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Alberta, Canada Goes Broadband -- By 2004
jasonu writes: "According to this article in The Calgary Herald, every town in Alberta, Canada with either a hospital, a school, a government office or a library will be getting wired for high speed Internet access by the end of 2004. I will finally get broadband!!" Though the article says this will be an "optical fiber network," it doesn't detail the mechanics of it, nor expected data capabilities -- but for $40 a month (Canadian), anything that sounds even remotely "high speed" sounds pretty impressive.
Bill - aka taniwha
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Bill - aka taniwha
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Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
So I can figure out why the heck anyone cares
Less talky, more spendy!
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It's rather nice (Ashland fiber Network)
-- -- The Dragon De Monsyne
I'm from Saskatchewan, and we've had broadband here for years. It seems that Sasktel went crazy-funky a number of years ago and laid fiber lines all over the place. Not many high-capacity fiber pipes except to major cities like Saskatoon and Regina, but mostly smaller fiber lines just going all over the place. In fact, Sasktel claims we were the first place in North America to get ADSL. I makes me wonder whenever I think of that and I hear about people in the States who still don't have broadband in cities twice as large as Saskatoon (my hometown). Ah, well. Back to surfing with cable (uncapped, natch).
On a semi-offtopic note...
A friend of mine was telling me about this man who moved into her hometown (small farming town, the armpit of Saskatchewan, basically) and the company he worked for paid to have a dedicated T1 laid to his doorstep. We could only imagine the cost of it.
I posted the same article yesterday morning, and it was never reported. What a great filtering process /. has. In any case, I'm glad the story got up here.
However, the Canadian initiative and the Albertan initiative are completely different. The Liberal federal government is planning to wire all of Canada if they get re-elected. The broadband access in Alberta is being mostly subsidized ($200 million of the $300 million) by the Provincial government. Telus didn't get the contract, Bell Canada did. Telus is threatening to lay their own province wide cable to compete.
To reiterate, the Alberta plan is already in action. The Federal plan is not, and won't be unless we re-elect the Liberal Party.
Isn't our overall network weaker/slower because we have a single fiber backbone? I'm not an expert (probably obvious..:]) but I know everything seems to have to go through UUNET. Doesn't that mean that our packets have to cross more routers? Or am I insane?
Just because you would be able to put a computer in every classroom of every school doesn't mean that this is where the resources should be spent. It's a controversial thing to say on slashdot, but computers aren't the solution to every problem. The failing education system is probably one of those problems.
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<sigh>
If the gov't gets into the broadband isp business, it will effectively hand itself a mononpoly. ood luck getting good service...
What kind of moron are you that thinks farmers don't use internet. I know farmers use it for:
1) Purchase of Farming Supplies
2) Agricultural Research on crop yeilds for various fertilizers and pesticides
3) Water quality anaylisis statistics
4) Environmental statistics
5) Internet Banking
6) Review of government funding and regulations.
Basically running their business like any other business man would. It's arogant to think that they are less educated or capable than you.
No kidding.I use Telus's ADSL in BC and I'm more then happy with it.It's way over the quallity of what Rogers@Home has.And they don't care how many computers I have hooked up to their service as long as they're hidden behind a NAT box. Here is BC at least people are moving in waves from Rogers to Telus's ADSL .
The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it. Alan Saporta
Thing is though, the gov won't be making any profit off this, because, naturally, Klien felt it best to leave ownership fully in Bell's hands after paying 2/3 of the cost for them... Isn't this what the Alberta Advantage has always refered to? Government handing out lucrative new ways for huge, non-competitive corporations to make large profits off the locals?
Intolerant people should be shot.
Considering Alberta has opened the door to a two tier helath system a majority of Albetan citizens are against, and that Ralph 'I been in politics for 20 years and know better than my voters' Klien has permitted this opening upon the backs of Albeta's lower economic classes, I consider this a sin against democracy. Instead of increasing the gap between 'haves' and 'have nots' lets eliminate it!
Are you retarded?
You just described every consumer grade ISP on the planet. YOU DON'T PAY ENOUGH FOR THEM TO GIVE A SHIT. Get used to it. If you want real performance/service you have to pay for a commercial grade connection.
- Toby
This is what I love about Canada: getting all these great things handed to us for far under cost, if not altogether free!
Education, health care, even food and shelter (if you can't afford it yourself). What a generous government to give so freely of its own money! I sure wouldn't give my money away like that!
I look forward to the inevitable day when our wonderful government gives us everything we need, and none of us need to work. I'm definitely voting Liberal!
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Where do you get your statics from...? Other posts here say ~500,000 rural people only, quite close to what I have said.
...Canada has the best internet access in the world.
Really.
Especially BC, where I am. DSL is 1.5 megabit and cable is the same. Everyone can get cable if you live in a city (i mean, if your city has cable).
Canada has the highest percentage of broadband users per capita of internet users in the world.
This isn't huge news. It's just cool that Telus is finally putting it's huge resources to work.
I'm hoping for fiber to the house by 2010.
Now which advances faster?
Umm I dunno being from Ottawa and all. 1 million people is more than Calgary or Edmonton (Not alot). And being (labeled) Silicon Valley North probably makes it pretty damn important. Oil isn't everything.
Browsing at three right now I see at least one post stating "Why do I have to pay for this?". Well, it seems that in terms of a long term goal the governement can actually make a profit from providing cheap high speed internet access to the masses. The other reason they chose to do this is to give their province a head start into the communications market, which means big bucks for everyone, you can't knock a gov't for trying man. :-)
This post made while intoxicated so no spell cheakers please
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
Sorry, I have just heard enough of those stupid Canadian dollar jokes to last a lifetime.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
There is a reason that no broadband company would bother with equiping the area with broadband, they'd almost certainly lose lots of money off of it...
:)
well duh if the private companies wont do it is then the governements job to provide it for the people
The telephone company (which had been owned by the government until then) in Puerto Rico was sold to GTE a few years ago. One of the main debates was that since about 75% of the population lives in San Juan and its sorrounding towns (about 24% lives on some smaller cities in the south) people up in the rural areas would get shafted on phone service because there is no way GTE could make money on it. They could now becuse the governement had spent all the money to set up the lines but upkeep would be to costly so slowly they would see their rates go up or their phone service disappear. So in some instances i guess it is cool for the rest of us to pay for stuff so that some people dont have to live in the dark ages
I agree with you on a few points, but only in a limited way.
You see, I don't look at this as givine 'net connections to a bunch of people who will never use them.
This about when rural areas first got paved roads. I doubt many people had cars(after all, there were no roads, so no cars), and yet it made a profound difference not only in their communities, but to the nation as a whole(not that I'm saying good changes, by the way). All of a sudden, a farmer could feed more than people within 20km of his house - he could feed people 200-300kms away!
There's also a few things you may not realize.
a) Farming is actually an incredibly technical occupation. The amounts of data that a farmer generates in one year is probably more than an an average two-three story office building.
b) There isn't much to do out in the boonies. While farmers usually enjoy their work, their kids might not. This will immediately increase their quality of living. Also, the two absolutely brilliant people I met became brilliant studying on the farm they grew up on - their was nothing else to do.
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
And then they got this idea that they could make the rebates conditional on use of porn filters (bill currently pending in the house). Apparently, if the government takes your money and then gives it back to you, that gives them permission to control the way you use the money. (okay, that's a big simplification, but it's somewhat true. The struggle is really between federal and local control, and their blind insistence that filters work)
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Ugh, I apologize for the spelling and bad grammar. It's rather late here.
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I got mine from the government of alberta 1999 census numbers.
Intolerant people should be shot.
I don't remember denying that the federal program existed just that it doesn't appear to be directly related to Alberta's Supernet project. No conspiracy just different, related programs.
Provincial gov'ts are not federal ministries.
You my friend, kick ass.
Some things are better said in a dark room... Keep those comments to yourself at the dinner-table.
You forget that Red Deer, Lethbridge, and other "smaller" cities aren't included in that 1.8M figure, and they already have broadband. If you did your research, you'd realize that the plan is for towns with 10000 people or less. How many of those are there? And I know farmers can use the internet, but they don't need broadband. They already have dialup access. MOST people don't need broadband...
Quite the opposite... Calgary is very white-collar, due to the oil business.
So much for those Canada jokes, eh
janurary 25th, 2004: [idiot, big city, australia] Wow, i really love this 100mb link streight to my house that i got installed yesterday. I also love how i share a 128k pipe with the rest of the criminals who live on this god forsaken island as the only link to the rest of the world!
- Toby
From what I've seen every day stuff costs pretty much the same in Canada as the US, so it's not valid to say $1 US = $1 CAN - you DO have to take the exchange rate into account. That $40 US sweater will cost you $40 US ($60 CAN) in Canada.
Housing costs do seem to be generally cheaper in Canada, as does auto insurance (presumably because you don't sue each other all the time like the dickheads here do), but I still don't think that a 2/3 salary ($70-80K CAN vs $70-80K US) is going to give you have quite the same comfort of lifestyle.
I think you misunderstood. Farmers generally don't need broadband, they already have internet access with dialup modems. They can do all of the above mentioned things with a dialup, can't they?
If we re-elect the Liberal Party they have promised to do this for the whole country. Any Canadians will cringe when they hear that it is written in the third red book but hey, its a nice dream.
If you didn't pay income tax in 1999, you could go to the Alberta Gov't website, fill in a form, then they send you a Tax Rebate form, you fill it out, then send it in. Pay more attention to the news. :P
I didn't pay income tax in 1999, yet I'm getting the money because I followed instructions posted in the newspaper.
It is everyone over 16 that gets it, regardless if you paid or not.
The US dollar (worth about 50% more than the Canadian one) is definitly a plus, but not as big as one as you'd think. In my experience, cost-of-living is generally higher in the US, especially when it comes to rent (by far my biggest expenditure). Something that costs $20 in USD often costs $20 CD as well, erasing a lot of the currency differences. Of course, this depends a lot on where you live, and things imported from other countries may not follow this rule. Your results may very. :-)
Where the currency difference helps a LOT is when you send US$ back to Canada, as I am doing making student loan payments... HUGE help there.
The salary difference is a much bigger story. American companies trip all over themselves giving skilled Canadians fat paychecks, and often stock. Canadians in the US tend to be well-educated, hard-working, and have good attitudes (all the benefits of foreign labor without the "disadvantages" of foreign languages, sad but true). If you can perform a task, they'll pay for it. In contrast, a lot of the companies in Canada tie their payscales to "experience" (number of years worked). If you're new to the industry, expect to be making a lot less compared to your American counterparts. This is starting to change somewhat, but it's still prevalent.
This means that for a young recent grad like myself, the US is a much better place to work in, financially speaking. As my student loans shrink with the weak C$ and my number of years of experience in the industry increase, the option of coming back to Canada to work looks ever more attractive. I'll have to take a pay cut when I come back, but I'll live with it. :-)
Just wanted to add something to this news post. Alberta is not the only province that is aiming for widespread broadband. In a news conferance with Prime Minister Jean Cretien recently, he stated that he wants most, if not all, of the country to have access to broadband connections. Now, obviously this is a campaign promise, which means nothing when the 26/27 November election is over. Anyway, just wanted to inform you all of this. Frax
The government thinks it's a necessity for everyone in Alberta to have broadband access, so they're paying to have the entire province wired with it. They don't plan to make money off of it.
Just imagine what the Quake tourneys will be like in Alberta!
Ok, fair enough... we don't get any Alberta headlines here in the US
The australian Govemernt can do something like this aswell... nahh, theyd want to sell it of first
Sound like you have Shaw@home. My Shaw cable connection was just horrible. A friend who has it said it seems to be getting worse. Switching to xDSL was a great move for me. No more high ping times.
-- Spammers: My E-mail server is in California. Consider yourself warned.
Well that was part of the merger with bct (bc's former telephone monopoly). They have recently moved large sections back to Calgary and Edmonton.
Yeah, this is obviously a bad example. But compare prices in areas of similar population density and per-capita income in the US and Canada.
Hehehe :) You're right - the system will have to be replace piece by piece over time. They do that with roads now, though. And it's EXPENSIVE.
I'd argue that it will be cheaper with this "broadband network" than with roads. After all, we'll probably be using fiber for a long time to come, and it hasn't changes much since its inception. That's what's really driving the cost of this network up - laying the fiber.
After the fiber is laid, the rest of the costs are more reasonable. And, assuming the fiber holds out, to upgrade the network you only have to upgrade the nodes/towns that need it. The hardware won't be too expensive either, I bet.
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
My point exactly. In Canada, a lot of companies will hire anyone with X years of experience (X depends on what the company believes is appropriate), rather than someone with Y skills. In the US, the situation is reversed. Good or bad, the situation makes working in the US a much more attractive for newcomers to the industry; hence the "brain drain" that's happening now in Canada.
In my "experience", the number of years someone has in the industry, while somewhat valueable, is not the best indicator of how any given employee will perform. Any company that uses it as their primary (if not only) criteria for hiring is doing themselves a disservice.
You mean these numbers on the Alberta Government's homepage that say the rural population is only 500,000? (Scroll down to the 'Alberta Facts' box).
This is just another example of how Canadian technology infrastructure is ahead of the rest of the world. I have been living in Alberta for the last four years and have had cable internet access for the last two, always at a flat $40 per month.
Just look at banking technology. I can go anywhere in canada and never carry cash, making purchases directly from stores using my bank card.
The wonders of Interac and a standardized system. I am not even sure if America has heard of Interac, I know you have ATMs, but that is about it.
Yes, but I've never been one to let popular ignorance supercede my own intelligence :)
Besides, the Network+ and CCNA cert exams still use broadband and baseband as shown above. CompTIA and Cisco certifications are industry standard. Media buzzwords are not.
Besides, "Broadband", as used by most providers, is correct.
LOL
-- look, cheese ahoy!
"My views, not the Company's, blah - blah": Newbies, Instant Feedback, and Results I'm the Online Director of the Calgary Herald, and I was involved in the roll-out of DSL in Calgary a few years back just as North America was getting a whiff of it. (Leggo my Ego, I'm just stating I'm in a position to comment on this.) What are we shooting for with the Web? Where are you applying your talents? The Internet is not an elitest secret. Everyone here knows low ping is inversely related to frags... but what does it MEAN? Comments have flown along the lines of, "What a waste." Wow. Not to be flippant, but, What are you doing here? Is it not Insanely Great (TM) that we can even have this discourse? Would you bother at 300 bps? I meant, "Think about what's happening here". If Mister Alberta Farmer does a cost/benefit analysis of taking the time to look up some Euchre tips on his box (M$, *nix, Orange - whatEVER) and impresses/enlightens everyone at Saturday nite cards... ... you know where I'm going. Anyone who's tasted broadband could write a book about it.
Web infrastrucure's value goes deeper than building a road.
R.
Beta only seems to work for Google. Such a shame.
No, I mean the 1999 census numbers The 2000 numbers are there too, I don't know why I missed them. Anyhow, if you look at these numbers, the 14 cities of Alberta make up 1.8 million people. The rest of the population live in or near small towns, and those are the communities that this supernet is being connected too, so those are the people who we have to consider in figuring out who's getting this service.
Intolerant people should be shot.
Well, if you work there, you probably noticed the huge exodus of IT staff? The fact that they cut the wages of their tech support staff to near half? As I do consulting, I have already noticed the drop in ADSL tech support. Before they were smart, educated people, but now, I expect to hear "do you want fries with that" at the end of my call... At least this is true for the Telus offices in Edmonton, people are leaving like rats from a sinking ship. (3 personal friends and about 5 aquaintances so far have done so.)
Bork!
Not so likely.
It's ALBERTA thats footing the bill.
And sence our surplus is only a few
billion dollars I think its justified.
Now all they need to do is spend the rest
on education and healthcare.
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Sig? What sig?
That was a poorly researched /. response.
The program announced in the story is a provincial intiative for rural Alberta and, ASFAIK, not part of the Federal programs you mention. A look through the Alberta government Supernet Site does not reveal any connection to the Canarie project. This one is an all Alberta project using Alberta seed money.
FWIW, the Liberal Red Book III still contains unfullfilled promises from 1993's Red Book I. I don't put a lot faith that anything in the book will actually become policy.
Yes.. I do work at Telus.. edmonton definately had problems.. they've managed to work past them, but unfortunately it was only after alot of good people left. I know, because our dept took a few of them. BC ADSL support is still top notch.. our level 1 is outsourced to a company in Nova Scotia. "OLS". The real problem is not pay it's jsut the environment.. here in BC alot of our systems teams have jumped ship looking for better work.. taking pay cuts to work at places they think would be funner.. such as 360 networks, roundheaven etc.. we're losing alot of good people higher up the chain as well.
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Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
This isn't terribly surprising. The entire province has been wired with fiber optics for almost 20 years now. I'm more suprised that it took this long to figure out that those nifty little fibers can carry more than just voice.
Of course, the weather in AB blows, but then the personality of the people here almost offsets that. :-)
VOTE LIBERAL!
Why? So Cretin[1] and his cronies can spend another four years doing absolutely nothing?!? Maybe they can find more protesters to pepper spray in the next term. I seem to remember the statement "I will get rid of da GST". Well, I'm still waiting. Real tax cuts are needed. Good old Cretin did announce some just before the election. Then he dissolved parliment for the election, so the tax cuts are not law yet they are nothing more than a promise. Are you actually naive enough to believe that this asshole will follow through on this promise?
We need a change. Even Joe Who would be a better choice (not voting for him either).
1. Yes, I know I misspelled his name.
-- Spammers: My E-mail server is in California. Consider yourself warned.
Yes it is!! I pay $40 CDN in Winnipeg for @home and see that it is $40 USD in Mobile Al when I visited friends and worried about getting a gun stuck in my face again. Less Guns and cheaper broadband. I am working on permanent residency in Canada. And the easiest way to get into Canada is via L'arche on an A20 visa. Even easier than for programming. Shalom, Mark RRR
"We have guided missiles and misguided men." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
You can't buy a product that doesn't exist and given the cost of laying fibre across the province (Americans, check a map and note just how much land area Alberta covers, then note there are only 3 million people in the province and 2/3 of those live in the two major cities and the corridor between them) the Telcos aren't interested in doing it without a major investor. The Alberta government has decided to play the role of investor.
When comes down to it, this program is very NOT socialist. No private corporations will be harmed and the final product will be privately owned. The government is just a customer who wants high speed access to its offices across the province and has $200 million to drop on it.
But if you want a big fat pipe now and your just an ordinary consumer in rural Alberta you'll have to move to the city where we've had broadband for 4 years.
I don't doubt that there is better care in a major trauma center in Calgary, but if the network brings improvements to the rural hospitals, it can't be all that bad.
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
I wonder why we can not concentrate on the wireless part rather than the Broadband, since laying those cables are just too much of an expense and inconvenience.
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
$40 bucks a month will cover operating costs pretty well but the cost of laying that much fiber is going to be huge! and according to the edmonton journal article, the government contribution will be $300 million (canadian)
Even if the word had a different technical definition at one point, it has since been superceded by the above due to widespread public use.
Population of Alberta: ~2,700,000
Population of Rural Alberta: ~540,000
Population of Urban Alberta: ~2,160,000
We can probably except that %25 percent of Alberta's population will subscribe to the service(a large porton of rural areas, as well as a smaller portion of urban areas).
So, we've got 25% of Alberta's population(25% = 675,000 people).
675,000 * $40/month = $27,000,000 a MONTH.
So, how long do you think it'll take them to make up the $300,000,000 initial investment? Seems like a damned fine setup to me.
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Yeah.. and that softening would have worked alot better had they went with a proper canadian company. i.e. Telus, as opposed to bell intrigna.
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Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
http://www.gov.ab.ca/acn/200011/9894.h tml
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Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
Your points are valid and well thought out. Too bad you had to be a complete ass about it. This is a discussion, everyone participates and puts there thoughts in.. that's how this works, ass.
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Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
>It's time for a change. Stockwell Day has MY vote!
Experience is the result of bad judgement. Good judgement? Comes from experience.
And voting Stockwell Day is a bad judgement! QED.
Didn't they just announce that they will phase out provincial income tax in Alberta?
How about those health care premiums, and that energy rebate.
Methinks I'll flee BC and head to Alberta.
Many cities already have broadband that aren't listed in that very limited census (i.e., Fort McMurray(sp) and several others. You just have a weird "rural" definition, because the government itself defines Urban like I do (see previous link to their "Facts" page which shows rural pop of 500,000).
I'm not saying a town of 6000 isn't urban, I'm saying that it is included in the communities that this project is connecting, which is, I assume, what we're discussing here, yes?
Intolerant people should be shot.
No, Glonk, if you did -your- research, you'd know that the 1.8 million -does- include all the small 'cities' in Alberta. You'd also realise that most towns with several thousand people aren't the ones that are mostly surrounded by farms. They're the ones like Drayton Valley that are based on oil & gas industry + maybe a pulp mill or similar industrial plant.
Intolerant people should be shot.
That's $30 CANADIAN a month, which is, uh, around $3 US at the current exchange rates.
People in any of the larger centres in Newfoundland can also choose DSL from the phone company. This has forced the cable company to give away DOCSIS cable modems for $200 CDN.
Ain't communism wonderful?
"Clean up the air and treat the animals fair" - Captain Beefheart
heheheh :)
All *YOUR* tax dollars? just how old are you?
Anyways 300M is a drop in the buket here in
Alberta.
--
Sig? What sig?
Having lived in Alberta for most of my life and having Internet access since the early '90s, I can say that our principle telco here, Telus, has already done an admirable job of getting ADSL (at 1.5mb down/512kb up) to many communities in the province. For instance, I live in the town of Canmore with a population of fewer than 10,000 people. We're about 60 miles from the nearest center (Calgary) and have one hospital. I have had ADSL installed into my home for about a year now and my cost is $39.95 per month.
Quite a few people in Alberta trash Telus because of their monopoly, big business vs. the little guy, etc. The truth is that Telus has laid fiber throughout the province since the '80s and now everyone is reaping the benefits of it.
thehermit
heheh :)
I don't suppose you've heard of the CANet3 have
you? It's a nationwide OC-48 with DWDM starting
with 8 bands of light.
And thats just the beginning.
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Sig? What sig?
Canada likes its military too, just not nearly enough. We actually have two subs, 12 frigats, and other ships 600 F-18s (NO F-15s), and a handful of other equipment. Canada actually uses its military for peacekeeping actions, so it does support its military.
You'll have broadband available from 'the market' long before 'the people' of Canada all have it. The gov't doesn't maintain our phone lines, our cable TV, or even our power grid (regulation is not mainenance). We rely on market forces to influence profit-driven enterprises to provide these things for us, faster, better, and cheaper than the gov't could ever do it. Why should the internet be any different?
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
If this happened in the US, we'd all be freaking out about the gov't controlling our 'net access. This makes carnivore look like a frickin privacy lover's dream!
I for one would not run my data over a government controlled network. What happens when they decide that they don't like me using SSH, zero knowledge, or MP3s? They don't have to pass a new law, they just change their TOS. When they want to 'sniff' me? Just drop in a box (or flip a switch), there's no need for a warrant as it's their network. Shudder....
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
I'm just trying to sell T-shirts here.
It doesn't pay to check facts when you want a +5 funny! The moderators don't read the article, so why should I?
Now, go buy a "What Would Jeebus Do?" mousepad, to compensate for interfering with my tasteless, yet ineffective commercial exploitation of slashdot.
(Anyway, Alberta's the "freak province" with heavily taxed oil wealth; if prices went up much more, they could put every legal citizen in the whole province on welfare and break even by taxing foreign oil extractors. It's to Canada as Canada is to the world: a huge bundle of natural resource wealth with a tiny population that can get away with practically any ridiculous economic policy by just selling off those resources in raw form to foreigners. We're the feudal nobility of the world, living high by taking a share of the profits from any use of the land, which is conveniently defended for us by our friendly, uncovetous neighbor, the world's greatest military power, which has it's own racket. Which, incidentally, is why you need a Jeebus coffee mug and a matching Jeebus sweater; welfare doesn't include GHz processors and cable modems yet.)
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CAN$40/mo is the going rate for pretty much any kind of broadband in Canada including "modem" rental now.
Cable right now is CAN$40/mo, and DSL is $40/mo after the $10 "modem" rental.
If you're a subscriber of Bell's (our phone monopoly up here) long distance service, you can get DSL for $30/mo.
- Ed.
Actually I'm kinda nervious about it if the government has put that much money into the infrastructure, they're going to want to have at least some control of it... maybe that's harmless, but it's something to to watched carefully at least...
This type of thing IS happening in the US, but only on the level of local governments. For example, in Tacoma, WA, the city got fed up waiting for TCI / AT&T / whatever they are these days to get their act together. The city went ahead and wired its own cable network. Result? Excellent broadband service, without the moronic @home hassles, and only 20 bucks a month. In fact, because of this, AT&T had to reduce their rates in this area or face losing a crapload of customers.
Contrast that with, say Redmond, where there is DSL, but no cable available. No competition. The price is -at least- 40 a month, and that's for bare bones service.
The downside, is that wiring an entire city is a pretty massive undertaking if you aren't building on existing infrastructure. For one the size of Tacoma, it is feasible with a couple years of work. For one like, say, Los Angeles, it would be a nightmare. And to expand such a proposition to the national level -- well, it ain't gonna happen.
Don't forget, the cost of wiring isn't just the cables and power. You have to deal with buildings (high-rises are probably even worse). You have to tear up roads and do things that may affect traffic. And while you're at it, make sure you don't affect any other service. Very costly.
Frankly, if you want broadband NOW, you should just move to a new residence. If you're looking for the better long term solution, then who knows - maybe they'll do something like Tacoma did. If you live in a small-medium sized town with a lot of tech professionals, you might be able to get some petitions and influence the local govt. A long shot, of course, but an interesting prospect.
Best regards,
SEAL
Ontario, Canada is basically NY, US - Toronto being NY, NY, US.... We've had cable EVERYWHERE populated for few years. DSL is trickiling to thje less populated areas, but the remote (VERY canadian) areas have had sat access for years - its just not marketed. Canada has the LARGEST Fibe optic net on the planet. All of Canada is fibre - no real point, I'm just proud of Canada :-) VOTE LIBERAL!
I've seen the jokeish pile of shit cable modem service that is available to me here in British Columbia for $40. The service is horrible- they told me they support my connect- as long as they can "ping my modem", they are satisfied and 100% supported, the tech people clueless (Tier 1 does not know the difference between TCP and ICMP) and the bandwidth cap intolerable.
So, this is what I get for fourty dollars a month Canadian? I'd pay triple that for good service, a consistent connect to Quake servers, and the ability to talk to someone who knows networking when I phone tech support.
One of the most killer moments was when I complained to the tech support guys about the crappy connects I got in Quake, to the tune of five or six packet loss phone jack icons a minute (yes, I troubleshooted every last variable other than my cable modem) and in order to get me off the phone, they told me to take a screenshot of the lag, and to send it to support@home.com. So, I took a picture of the game not moving.
..
Michael Labbe
Here's a list of companies involved
Bell Intrigna (a member of the Bell Family), Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Nortel Networks and 360 Networks - with four leading Alberta technology companies - AXIA Netmedia, TotalTelcom, WiLan, and Netricom.
And then there's Netera, the non-profit in Alberta that runs a 4x Gigabit ethernet backbone in the province
www.netera.ca
Alberta already has the highest per capita of internet access of any state or province. The point of this project is in part to diversify rural communities so they aren't as dependent on agriculture, oil fields, or forestry. If there's broadband in town, entire new industries can set up in somewhere like Stirling (pop. 700).
Well worth the price in my book.
cz
The government's not building this. AT&T is.
Intolerant people should be shot.
My bad. Bell, not AT&T.
Intolerant people should be shot.
Cable modem service (Shaw @Home or Videon @Home) or xDSL is available in Alberta in these places:
Calgary (including suburbs)
Edmonton (including suburbs)
Red Deer (including suburbs)
Lethbridge
Fort McMurray
Hinton
Population is about 3 million, and the cities above comprise about 80%. So add the other 400 000 in that this story is about, and you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a place without good net access.
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I'd say being able to download 1 megabyte in under 8 seconds is pretty good for my $40.
"The good thing about Alzheimer's is that you can hide your own Easter eggs"
My bad. (again) Bell, not ATT.
Intolerant people should be shot.
Alberta is the most States-like of our provinces in regard to privatisation and free market politics, and because of its budget surpluses due to its bulging economy, it can do things like this. At, of course, costs to public health care, but then, that's what BC's for, right? *grumble* I just hope the next BC government knows what the hell its doing in the resources department.
Anyways... The gist of this rant is that the US government likes its military. Us Canadians get by with our sub and our pair of F-15s. That leaves us with money for other stuff. Ya want ubiquitous broadband? Immigrate to Canada! Gheh.
Long live Canada, the US's semi-socialist neighbor! =P
-=Canar=-
Once the fiber is in, $40 should do it fine. $40 already is the normal fee in the cities in Alberta for cable or ADSL.
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You know, if I was any good at ascii art, I'd draw a nice big middle finger at you. Total population alberta: 2,871,271 Total population cities: 1,851,449 Remaining population, which can be considered rural: (since this is where the connections are going) 1,019,822. These people are not farmers. Only a very small percentage (I'd say less than 1) of these people live on a farm. And you know what trollboy? Farmers can put the net to use too. You know why the vast majority of Albertans outside the major cities (Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer) don't have so much as dialup? Because right now, the only option for ~50% of our population is Telus at 26.95 or more per month for a low-quality connection with piss poor technical support. Way I see it, if you feel that you're better than rural people, you damned well better not eat anything that grew on a farm, or use any product made with wood or petroleum.
Intolerant people should be shot.
"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?"
stuff
By 2004, even all the beavers of Canada will have broadband. Better yet, make that mobile broadband. :-)
Great... so the next time I'm in Canada...
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
Isn't there still a large salary difference between what a software engineer can make in the US vs Canada? With a bit of experience it's very easy to make $70-80K+ in the US, or a lot more if you're a contracter. How easy would it be to make the same (say $120K CAN) in Canada? I'm not talking top salaries, but rather what a typical experienced guy can expect...
Agreed, there may be other advantages to living in Canada, but financially it seems a loss.
Mind you, "one of the best systems in the world" doesn't mean "best possible system". All rich countries have extremely regulated healthcare, so there are no real-world examples to contrast with.
For example, the American system isn't actually any better just because they pretend it's a free market, it's so absurdly overregulated that there's no room for profitable price reduction (however they reduce quality of service with profitable spending reduction), and the "insurance" system is practically equivalent to a tax-supported system (hired central management isn't any smarter than elected central management). But they at least let the extremely rich pay for operations that are too expensive for the general population. These early adopters fund a lot of research and development.
We don't give enough credit for the progress of medicine to developments in the USA. It scares me to think that they might be adopting something like our system soon, as it could really hurt the whole world's hospitals. What would MRI prices be without those crazy rich Yankees having their pets scanned?
What really bugs me is all the talk about how we mustn't allow private hospitals and "two-tier health care". It's not like people who can afford private health care can't afford plane tickets! They just go to other countries (mostly the USA) when they want treatment that the government won't pay for. What would be so wrong about letting them do it here, and keep their money in the country?
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At least there is something that's a bit cheaper here in Sweden...
In general broadband access costs around US $20-25 per month here.
Actually, this was just a musing of Ralph's. But a couple of the province's thinktanks, who thought this was reasonable idea, figured they'd have to bring in a <gasp> sales tax to make it work long-term.
If you think about it from one perspective, sales taxes are fairer than income tax. The rich, who presumably spend more, pay more, and there's no loop-holes (well, less loop-holes) to escape through. Additionally, they could offer PST rebates for those below the poverty line, similar to the federal GST rebates.
I think there's a law that says Alberta needs a referendum to bring in sales tax. It might not fly.
You can never put too much water in a nuclear reactor.
True, the rich spend more, but they won't even notice a 5% increase in the cost of consumption. It's simply not a large enough portion of their income. At the other end, you have sub-poverty-line single mothers who have to decide between rent/bills and food/clothing as it is. Add 5% to the cost of everything and she's even more screwed.
Intolerant people should be shot.
Since Telus and BCTel merged, Telus hasn't been able to offer the kind of internet service it used to. I have a few personal friends who used to be very high up in Telus IT positions, and they attest to a mass exodus of employees after the merger. Some of the reasons given is clueless management, downsizing, and massive pay reductions.
The real reason Telus didn't take the job is because they wouldn't be able to handle it.
Ha ha!
"What a waste of taxpayers dollars! $300M to give broadband access to farmers living out in the sticks? There is, at most, about 400,000 people living in Rural Alberta."
You forget how the canadian electoral system works (or rather, does NOT work). Rural ridings have by far less people in them than do municipal ridings. Basically, farmers votes actually count more per vote than do city-dweller votes. It's much easier to keep happy small groups of farmers than large groups of city people, yet their vote is worth the same.
This is why politicians are so quick to pander to farmers.
Just the facts, ma'am!
Farming is an extremely high-tech business these days. Check out Trimble, the first site in a Google search for "farming GPS."
Farmers are using sophisticated soil-sampling quality testing, with GPS, to determine fertilizer spreads. The GPS is used to mark the sample location and generate a "map" of the field... and the GPS is used to control the mix of fertilizer *as* it is being spread.
GPS is also used for yield monitoring, during harvest: volume and moisture content. Why is one area more productive than another? The soil/fertilizer/weather/etc data is reviewed and analysed, and plans made to improve yield the following year.
Some farms use GPS with insect infestation data to perform variable crop spraying. The most sophisticated systems mix the pesticide on-the-wing: concentration dependent on infestation level.
How about variable-rate planting? Overcrowding is ruinous in poor-yielding sections. Plant fewer seeds there, and save money. Variable-depth tilling: monitor the hardpan depth and till only deep enough to crack it.
Variable-rate irrigation will make a fortune for its inventor, particularly in water-poor states like California.
And so on. The farming business is as high-tech as one's imagination... satellite imagery mapping out stressed crops, so one doesn't need to sample all 4000 acres to locate the infestations? Why not!
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
But I will reply to the troll anyways.
I recall a certain survey done by McLeans, about redneck values. Ontario came on top by a huge margin. Go figure.
Just a bit of trivia for you guys out there who care.
for a story like this, when have you known for the "geek community" to be pleased with the technical details given in said article. :-P
we're never happy
"I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
CANARIE is the national group leading advanced networking in Canada canarie
things like CA*net 3
Because things are so spread out here, telecommunications is much bigger than in the states (Australia's the same way). Geography provides the necessity that is the mother of invention.
cz
This sounds like a good idea. They should put some financing into one of the 2-way satellite internet companies though. Granted, satellite service has a rather high latency issue, but we don't necessarily want people at hospitals, governmental institutions, etc playing Q3 all day do we???? :)
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
The provincial Tories put this through, as far as I'm concerned, the only worthwhile government in this country. Finally a gov't with enough gonads to do something the people want, and in doing so set themselves up for flak from all those losers that have nothing better to do than complain.
He invented the internet, and if elected, will make it faster.
(no arrest record, either)
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
changes more than you'd think. You must live down south. :)
But seriously, do you still drive on cobblestones?
See that "Preview" button?
Klein doesn't need to drop more one-time payments on our health care system. He needs to increase the actual budgeted funding levels.
Intolerant people should be shot.
The Alberta government promised to wire the province during their election campaign. Every town, no matter how many people are there (even 0), every school, government building, post office will have fiber going to it.
They're actually laying down the good stuff (dark fiber). The government will kick in about $500M, Bell a couple hundred as well. The principal customer will of course be the government.
It's a win-win situation as far as I can see. The government delivers its promise, brings in businesses (think call and hosting centers in the middle of nowhere, cheap real estate, cheap labor, lots of bandwidth, decent tax situation) and tax revenue, Bell gets a nice network in the province and starts out with an excellent customer.
As an aside, the local telco (Telus) was expected by everyone to get the contract, in fact they started some work already in anticipation.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Sorry, can't pass up an opportunity to fuel the rivalry. http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology1/stories /001103/4805036.html
Intolerant people should be shot.
Nation-wide.
Martin Widmark
Everybody knows that we are the evil boys, making noise with deadly toys.
Um.... the "monthly cost" IS "technicians, admins, security." As for building the networks, that's what the $400 million initial expenditure is for. Or did you skip that part of the article?
Sounds like someone is jealous. ;)
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
Schools are being given 10 million, to upgrade and connect to the 'supernet'. Apparently this will help spread the resources around the provinces. Me, i'm just happy that my school decided to replace the 486's that were the mainstay of the computers at my school. Also, another tidbit, Bell won the contract to do this, rather than Telus, which was formely AGT (Alberta Government Telephone). Mind you, Telus moved its main offices out of Alberta and into B.C. Interesting, no?
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Insert Witty Sig Here
Maybe, someday, Americans will realize the same dream of wired states... I live in South Dakota, and we're actually pretty close right now; over half of our state has access to broadband!
Before you say, "easy when you only have to wire four houses." consider that those four houses are spread out more than almost any other state in the Union!
-C
"This above all, to thine own self be true"
heh.. it's weird when slashdot comes home.
This is great. I already have broadband in Alberta (shaw sucks, telus ownz) but with all these smaller communities having access to broadband, the internet could really improve alberta's economy. Everything from websites for people in alberta and about alberta to the housewife living in some small town who makes really great jam.
I can't believe Ralph had something to do with this but if he did, I have a totally different attitude of his premiership.
ok lets get people wiring their homes for the future! come on alberta!
You have paid for a total of 0 pages and so far 0 have been used up (0 today).
Lorne Taylor? I thought that was Al Gore's title.
These comis are never tired of putting forth this transparent propaganda machine about how the government did this.. the government did that..
Get real man. The internet was invented by General Motors and Standard Oil, and no high speed venture will succeed unless they appoint Chainsaw Al to run it.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
I'd say it goes nicely with his privatising spree. Why keep control of a profitable venture when you can privatise it and let the populace take it up the ass? If its already private, well by god, deregulate it! Who says that tripling power bills over six months isn't the same as having them go down like we claimed?
Intolerant people should be shot.
Ever notice that broadband is almost always cheaper in Canada?
:(
Most broadband in the US is at least $40/mo US(that's how much my cable is), and it'll be $40/mo CAN in the middle of nowhere? That's not right....
I've heard that it's pretty cheap over in Newfoundland as well.
__
You don't need to make $120K in Canada. You need to make $70-80K in Canada.
Things don't automatically cost 50% more just because they're sold in Canada.
It certainly isn't a financial loss of any calibre once one calculates in the costs of being in America.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
And edmonton's very left wing. There are religious fundies hiding in the rural areas though. (*cough* Day *cough*)
Intolerant people should be shot.
Just to clarify some of the points that people have been dancing around here:
1) In an area (x) times the size of Texas, we have
slightly less than three million people.
2) MOST of those people (~75%?) already have access to high speed internet connections, via ADSL or cable. (or if they're willing to pay, direct fibre connection to the CA*Net backbone)
3) This news is only interesting because it's getting high speed access to everyone else in the province. All of those people in Balzac, Beiseiker, and so on will have high speed when this is through.
That said, this is just another one of our Premier's pre-campaign sweeteners. Somehow throwing $300M at a company to do something they'd make money on anyways doesn't exactly go along with the philosophy of Mr. "cut government spending, privatise everything, and get me another %$$#& beer!" but it _does_ go along nicely with the idea of softening up the voters before officially calling an election. (especially when his strongest support has been rural)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
What a waste of taxpayers dollars! $300M to give broadband access to farmers living out in the sticks? There is, at most, about 400,000 people living in Rural Alberta. Most of these people don't even have dialup modems because they simply do not need nor want them, so why are we spending taxpayer dollars to wire them with broadband? So they can download the Farmer's Almanac for the day in under 1 second?
As an Alberta resident (Calgary, to be specific), I find it outrageous to spend $750 PER PERSON in Rural Alberta to lay down the network for broadband. That's about $3000 per rural family, from hard-earned Tax Dollars that should have gone to health care.
I'm not denying that there is the odd person who is a Quake III addict in the rural areas, but does that person's needs require $300M to fix?
There is a reason that no broadband company would bother with equiping the area with broadband, they'd almost certainly lose lots of money off of it...
"from the what-happened-to-ip-over-powerlines?! dept"
Does anyone know if this has become any more viable?
EverCode
Now weez can download pictures of mooses while we are drinking beerz.
This is surprising?!? Broadband, hockey, BEER, moose, snow - what's not to love about CANADA!
All you Americans are formally invited to my ski hill this coming July - in southern Ontario. Bring those skis and toques (that's a hat to keep your head warm), c'mon up, enjoy some broadband, beer and boobies. We've got it all! Your one American dollar will buy you 2 Honda Civics, a case of beer, and 4 lap dances. What's not to love? If you're lucky, you may catch a glimpse of a polar bear.
I AM groo
Nah, worried some self-righteous rich dickheads going to run me down in his expensive car. At which point I get to lie in the er and bleed out because the same rich prick is getting preferential treatment after causing himself some minor injury while wrapping his car around a lightpost. Earn healthcare hey? Does that mean that daddy's not allowed to pay for his dumbass spoiled brat who get hurt? Did you happen to notice that the people who protested Bill 11 were not rich people, but the one's who get screwed by private health care systems?
Intolerant people should be shot.
How many city votes equal one rural vote? Did you know it is not a one to one ratio?
It's not as if we don't have the funds for such an endeavor. A friend of mind crunched the numbers and figured that the cost of one aircraft carrier could put a computer on ever classroom desk of every school of every town, city, and state in this country (and we're in the processes of building a new one right now, right?).
Wiring the country for government subsidized broadband would be a lot cheaper than the aforementioned task. Grr...
Maybe I'm just bitter because my house sits in the middle of a DSLAM-lacking bubble.
There are a few people in the rest of the US that know about North Dakota. Mostly because of College Hockey.
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The coalition that will be deploying the network includes a large amount of wireless deployment as well. Being a large rural province, there is no possible way that $300 million would cover fibre deployment to every government office and school.
My guess is that they will run fibre to each town, probably in conjunction with the local power company (dark fibre), and use wireless to link all the offices to a central POP.
http://www.wi-lan.com/news/press156.html& amp; lt;/A>
And soon, no provincial income tax, either...that leaves us with about a 37% federal income tax (depending on your tax bracket) and 7% GST on all non-essential purchases. Granted, it's more tax than neccessary (thanks to a huge national debt) but it's relatively liveable.
It's time for a change. Stockwell Day has MY vote!
This is a poorly researched /. story. It is, in fact, the entire country of Canada which is gaining a national fibre-optic network. information can be had here. If you read the site thouroughly, including the various white papers, you will see that the Canadian government has invested a large amount of money in the project. The aim is to create a national network by 2004. It's also a plan that Jean Chretien and Liberals are including as part of their platform in the upcoming election. Evidence can be found in what the Grits call Red Book III.
-- This sig is.
janurary 25th, 2004: [me, big city, australia] Wow, i really love this 100mb link streight to my house that i got installed yesterday.
janurary 25th, 2004: [canadian, tiny town, canada] Cool, how good is this 1mb cable modem? i can now watch my streaming videos at 10fps!!! sick!
"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?"
stuff
In quebec, the cablemodem based high speed internet is $CAN 30 per month... that is $US 20... I believe that it is the cheapest in America (if not it in the world)...
Well to get a 30$ rate you need to have cableTV (which has a 70% market penetration) and to buy the modem (for 120$). or its 35$ if I rent the modem (but have cable TV). For the few users who dont have cable and fell like renting it, the maximum is 50$....
ADSL by Bell Canada (ex phone monopoly) is a flat 40$CAN per month for all users..
Internet is cheap in Canada...
The province isn't doing it either. AT&T is doing it. This isn't public infrastructure. The only government involvement is the massive subsidies that the province handed out to get the telco's to fight over who gets to make a massive, long-term profit. (I'm not actually against this method in general, but I'm wondering how long it'll take before someone realises that there isn't anything stopping AT&T from gouging the living hell out of the various government agencies that they're connecting up)
Intolerant people should be shot.
I live in Canmore (about 20 minutes from Banff) and if ya got in a _serious_ accident, they have chopters in Banff(hrm, not sure about Banff), Canmore and Calgary that can fly you into Calgary in less then 20 minutes. Enough about Health care, i'm getting sick of ppl screaming that, and this is only a _small_ piece of _your_ "tax dollars"..
"Control excess to save?! I KNEW Stallman was a communist!!"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We need some of that fiber here in north dakota, come'on we're basically southern canada anyway... Rest of the US doesn't even know we're here :(
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get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
It sounds could to begin with, but in the long run how much will this really cost? 40$ covers the line's monthly fee's, but they have computer's to buy, technicians to pay, networks to build/upgrade, then admins... security... installation fee's, Censorware to buy... It sounds sneaky to me.
I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure fiber could be considered broadband, depending on how its used.
AFAIK:
Broadband:
- Uses many signals over a single pipe to carry data.
Baseband:
- Uses a single signal to carry data over a pipe.
Now, if they use multiple colors of light for the transmission of data over the actual line, wouldn't that be true broadband?
Please correct me if I am wrong here.
But you can't run fiber to a helicopter!
Sure you can.
You just can't fly it very far...
Well, like all things the government does, there are tradeoffs :)
:) Hey, I'm on DSL right now(which is probably what the government is putting in), but I'd pay for cable if I could get it. The population density in my area is low enough that I'd probably *never* have speeds below DSL, but I'd often have speeds far surpassing it.
Why don't more private companies build highways in Canada? They're allowed to, I've checked it out and talked with a few high-ish ranking politicians and lawyers. Fact is, there isn't enough money to be made. People prefer medicore, traffic-laden yet FREE roads over nice and expensive ones.
I think the same might happen here - people will prefer the lowish-cost government internet access over more expensive commercial counterparts.
However, I also doubt that there will be no commercial competition. After all, this is one of the first government ISPs(here in Canada, anyways), and there are how many commerical ones?
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I have cable modem and I live in Halifax, Canada. It costs $40 a month for everyhing. I don't need to have TV although I do because of A&E and TLC. I can't wait for web-tv to be acceptable. I think that the speed of the cable connection is 1.5Mbs. I have a Linksys Internet router for my 2 computers and I got free internet for my girlfriend at her place. Free internet is surprisingly good by the way.
:-(
I am moving to Montreal next year for a little while and then I am moving to the US, unless Alberta seperates from Canada in the mean time. It's possible. 100 years ago, Nova Scotia tried several times to do so, then Quebec in the 80's and 90's. Next it may be Alberta or BC. There are so many immigrants in those parts, if they wanted to live in communism, they would have stayed in China or Europe.
I am personnally not sure that cheap and fast Internet for everyone is such a good thing because it will break-up mariages, make people waste their time even more, bring new ways for people too scam others, and stuff like that. But on the other hand, it does make the world more accessible and also I like it and so do almost everybody. The internet will (already has) bring new tensions in our society but they are unavoidable in the expansion of society. Maybe the internet should be planned, or not. But if it is, I hardly trust politicians or businesses to do it. So maybe it shouldn't. We alrady see the joke that the WIPO is.
I am glad that now you can get everything using one connection. I mean I can get telephone + internet + TV from my cable connection. I would get it if I wasn't going to move in 4 months. It's great to see all the competition now. Cable service providers, telephone companies, eventually power companies.
I hope that not one company wins over the other ones because it would be very bad for consummers. Sure the government could finance a losing company to fake competition, but I don't believe in financing mediocrity. That's why I can't wait to live in the US by the way.
ps:
What is Invalid Form Key I keep getting when I submit!!!!!!
How can we have any faith in Canadian political parties when their web sites use such crappy OS solutions? High speed networking is useless without OS stability.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
2004? Heh, tough luck.
In unrelated news, the number of hockey mpegs on the net has increased by 5000 percent and alt.binaries.sex.hockey has now taken over usenet.....
If ever having left someone's prescence, you feel as if you lost a quart of plasma, AVOID that prescence -W.H.Burroughs
Or, even better, we here could pare out the bureaucratic innefficiencies that plague the healthcare system, cut out services for people who have abused their own bodies to near-death through alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and smoking (all the same thing, i know...) and have enough money left over after this to pay the provincial debt off in one shot.
And, as a side note, what's wrong with two-tiered healthcare? Terrified that you might actually have to earn that care? Uh-oh...
C
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It's funny, but i don't see anything
C
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Democracy would work just fine if people weren't so goddamned stupid.
1. The Alberta government is smart. The rural Alberta phone system is completely owned by Telus and is already fibre. It is not likely that another company would bother to try to compete there. Giving this to competitors will put them in almost every small community. Voila! Instant competition throughout Alberta. No more monopoly. The government will benefit from the competition more than anyone.
2. To those who worry about government involvement -- When Alberta invests in projects like this they usually do it hands off unless it has extremely poor management or fails completely. They may then take it over if they see any political need.
Do what is right. You will please some and astonish the rest. --Mark Twain
Whine whine whine. Ever cosider the possibility that while you're skiing in Banff and run smack into a tree, fracturing your skull, the local hospital might just benefit from that network, and therefore you might just benefit?
At the very least, you could play Quake from your hospital bed...
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
I've long felt that governments who could afford it should start treating internet connectivity as another form of infrastructure. Like roads, water supply, and the rest, the internet is probably going to become extremely ubiquitous. Frankly, I don't trust any commercial entity with that sort of responsibility. At least governments can in some ways be held accountable.
Governments shouldn't have to do things like split big monopolies up - they should never have become monopolies in the first place. With the government hooking up its populace, you know you will always have an alternative. And, if for some reason the entire venture becomes "unprofitable", no politician is going to shut down the program after people have gotten used to it. They'll never work again.
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Considering that Alberta has been ahead of most provinces in cutting health care services, and is the first to lead towards a two-tiered health care system, maybe the $300 million would be better spent on health care. Just like the $500 million Ontario is spending on cleaning up the mess the Toronto people made of the Toronto waterfront, just IN CASE they hold the Olympics in 2008, would also have been better spent on health care. It seems that these two provinces have their priorities reversed.