Internet Towers

Wireless high speed internet towers is the solution to access in rural Canada. We need government support for more of these towers and the companies that build them. I live on a farm and once there were enough people on board a tower was put up. It was great but it takes to long. There should be government support to ensure that Canadians have high speed internet. That will make our digital economy strong.

Comments

Salaryman — 2010–05–10 12:58:16 EDT wrote

I live on the fringe of the GTA and I cannot get adequate high–speed internet. I've tried satellite, but it is hopeless over subscribed. I currently use Wimax, but I can't get above 0.5mbps. This is NOT high speed in my opinion.

We should have pushed for 100mbps to 90% of the country by 2017, with 10mbps to 100% by 2020. That would have laid the foundation for growth. The current plan of pushing 1.5mbps and calling it high speed is just lip service.

techguy — 2010–05–10 15:21:52 EDT wrote

I live 10 km from downtown Ottawa, and I do not have access to any "land line" high speed internet.

Wireless towers would be a good solution. HSPA+ technology works quite well and provides decent speeds if you have a strong signal.

The problem is the data plans that are offered by the providers. Most starter plans only allow for 500Mb per month which is really not enough in today's internet world. I tested one of these services and with basic browsing (no file downloads), I used up the 500Mb within 8 days. If you want to increase the data plan, the cost becomes unaffordable.

If the providers would offer plans that allowed for a useful amount of data at a reasonable cost, it would make this technology more attractive for the average home owner.

darylhobbs — 2010–05–11 16:35:14 EDT wrote

I believe Bell Canada put in a fiber optic backbone across the country about ten years ago but it takes time to replace, upgrade or install digital switches in place of existing analog PBX systems. The tower would still need to connect to a carrier with plenty of infrastructure.

The other option is to increase the power of the broadcast/receive equipment or improve line of sight and focus. I believe some native guys used a coffee can or pringles can to broadcast up to 12Klm to a PC with a wireless NIC.

R — 2010–05–14 14:15:35 EDT wrote

It might not be realistic technically and in the short to medium term to see HSPA+ like solution work for a great number of users for various reasons.

It might be better to consider freeing more frequency for general usage just like WiFi.

Local companies / ISP could then develop solutions without having to buy very expensive cell phone frequency chunks that only the big player can afford but don't see the point in developing them for isolated areas.

jkeaton — 2010–06–05 20:54:30 EDT wrote

This is an excellent idea — other countries that are ahead of us in broadband and have widespread rural populations, such as Finland, have widespread high speed internet towers — Finland even makes a point of covering their cottage country as well as farming and lumbering areas.