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Canada Has 'No Plan' To Bring Broadband To Rural and Remote Communities, Watchdog Says (vice.com)
Canada has "no plan" to wire up remote communities that lack high-speed broadband connections, Canada's auditor general said in a scathing report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday. From a report: The report comes just two years after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, an Indigenous community at the border of Manitoba and Ontario, and vowed that his government would work to end the digital divide that leaves rural and remote communities without high-speed internet.
"This report says what we already knew, which is that there is no strategy to bring the rest of Canada online," Laura Tribe, executive director of advocacy group Openmedia, said in a phone call. "What we keep hearing from the government is increasing numbers -- 80 percent, 90 percent -- but until we're at 100 percent, the problem isn't solved."
"This report says what we already knew, which is that there is no strategy to bring the rest of Canada online," Laura Tribe, executive director of advocacy group Openmedia, said in a phone call. "What we keep hearing from the government is increasing numbers -- 80 percent, 90 percent -- but until we're at 100 percent, the problem isn't solved."
A lot of our problems arise from the fact that we are a country with 4 people per KM^2.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The Canadian government will probably spare no expense in making copious supplies of marijuana available, even if you live 500 miles from the next human being.
Well, the reason rural locations have access to electricity and phone lines is due to the government having a role in getting those lines deployed in the past.
I thought this problem was solved. All the telcos and cablecos will happily run cable to your remote island or outpost so long as you pay them to do it, and then you'll pay regular service fees everyone else pays with the same service levels everyone else gets. Am I wrong?
As for you being too cheap to pay for it, why should I subsidize your tightwaddery? If you're planning to accuse me of expecting farmers to have no internet, that's foolish. I expect them to charge enough for their goods that they can save the money necessary to pay to install it. If they choose not to do so, this is not my problem.
Canada's rural area is actually rural. Try bring broadband 100 miles to serve 2 people?
In the USA though, very little of of the USA is that remote unless you are talking about Alaska. The vast majority of "rural" America is almost always less than 30 minutes to a "major" city of at least a 1000 people.
The vast majority of rural Canada or Alaska it might be hours before you see another living sole, let alone even before you hit a 1 horse town with 20-50 people.
3/5 for Trolling effort. "Full of thugs" is not offensive enough, it also fails to paint everyone with overly-wide brush. Suggest to use something like "Liberal-voting jobless hipsters" or "Clueless late-sipping elites" or something similar.
Look, right now polar bears are eating people in the North.
No, I'm not kidding. They can't hunt on the ice, due to climate change, so they're eating people.
You want high-speed internet? It has to be provided by satellite. Can't run a cable 2000 km for one family.
It's part of why Yellowknife literally is running out of food. As we speak.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Does this really run on a bare Linux kernel?
I don't know about everyone else, but I prefer to use GNU plus Linux, rather than just Linux alone.
GNU plus Linux -- a winning combination!
GNU'S NOT UNIX!
Also, mail.
No, a lot of phone lines are from renewable energy and diesel generators allowing satellite phone uplinks. Canada is big.
No, bigger.
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I'm sure no filthy capitalists would have provided electricity or cell service or mail or Amazon Prime by now without government.
the people in the big cities have broadband & thats as far as thats going to go. There is no requirement to run broadband to rural areas & its not profitable to do so, so ISP's arent doing it.
Heck theyre not even maintaining POTS anymore in most places. Infrastructure in rural america is backsliding bigtime.
In a few years UN will provide development aid to Canada. Indian and Chinese engineers will install broadband and where needed also streets and other infrastructure. So do not worry. Help is on the way.
Some of these communities are so rural their phone service is barely functional.
Years ago I had the misfortune of working on some stuff related to Canada Post. They have a computer system in which the local retailers dial in, upload their transactions, and then disconnect.
The problem is in some places the phone line was so crappy even over a low speed dialup line, it couldn't be made to work.
We'd call them up, ask if we can dial into their machine, and then waste an hour or so trying to make a telephone line about as sophisticated as two cans on a string connect while listening to a modem trying to negotiate ever lower speeds until it gave up. I had one guy in a rural community in Newfoundland laugh at me and basically say "Buddy, if you can make it work, go right ahead, but you're far from the first person to try it, our phone system around here sucks".
How you get broadband to a place that barely has working telephones, I have no idea.
Hell, my Aunt and Uncle still have a party line, and they're not that rural. The problem is the telephone lines and cable end about 2km down the road, and unless they pay the company to string the last distance (thousands of dollars), they're stuck with telephone technology from the 60's.
Now imagine a community which is essentially fly-in only because there are no real roads and you're so far in the middle of nowhere you might as well be on another planet.
Canada has more arse-end-of-nowhere than most people can possibly fathom.
It isn't the government's responsibility unless people decide it should be, which they will, because the masses are neither proactive nor entrepreneurial.
Have no fear! Capitalism solves all needs of the consumer!
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
How is it the role of government to ensure high broadband internet?
The Great and the Good use to understand there was great value in the universality of such systems. Electrification and phone service were both driven by government policies that facilitated and subsidized extension of these networks to rural areas, including those areas that were inherently unprofitable. The utilities tasked to make this so understood they were to shift the costs as required, and this reality was built into the rate structure.
That take on the world has been lost on all sides. The establishment right does what Comcast says, and Comcast et al. just want to milk high margin customers. The establishment left has only contempt for anyone not living in diverse urban areas; the rural white trailer trash need to change their ways and get an efficiency apartment in town or just shut up; subsidizing their needs is just more white privilege and systemic racism.
If "indigenous" Canadians natives can make this a racial justice issue they may be able to pry service out of the system. Rural US is just fucked; no one wants them and they can just go die quietly. Some of them are building municipal/township systems. That's about the only feasible solution in the US unless Musk+Starlink pan out in a big way.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
It's Canada. I'm pretty sure throwing in French speaking would be a more appropriate division point between West and East.
A capitalistic system of telcos is going to focus their infrastructure building where they can make the most return on investment. In other words areas with the highest population density. They'll also happily employ any technology they can (ie ADSL, etc) to enable broadband over existing copper infrastructure since it's relatively low cost for them and gives them near monopolistic access to a customer base in many areas. Running actual fiber lines costing thousands of dollars to the middle of nowhere so they can pick up five more broadband customers is not going to be very high on their priority list though.
One hope for rural broadband might come in the form of some kind of low orbit satellite endeavour, like SpaceX's Starlink service - if it ever gets off the ground and they can get the costs under control enough in order to get a return on the investment.
The better possibility would probably be for local municipalities to decide to use their own tax dollars to build their own fiber infrastructure if broadband in their area is a priority. Wire the town with fiber, and connect into the nearest backbone using whatever method is available. Anyone with a farm house in the middle of some gigantic acreage however is still probably going to have to deal with ADSL over copper, unless they want to lay the fiber themselves.
This project seems to make more sense for Canadians & rural America :
Elon Musk StarLink
Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to install a few towers vs. running wire/fiber into remote areas?
Never pass up a chance to point out that quebecees don't speak frogish, rather some broken pidgeon.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
CODE SIGNING's been STOLEN & ABUSED https://www.helpnetsecurity.co... MY METHOD CAN'T BE (upmodded +2 INTERESTING in CODING FOR DEFCON) https://it.slashdot.org/commen...
So much for your "code signing" bullshit, lol...
* You've done better "NIG"? Prove it.
APK
P.S.=> ... & PLEASE - be original - posting as I do by AC & signing off = IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY proving you WISH you were ME, lol... apk
Well, the reason rural locations have access to electricity and phone lines is due to the government having a role in getting those lines deployed in the past.
But they don't have four lane highways going to every remote location and/or house. Some places barely have serviceable roads or roads that can't be used year round.
A government mandate would already be satisfied for you. You can buy a connection with a reasonable price from the market. I don't see what you would have to steal for it, though.
This seems like a problem that SpaceX is going to solve for them.
The Canadian government will follow this up with funding for First Nations to get on board and then claim victory.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Canada's gov't is right to stay out of this. Why? Because it's expensive and unnecessary.
Elon Musk is going to "wire" the world with over 10,000 low earth orbiting satellites:
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/s...
Low earth orbiting means the latency problem won't be a problem, and you can use 'em to do your First Person Shooter games with low ping times. Will require some waiting, but you can't wire up Canada before Elon Musk / Toney Stark / Iron Man launches his 10,000+ satellites. Hey, when you've got rockets that work and are much cheaper than anyone else's, you can do s*** like that...
If you're a Canuck, learn your history. If you're not, learn some new!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Canada_Microwave
Most of this is still in use... if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Below is an example of the excoriating language found in the report. Just look at back and forth between the Auditor General's office and the scathingly criticized departments of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission!
[AG] Recommendation: 1.48 Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, in collaboration with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, should make a detailed connectivity map publicly available and update it regularly while respecting the confidentiality of service providers’ data. (1.45 to 1.47)
The Department’s response. Agreed. The maps of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission are as detailed as can be published at this time while respecting the commercially sensitive nature of Internet service providers’ network information. The Department and the Commission continue to work with Internet service providers to refine the published maps.
Wow!! Have you ever read such contentious communication between government department?!
Here's another one:
[AG] 1.54 For future broadband Internet funding programs, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada should adopt a program design that maximizes the outcomes of public spending, and minimizes negative commercial effects on existing Internet service providers. (1.49 to 1.53)
The Department’s response. Agreed. The Connect to Innovate program was designed to maximize the outcomes and minimize the negative commercial effects on existing Internet service provider.
OMG!
Wait, here's another:
[AG] 1.77 To foster the provision of wireless Internet services in rural and remote areas, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada should review the way it manages auctions of spectrum, including design and requirements such as
size of geographic areas,
deployment conditions, and
subordinate licensing incentives for unused spectrum in underserved areas. (1.72 to 1.76)
The Department’s response. Agreed. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada has recognized the importance of wireless services for Canadians in all regions. The Department is committed to encouraging affordable telecommunications services to help bridge the digital divide, foster inclusivity, and support an innovative economy. The Department will continue to develop policies that encourage service into rural areas to ensure that all Canadians benefit from high-quality services, ubiquitous coverage, and affordable prices. These policies will continue to be developed in a transparent manner through consultation.
That is BRUTAL!*
*for Canadians, that is.
Only works if you're in a big town.
A lot of people aren't.
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Sooooo sorry theres no money left over for the poors.
Time to end the PC-Lib one party rule!!
I've no version 11.0++ & gweihir KNOWS u IMPERSONATE me https://it.slashdot.org/commen... c6gunner proves it https://linux.slashdot.org/com... he forgot to SUBMIT as AC & using his registered 'lusrname' instead (because he tried to mock me both BEFORE & after I FAIRLY challenged him to show he's done better work - he had ZERO).
& NO WAY I'd "cry" like you "ne'er-do-wells" on /. (TROLL /.ers, not all) OR post on hosts offtopic.
YOU HELPED ME https://science.slashdot.org/c... (& you quit trying to make me look bad trying to "tell lies" on hosts as "ME" IN YOUR IMPERSONATIONS of me e.g. https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... as regards Intel speculative execution attack? Hosts PREVENT 'EM)
APK
P.S.=> I KNOW the 2nd to last link above's KILLING YOU - YOU ACTUALLY HELPED ME getting me to see if hosts stop more than portsmash (& Meltdown + Spectre too) & "lo & behold" - hosts WORK on 'em - U LOSE (& U STOPPED TRYING IT in your impersonations of me) .... apk
(I'm Canadian, in a megalopolis suburb.)
First off, in Canada, the vast vast vast majority of the population is fully high-speed, fully cellular phone, fully wired, fully connected in every way.
Second, the vast majority of rural communities are just as well connected.
Third, our idea of "high speed" is, well to be polite, leaps and bounds above what the USA thinks is "high speed". Simply put, our low-end is above the USA average.
Fourth, and this is no joke, the reason that all of your cellular providers advertise "the best network" is because all of the USA networks are just plain horrible. I've never traveled to the USA, for a day or for a week, roaming or on a local sim, without poor reception and dropped calls. When cellular providers advertise in Canada, it's just funny because all of the big carriers are exactly the same -- superb. Years between dropped calls; seriously.
The "rural" neighbourhoods being discussed here are a collection of places that meet the following descriptions:
- fewer than ten humans for hundreds of miles, or were during the last construction phase
- refused construction of any infrastructure before, and are now changing their minds
- have chosen to live so far from others that they don't ever have paved roads
What you may not realize is that these "rural" communities want billion dollar infrastructure for a million dollar market. It would be cheaper for my tax dollars to buy them a house in the city. -- think of the expense of physically wiring them without roads for the equipment transport
As a CROWN CORPORATION with an encoded primary responsibility to bring communications to the people of Saskatchewan (and not profit to shareholders!) Sasktel is the perfect example of how you solve the profit motive problem.
Sasktel is also the lowest cost internet & cellular in Canada!
See subject: My method hasn't - what's more secure I wonder, lol? No, no - YOU PROVE to me YOU DID BETTER than I as I asked 1st ok??
* LOL, I know "That ain't happenin'"...
APK
P.S.=> IF I showed you MORE than just /.'ers LIKING & USING + PRAISING my work (commercially sold code since 1997 STILL doing well of mine)? You'd shit yourself... apk
The best coverage & cheapest cellular and internet in the country is a from a GOVERNMEMT OWNED CORPORATION.
Moran.
Some communities are only accessible by road over ice in the winter.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
NAFTA dedtroyed our socislism in every way other than lipservice. We literally have people dying by the thousands every month across the country because of Chinese poison in the heroin supply and our governments just shrug.
Canada is a myth we tell ourselves. We're just a resource/profit input to the USA and any superior freedoms we enjoyed have been removed and will not return with the likes of Bill Morneau running things.
Try leaving Toronto now and then. Most small towns and homes outside of small towns have no access to real high speed internet. Shitty phones lines, unreliable power and bad DSL/no microwave link access.
Shaddap nazi faggot Wimpwuss you're boring AF
The operant term is 'no plan' -- think they are hoping that private enterprises will implement it and if it suits them, nationalize it later after working out the risks. Meanwhile, more government services are being moved to the Internet so if you do not live in an area with some sort of service you are SOL. Move to a city... current crop of politicians would be delighted to clear the rural areas (sound familiar?) so services are being selectively rolled back.
Where we live, for a long time the only reliable service available was broadband satellite service through Xplornet. It was decent -- just bothered by weather at your end AND the satellite base station. Latency was up there but it was adequate to do day trading. Skype and any VOIP services was a different matter -- out of sequence packet arrival is not funny in a serious conversation. Then a WiMAX tower got built on the mainland and we could move to that. But satellite is a real solution.
Suspect part of the problem is the dearth of transportation in the north. There are hardly any way to get north besides fly and that runs up the cost pretty fast. The politicians like to fancy Canada as a northern nation but their actions say something very different -- more than 100 miles north of the US border is another country and they really don't want to go there.
Or should that be "Sorry, eh?"
(I can't believe it took that long...)
Bullshit. The kind of infrastructure he pointed out is for smaller towns. Bigger towns have had that replaced long ago.
Pretty sure places without cop shops tend not to have it. Not everyone is big city like you are. Some of my classmates died in a massive mudslide a few years back, the nearest town in BC was 20 km away. They used satellite. For everything.
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I think I understand where you're going with this, but I'm afraid your ignorance is showing. It would probably help if you cut down on the racism and bogotry.
HIH!
What is the best way to get broadband coverage for people living in extremely sparsely populated ultra-rural areas?
1) Spend enormous amounts of money building fiber to remote communities and households
2) Spend a smaller but still large amount of money investing in SpaceX's Starlink constellation, which can potentially benefit all Canadians, not just ultra-rural ones
Opinions like yours are how we got a head tax and the opium act. I thought you all died out 100 years ago.
Hint: âoeMake availableâ has never meant grow.
So like how Americans don't speak English and can't spell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
le roié cé moié
See subject: It's for a GUI environs (I could do a QT widgetset recompile too but I went GTK) like KDE Plasma (or other desktops like xfce etc. I'd wager too (too many to list)
APK
P.S.=> In any event, enjoy - it's FREE & it's been code-audited by Steven Burn of Malwarebytes + it gives you more speed 2 ways (hardcoded favorite sites you spend most time @ TOP of hosts for fastest nsswitch FILE based resolution @ kernelmode levels (all boils down to sys/socket.h + kernel level diskcaching subsystems caching hosts) vs. slower remote DNS which has security issues like Kaminsky redirect poisoning + DNS request log trackers that hardcodes help you avoid + adblocking - NATIVELY (vs. "Bolt-on-'MoAr'" ILLOGIC-LOGIC) + FASTER & LIGHTER on resources than any other method BY FAR doing more for FAR less) + PROTECTS you vs. threats (malware, 3rd party tracking scripts, malscript, botnets & of course Intel Spectre/Meltdown/Portsmash)... apk
I mean I live in the heart of the nation's capitol and I still get sub 10 MB/s speeds at most hours of the day, I'm lucky to get 1 MB/s on a busy day or during a storm, and Rogers has developed a habit lately of dropping more packets than Trump drops boneheaded quips. And this is in a part of Canada considered to have "cutting edge" well-developed internet. Let alone some place rural where I imagine the messages are sent via messenger beaver and subject to occasional delays in woodland areas.
A lot of this problem resides firmly with the duopoly that our government has been accepting too much lobbyist money from to break up effectively. They have no competition and no impetus to offer better service. Third-party providers like TekSavvy still rely on them to provide the last mile or however the phrase is, and those providers are in almost constant battles in the CRTC over the abysmal quality of token service they are provided.
Break up Bell and Rogers enough that they have to compete and this problem would likely resolve itself.
Allow any company that wants to run fiber to the rural communities the option to do so without government approval so long as they self-regulate themselves to meeting appropriate standards for the digging and laying of the fiber and are 100% libel for any damage to competitors lines. I'm sure there are countless private/public organizations that would be happy to do the job but the monopolies controlling Canada's infrastructure refuse to let them and instead are holding out for more free money from the government.
Hey, you little overzealous weirdo. You might want to check out those English schools so you can learn how to spell ridiculous. You and your little microcosm specific view on life are obnoxious, stupid and largely irrelevant. Nothing you say here is general case. It is unilaterally centric to you. You are the most self centered ignorant sheltered person and you perpetuate garbage here. Your posts are a testament to your moronic self centric view on the world, you talk about everything in reference to Canada, Québec, Canadian dollars - you name it. It is annoying. Please review what you post here before posting it for you own sake. Anyone with a brain has a field day laughing at the detritus and cruft you leave behind. And one can tell beyond a doubt you are not technical in any serious way or programmatically inclined. Most likely you are living at home with your parents, or a subsidized existence, you like cheap things over good things because you can not afford good things; you are a gamer and a user. You are neither a progenitor of new and useful code nor a creator of useful things. You are on the bottom rung to the computing public and it is painfully apparent. Hi, Guspaz! Before you shit on American advancement, you might want to spell "congratulate" and "achievement" correctly. Looks like McGill passed you up this time around. And after McGill, not many schools left to go to. Nice job, sweet try. Now go back to being a good little socialist and watch some TV telling you how good Trudeau Castreaux is and sell some more nuclear reactor parts to countries seeking to obtain WMD. And I like your F-18's you guys use in your Air Force. Wow, you've shown your ability to copy and paste text from a website. You American's must be such an advanced country to have mastered this difficult art! I congradulate you on your technological acheivment.