! LOL! At 45 degrees north you are even further away from the bird.
Here- sign my petition: Currently it's only for Quebec, but I may soon make it nationwide, for you other rural losers…
http://petition-rurale.org -stay tuned!
Apparently, the Govt of Quebec and Bell Canada (Quebec) do not care about installing DSLAMs in all that fiber they have laid. There is a fiber-optic cable half a KM from me, but Bell have no intention of installing internet access to it.
BAH!
Addendum-
Many of my technophile rural neighbours (yes, there ARE many techies out in the deep,dark rural woods) have Explornet or Hughes satellite, and they have grown to hate it.
Satellites are fine for TV, where the path is one-way, and the receptor is not aware of any delay.
But for two-way, nothing compares to a good ol' fiberoptic,
or perhaps a very good wifi, providing it isn't foggy,and trees and other objects do not get in the way- this problematic in rural areas.
For now, I'll stick with my relatively inexpensive 38KBs dialup
Government is not the way to go. government is why for 30 years telephones were beige big and had a diail on the front; it was competition since the 1980′s that changed things.
Whatever happens it must be profitable and I think with current technology satellite is more profitable then running land lines hundreds of miles to every home.
Sorry Brett- but government IS the way to go.
From your remarks about Satellite internet, I fear you have bought into it, not just psychically, but financially. That's too bad. Cover your losses, and await some fiber/copper or possibly WiFi connection.
Unless of course you are several hundred miles from a small town. THEN, perhaps you have little option but satellite.
Fiber-optic cable has been pulled ALL OVER rural Quebec- at least the southern part. All that remains is for Bell (Not a government monopoly) to install the end-equipment I mentioned above.
But they will not do it. Why?
Well, government (by the people – that is you and me, and Nora Young) has butted out, thanx to libertarians like you.
I AM prisoner of a monopoly- a small wireless company that charges what they want, and will install when they want. I would provide competition, but am alas too old to be climbing church steeples etc.
Well. These days, fiber-optic cable is cheaper than copper wires, and unlike copper wires they (as yet) will not be stolen by the outlaw scrap-metal dealers.
Beige telephones? Hey I remember back when they were BLACK. And made of heavy bakelite.
Brett? Dump your Geo-stationary satellite crap and come over to fashionable 21st century fiber-optic.
Go ahead- take a $beating$ but learn, dear fellow!
And I suggest perhaps that a small refresher in your high-school physics is in order.
..
– Tony
This message was sent at 37KBs via V90, over damn old underground copper wires that have been buried there for 40+ years.
And… AND!… I live in the country and have a fiber-optic wire LESS THAN ONE KILOMETER from me!
Grrrr! I take no prisoners.
Fine then. If someone is willing to string out fiber-optics at a for the same price or less then let them go for it. Perhaps they could go back to using wood posts as a way to avoid the costs of trenching, but I don't see how spending a lot of money for slightly higher quality makes sense. Look at digital free TV, the CRTC legislated that tv stations go digital to improve the quality for those who couldn't afford a better tv and for stations that were struggling; the new rules have pushed broadcasters over the edge. People are only willing to spend so much on information and entertainment and many want a good bargain more than they want the best.
Your reply is amusing for several reasons. I'll restrict my response to correcting the most glaringly obvious error: the CEO of Bell Canada is George Cope: http://www.bce.ca/en/aboutbce/executiveteams/bell… The executive I think you were going for is named Karen Sherriff (not Karen Sherritt), and she is the CEO of a subsidiary, Bell Aliant, who provides telecommunications services to Atlantic Canada and parts of rural Ontario and Quebec.
Speaking of rural internet, have you heard of wireless entrepreneur Fred Ziari who has built the world's largest hotspot, a wireless cloud that stretches over 700 square miles over the Oregon countryside and cost $5 million. His service is free to the public and anyone with a wi-fi enabled laptop or <a ref="http://www.cheaperlaptop.com">netbook can get online for nothing. If only there were more of these free wireless clouds.
I have had an Xplornet connection for over 3 years now and while it is not a "high speed" connection it definitely higher speed than my dial up connection was. When I can download 3 megs/minute instead of 1 meg in 5+minutes man I think I'm flying. The reliability is pretty good, yes it goes down in snow or heavy rain once in a while but for now it is the best I can get when I choose to live where I do. That said we are in an area that Bell has slated for some sort of high speed connection, probably fixed link wireless so I am going month by month with Xplornet and remaining optimistic.