The IT Nerd

If you’re Canadian, your telcos seem to think that you’re access to the Internet is just fine. According to a study (Warning: PDF) commissioned by Bell, Bell Aliant, Rogers, Cogeco, Telus, Shaw and SaskTel and prepared by telecommunications consultant Mark Goldberg, everything when it comes to broadband Internet access is just awesome:

Canadians have access to some of the most affordable services, while also benefiting from some of the world’s fastest connection speeds for both wireline and wireless broadband services

And

Canada continues to lead all G8 countries in terms of adoption of internet services, and ranks in the top 10 for most international comparisons on broadband penetration.

Oh, and in case you were wondering studies like this one that says that Canada is at the bottom of the pile, here’s what they have to say about that:

Broadband is available to 100 per cent of Canadians through four different technologies — phone lines, cable, wireless and satellite — which is a claim few other countries can make

And

And cable providers have begun offering services at up to 100 megabits per second, ranking Canada at the top of the international speed heap, while prices are actually lower than what the OECD has found

So basically what they’re saying is that everything is fine, just take whatever we give you at whatever price we deem fair, and ignore what anybody else says because they’re wrong and we’re right.

Sorry, I don’t think so. Homey don’t play dat!

Canadian telcos via their mouthpiece Goldberg are only putting this out for one reason. They want to be able to say that there isn’t a problem with broadband access in Canada so issues such as Net Neutrality and usage based billing go away. Having seen the sort of Internet access countries like Japan, Germany, and France have, Canada is a technological backwater by comparison. It’s high time that the Canadian government force telcos to do whatever is required to close the gap that exists between us and the rest of the planet.

The question is, will the Canadian government grow a backbone to do it?

This entry was posted on October 8, 2009 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Bell, Bell Aliant, Cogeco, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw, Telus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.