The IT Nerd

Man. The Globe And Mail has really changed their tune. You’ll remember that when this study came out from Harvard [Warning: PDF] that showed that Canada was way behind the rest of the world when it came to Internet access, Rogers and The Globe And Mail traded shots of the accuracy of the study. Now there’s an essay that has The Globe And Mail singing from a different song sheet:

Canada has a true broadband penetration rate of close to 70 per cent of households. And North Americans use the Internet somewhat more intensively than do Europeans, according to Cisco Systems data on Internet traffic. Further, business Internet traffic in North America appears to be at levels substantially higher than elsewhere in the world. Sadly, there is little systematic effort by international agencies to measure the intensity of Internet usage.

Instead, we see comparisons of advertised speeds and “price per advertised megabit,” which are especially misleading. Advertised broadband speeds vary from actual speeds. In North America, this is largely a result of “network overhead,” and is quite modest. In Europe, however, the variation is often dramatic.

Hmmm…. Let’s think about this for a second. The Globe And Mail which bills itself as “Canada’s National Newspaper” is owned by CTV/Globemedia who has Bell Canada Enterprises as one of their owners. Bell Canada Enterprises in turn owns Bell Internet which was indirectly ripped by the Harvard study. I’m guessing that someone within Bell Canada Enterprises dialed up someone in the management level of The Globe And Mail and gave them heck. Thus the appearance of this rather dubious essay after they traded shots with Rogers using some fairly good arguments. I don’t have any proof that this happened. But when a really reputable newspaper like The Globe And Mail does a one-eighty like this and puts out the FUD that’s in this article, you have to wonder.

Shame on The Globe And Mail!

Here’s the reality. I have a client who lives part time in Japan who gets DSL for an amazingly low $5 a month for 14-16mbps. IF that isn’t fast enough for her, she has the option of 100Mbps or 160Mbps fiber is about $40 a month. I have a German customer who pays 29.90 euros a month for 32Mbit/s DSL Where is that in Canada? The fact is that compared to the rest of the world, Canadian consumers are absolutely getting hosed by ISP’s like Rogers and Bell. The only way this will get fixed is if the Canadian federal government follows through with their promise to open up the Canadian telecom industry to foreign investment. That’s because the incumbent telcos are too busy hosing Canadian consumers by providing less service for more money to do the right thing. So if you’re Canadian, e-mail your local MP to say that the Harvard study is proof that change needs to come sooner than later.

This entry was posted on March 7, 2010 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Broadband, Canada. 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.