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."

Comments

Will they use...

[msauve]

802.11-eh?

Might be usefull to link the inukshuk web page

[XXIstCenturyBoy]

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)

Message to Bell

[colenski]

...Hey, Bell, how about completing the fucking Alberta supernet first before you start masturbating with Ted about Canada?

Antenna

[thatguywhoiam]

Here is the antenna they will be using... In other news, construction of the world's biggest Pringles can is now underway in Sudbury.

A Canadian's $0.02

[onion_breath]

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.

Re:A Canadian's $0.02

[bcs_metacon.ca]

Most Canadians are happy to pay taxes in return for having solid public services, public works, universal healthcare, universal social security... you know, a social safety net like the rest of the world (*other* than the U.S) has. "Free" WiFi is a nice benefit to tourism and students (i.e., people who don't pay municipal taxes), and to the businesses in the downtown core where the service is strongest.

I live in Fredericton too, and I don't use the e-Zone much but it's handy to have available. And I pay my taxes (happily).

There's already a Canada-wide wireless network

[Stavr0]

It's called default

Country-wide broadband?

[drgonzo59]

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.

Collusion?

[absent_speaker]

This would be great if telecos were benevelent entities looking after the share interests of society, but they're not. No copetition elimenates the incentive to innovate, the incentive to drive develop cost lowering efficiencies. Of course telco's are willing to put aside their competative differences to create a high-profit monopoly on wireless.

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

Interesting

[Vaystrem]

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.

They're not using Haliburton

[joelsanda]

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.