Welcome to the self-proclaimed
Rural Ottawa High-Speed Internet Blog. High-speed Internet access is virtually
ubiquitous in the urban and suburban areas of Ottawa, but when I started this blog in 2005, only about 60% of the
rural areas of Ottawa have coverage.
However, even for rural citizens, high-speed Internet access is becoming as necessary as telephone service.
Happily, high-speed coverage for rural Ottawa has increased significantly, and not only is coverage
reportedly
above 90%, many rural residents and businesses now have more than one choice of high-speed ISP.
This purpose of this weblog is to track news and events related to high-speed (broadband) Internet access in the
rural areas of Ottawa and, to a lesser extent, in nearby townships.
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The article comes from
ITWorldCanada.
"The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications gave approval Tuesday for large phone companies to use $421.9 million set aside in special deferral account funds to bring broadband to 287 rural and remote communities in five provinces in central and western Canada over the next four years."
Click
here for the complete article.
5 Comments:
That's weird. They already provide high speed to just about everywhere, through their cell towers.
It used to be that they'd have to put up all these little towers for fixed wireless, but now that they've gone high speed cell using HSPA(+), it's just a matter of placing stuff on their existing towers, which by the looks of it, has already been done (mostly).
So what's with the, how much again? 400 million something? WTF?
And all while they're ripping off their customers with $10 to $15 per GB over their stupid 10GB limit.
INSANE !
I think the money is ear-marked for closing the speed gap between urban and rural services. Top-end rural service, over HSPA+ wireless networks will max-out at ~7 Mbps for $50-$60/month, whereas for a similar fee, urban and suburban services peak at 15 Mbps down.
And as you have repeatedly complained on this blog (to the point where it's now really tiresome), the monthly download limits for wireline (DSL/cable) services are significantly higher than for wireless services (e.g. 60GB+ vs. 10GB).
If the Big Boys have a $730M slush-fund, then closing that gap is a good way to spend it, IMHO.
-Chris
I don't think they will every close that gap of bandwidth limits on wireless solutions simply because then people would start using wireless in the city and rural as their primary access, and their isn't enough spectrum to support that. In reality, wireline is still the best tech to expand for good Quality of Service to rural customers. However it looks almost as if Bell and the other Tel-co's would rather just expand a network that will still appease their biggest users, the Urban markets, and declare the money is being used primarily towards rural communities.
-- Matt
Well, I agree with Anonymous' "tiresome" comment that the wireless data is excessively expensive. I don't know why they don't offer a package that has "free" data evenings and weekends, just like cell calls.
Hi Chris,
I read some of the CRTC documents around this "slush-fund internet" and read a few things in between the lines that I did not like for Rural Ottawa going forward. Maybe Im reading too much into it - but the 2 things caught my attention were :
1) Bell considers DSL service 'legacy' now, and will only expand wireline service when forced to by the govt. So does that mean if you dont have DSL now, and arent listed in the community exchanges to be serviced with the rebate funds then you won't ever get it. Thats not too bad when we can get 3 / 7 mbit wireless service now, but as the speeds creep up in the wireline market our connections will get slower and slower in relation. I know there isnt much to do about it, but its disappointing to hear.
2) the CRTC allowed existing 'alternate' ISPs (such as explornet) to object to bringing wired service to regions where they provide service. The list of these objections seems to be hard to find, but there was at least one region in Lanark county that was removed from the service area due to Explornet's objection. That seems to be a double-whammy for wired services in rural Ottawa. Its a fine line between protecting small companies and enforcing a monopoly.
I do hope that HSPA+ becomes more affordable as the network expands, and that soon enough we will get LTE support in Canada as Verizon and other wireless providers are rolling out in the states.
Thanks again for the very informative blog and providing a place to post my 2c.
Fox.
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