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Canada-Wide Wireless Broadband Network Planned
twilight30 writes "From the Globe and Mail, Rogers Communications Inc. and Bell Canada have said they will put aside their competitive differences to jointly build and manage a Canada-wide wireless broadband network. It is hoped they will initially reach more than two-thirds of Canadians in less than three years." From the article: "The two communications companies will pool their wireless broadband spectrum into a joint venture called Inukshuk Internet Inc. The network will cover more than 40 cities, and 50 rural and remote communities across the country. Users will be able to access the Internet and use voice, video streaming and data applications both inside their home, as well as on the go."
802.11-eh?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Besides, I can see some problems with huge microwave transmitters trying to operate on top of permafrost.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Which is weird, its not even listed in the article either.
http://www.inukshuk.ca/anglais/index.html
I used to work for Fido, the creator of the Inukshuk project. I'm glad Rogers picked it up after they bought Fido, I could never phantom how the smallest cell network in Canada could have implemented it by themselves.
(They did try some lame attemp a wireless internet behind the Inukshuk banner, but you needed a bulky wireless modem to go with it... It wasn't very fast and the price was not very competitive)
...Hey, Bell, how about completing the fucking Alberta supernet first before you start masturbating with Ted about Canada?
Being from Canada and having both Rogers broadband and Bell's cell phone service I can only see good things from this joint venture. Rogers has been doing alot of buying lately, just a couple months ago they bought Fido's wireless network. One problem I can see arising is support, both companies IMHO have less than mediocre support that and the fact that even though the executives have put aside their differences the actual employees have a slight disshate for eachother because they were the major competitors for broadband service and cell phone service here in Canada. Lets hope that this works out for us all!
GL HF!
the article says rogers was pretty much forced into it. Good.
I'm not really much of a wireless person. Things don't have to be wireless if all they ever do is sit on my desk anyway. And perhaps I'm mistaken but there are a lot more things wireless networks have to take care of than wired devices no? So I for one won't be jumping on the band wagon of wireless things unless it's much cheaper, much more effective and gets me stuff faster than plain old cable broadband.
and even if I were I wouldn't sign up with Rogers. I'm not about to forgive them for renaming the Skydome to Rogers Center and buying out my old faithful cell phone service provider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcell
Here is the antenna they will be using... In other news, construction of the world's biggest Pringles can is now underway in Sudbury.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I live out in the boonies, and I get a great wireless connection from the nearest town (pop. 540). On a good day it's close to 2 mbps, which is faster than my residence connection at the University of Toronto.
Real_men_don't_need_spacebars.
But what happens when your AP migrates?
Isn't the fact that it's Canada detail enough? It just means that Canadians will now be able to hunt beaver without the hassle of going outside.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
In the rest of the world associations like this would be called cartels.
Works perfectly fine for NY mob families & OPEC
I live in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. It's just east of Maine for those who may not be aware. I live in a small city of about 50000 people, and we already have had free wireless public internet for a few years now. It's called the Fred-e-zone.
It's availabe to most as long as you're living close to the valley and not behind some of the hills in town. I just bring my laptop from work, to coffee shop, to home... always connected for free.
People are under the impression that Canada is huge and is sparsely populated. I can tell you that most cities are south by the US border, and only a small portion of Canada actually has people living together densely. It would be easier to build this type of infrastructure here in Canada than it would be in the States I would guess... just because most major cities are along the border.
this is my sig, be amazed.
Those wild people! I hunt beaver in the bars. *drum rim shot here*
"Ain't I a stinka..." - Bugs
It's called default
Country-wide broadband in Canada is not going to be easy when the whole middle of the country is mostly woods and not much else. But I guess even the bears in the woods want to read their Slashdot news...or is it Beardot News. Beardot: News for Bears, Stuff That Growls! ... comming to a tree next to you at 1.5Mbps.
I admit, There would still be competition in other forms and the telco's couldn't continuously raise their prices. However, I would imagine that the same telco's would also own most of those other means to get broadband.
I'm a little rusty on my business law, but isn't this overt collusion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion
Maybe if you live in chestnut, or at utm/utsc, but any other res downtown at uoft has a 10-15mbps connection downstream and more upstream.
Not to mention the fact that i was there 2 days ago at gerstein in the morison pavilion getting over 40mbps downstream and 10 up. Essentially maxing out my laptops hdd.
Finland and estonia also have plans to cover large rural areas with edge network for internet connection. In a year or two.
I work for Sasktel (incumbent Telco in Saskatchewan - smack dab in the middle of canada for the geographically challenged) and we've had wireless internet services going for the better part of a year now.
R owId=1-4NP&SWEField=s_2_2_24_1&SWERowIds=SWERowId0 %3D1-4NP&SWETVI=&SWEApplet=Product+Catalog+List+Ap plet+(eSales)&SWEView=Product+Catalog+View+(eSales )&SWEDIC=false&SWETargetView=&SWEVI=&SWENeedContex t=true&SWETA=&SWETS=&SWEContainer=&SWECmd=InvokeMe thod&SWEReqRowId=1&SWESP=false&SWESPa=&SWEPOC=&SWE BID=-1&SWEC=5&SWEM=&SWEMethod=Drilldown&SWETS=1092 677920239&SMIDENTITY=NO/ . It's basically the final step to getting broadband internet services to every single populated square inch of the province (Sitting at 70-80% currently with just regular copper and fibre - the wireless is to bridge the final remote areas).
We're part of the 'Bell Wireless Alliance' which is a resource/competition sharing agreement between Bell, Sasktel, Aliant, MTS and most of the other CDMA cellular carriers (excluding Telus) - and yet Bell always seems to trump Sasktel where new technology is concerned.
First company to roll out DSL in Canada - Sasktel. Who got credit? Bell.
First company to have broadband/dsl television services in Canada - Sasktel. Who gets credit, Bell and a handful of US carriers who are still working on it.
First company to have MTC wiress broadband in Canada - you guessed it, Sasktel. Who gets credit - Bell and Rogers.
An example of this service can be found here https://commerce.sasktel.com/esales/start.swe?SWE
[/rant]
Odd as it may seem this is not really about improving access for Canadians to broadband. In many provinces, Saskatchewan included, most communities over 500 people have DSL. Seriously.
What this is really about is allowing Rogers and Bell to compete on 2 levels with Telco's in other provinces with a minimal investment in infrastructure. This is a comparatively minimal investment because they do not have to trench lines to every house to provide service.
It will allow them to:
A) Provide high speed internet access in markets they couldn't access before
B) Allow them to provide VOIP service in markets they couldn't access before
C) If they can get wireless VOIP handhelds... they will have coverage about as good as GSM based cell phone services in Canada.
Its a very strategic move. As it stands the individual telcos, which either WERE or ARE publicly owned put the physical infrastructure in. There have been a series of rulings by the CRTC (our FCC equivalent) regarding what fees must be paid by competing organizations to access that infrastructure, but this bypasses all of that.
I'm very intrigued.
Did I read that right in the article? They're only budgeting $200M to deploy a nationwide wireless network?
That would be 1/1000th the amount of money Bush pledged the Feds to throw in to rebuilding the Gulf coast.
Wow.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Did I read that right in the article? They're only budgeting $200M to deploy a nationwide wireless network?
The Canadians are not using Haliburton.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
will install hotspots in Iqaluit.
It's freakin' cold up there.
Nah, the antennas are easy -- you just stack the rocks and make sure the inukshuk's arm is pointing at its neighbour...
__ __
___ ___
__________ >>>>> __________ >>>>>
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_______ _______
__ __ __ __
__ __ __ __
Actually, pretty much everyone in Canada knows what an Inukshuk is, and how to pronounce the name properly. There's a sorta neat one sitting in downtown Winnipeg at the moment, and the logo for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver is an Inukshuk (can't wait to see the mascot for THAT!).
:)
In fact, over the past few decades they've become a common roadside feature in rockier areas of the country. Northwestern Ontario is positively LITTERED with these things, in some places several per kilometre on both sides of the Trans-Canada Highway. Regular folk, aboriginal or otherwise, climb up the rock cliffs on either side of the road and build them for fun.
Don't worry, we're cool with it
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Many already pay:
And now they figure we'll shell out some money for wireless? What for, when we've got hardwired internet and cell phones with 3G? Guaranteed they'll charge a small fortune for access to their wireless net.
When house prices in Vancouver have doubled in the last 5 years, and gasoline approaching $1.20/litre (that's about $4USD/gallon for you americans), just who do they think will be buying this?
Note that Canada's numbers are from Dec 2003 while the United States' numbers are from June 2005. A lot can change in a year and a half.