Community Networking and Public Digital Infrastructure Vital

Submission

Nova Scotia is blessed by its location on the East Coast of Canada. The Atlantic Ocean tempers harsh winters and cools our summers. Our location also serves as an important digital crossroads, where network traffic from North America and Europe meet. In an information age, this is called "opportunity".

The Chebucto Community Net, established in June 1994, is the oldest running Internet service provider in Atlantic Canada, a non–profit registered charitable organization here to help ensure everyone has access to the tools of communication.

In Nova Scotia, one person in four has no home Internet access. One in four has no access to public terminals, usually due to limited hours and locations.

High speed Internet access is not physically available to all Nova Scotians and where it is, it is priced too high for some to afford.

From a survey of our users we know that when the monthly cost of Internet exceeds $10, it becomes too expensive for some. We know that senior citizens, low income families and people with health issues in particular are hard hit by Internet access prices. Statistics Canada says that 44% of Canadians making less than $30,000 a year did not access the Internet last year.

Seniors face obstacles with new technology. About one quarter of our users over age 35 report an insufficient knowledge of how to use Information Technology. This increases to over half of our users over retirement age. Such statistics for the general public are even worse; our users already know how to interact with the Internet. Statistics Canada says that one third of Canadians over the age of 45 did not access the Internet last year.

We feel that community owned and operated high speed networks are a necessary component of a healthy information economy. Commercial providers do not have a sufficient economic motivation for serving some sections of the population therefore they are not served.

Market forces have proven insufficient to drive timely technical advances. Where Canada once led the world in high speed networking, our position relative to the world is declining almost weekly. Last fall, Canada ranked 20^th in the world for average download speed. Between the end of May and beginning of June 2010, we slipped from 32^nd to 33^rd place.

Public funding of the initial setup of high speed community owned and operated networks would be an investment in the future of our communities. Fifty years from now, these same fiber optic cables laid today would still be in use. The return on investment would take less than a decade in many locations.

Our local commercial Internet service providers view us as competition. A competition where they each command millions of dollars in revenue and all media outlets while we service hundreds of members of the have–not community with no media support and less annual revenue than a single dentist earns.

We say "digital ecosystem", where all have their place and serve the greater good; they say "co–opetition" where they sell us services while in competition for money. The losers here are not us though, it is the many, many people out there who are being left out of the new information age. We can help them. We have helped them for sixteen years now. With the personal touch commercial providers cannot provide.

It is in the public interest to have all members of the public able to take advantage of the services new technology has to offer. Market forces alone will not achieve this.