Canada trails in Internet broadband access - Harvard University

[jesseps]

anada has some of the slowest and most expensive Internet service in the world, according to a new study from Harvard University, contradicting what the nation's communications regulatory board found last year.

 

A report by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission last year stated that Canada was a broadband leader based on the benchmark of penetration per 100 inhabitants, which essentially means how many people have access to high-speed Internet at home.

 

"Canada, at 64 per cent, continues to lead in penetration of broadband connections as a proportion of households, followed by the United States at 62 per cent and the United Kingdom at 60 per cent," said the CRTC report from 2009.

 

But the report commissioned by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission says this is misleading.

 

"Canada continues to see itself as a high performer in broadband, as it was early in the decade, but current benchmarks suggest that this is no longer a realistic picture of its comparative performance on several relevant measures," said the report from the university's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

 

The Harvard analysis measured household and population penetration of broadband service, but it also included benchmarks such as price, speed and 3G mobile broadband penetration on which Canada had much weaker outcomes.

 

Overall, the study ranked Canada 19th worldwide in Internet access. Canada trailed the United States, and was well behind the overall leaders — Sweden, Denmark and Japan.

 

The CRTC refused comment on the Harvard findings. A spokeswoman said they do not comment on other reports.

 

In the U.S., the FCC, the American equivalent to Canada's CRTC, is getting set to offer recommendations to the federal government for a national broadband plan. U.S. President Barack Obama has said that he will push for universal Internet access and more competition among service providers, an issue that the Harvard report points out as a Canadian shortfall.

 

Foreign ownership rules and the dominance of a small number of telecommunications monoliths have left Canadians paying some of the highest prices for services that do not match those of the leading nations, the report said.

 

"The Canadian experience suggests that reliance purely on competition between strong cable incumbents and strong telephony incumbents may be insufficient to sustain high penetration or achieve high capacity and low competitive prices in the long term," the report said.

 

In particular, Canada fared quite poorly in terms of next generation speeds — 35 megabits or faster — placing 18th out of 19 countries. Canada also lags in the availability of 3G mobile broadband networks, which are used by mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone.

 

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette)

[WestAust]

this study must be dating a bit, bell/telus have built the 3rd largest privatly funded mobile 3g network covering 93% of the population of the country, which is clearly something that was not included in the scope of this study.

 

Actually, all of our carriers are now on 3g networks for all or most of their coverage... far from being the case in the united states for instance

[jesseps]

this study must be dating a bit, bell/telus have built the 3rd largest privatly funded mobile 3g network covering 93% of the population of the country, which is clearly something that was not included in the scope of this study.

 

Actually, all of our carriers are now on 3g networks for all or most of their coverage... far from being the case in the united states for instance

 

The 3G part of the article dated and as for home high speed internet is quite accurate. We are still paying an arm and a leg for 25 Mbps+

[pedepy]

im sorry - this is interesting and all, but is it really on topic for mtlurb ?

[JFrosty]

im sorry - this is interesting and all, but is it really on topic for mtlurb ?

 

Autant que le sujet sur la loi 101, Québec célébrant la St Patrick et le mythe du réchauffement climatique.

[Cataclaw]

Discussion générale = discussion générale

[SPQR]

At least it's not as bad as in mexico, we pretty much only have one company providing internet service so they do whatever they want.

[cjb]

Je suis bien d'accord avec cette étude.

 

Il manque de compétition. Le service de Bell LAGGGGGGG énormément.

 

Il doit y avoir un ping de 800ms sur pratiquement toutes mes requêtes.

Très pénible.

 

Pourtant, on paye près de 45$ par mois pour ce service de qualité douteuse.

 

Vidéotron lag moins, mais est plus dispendieux et a des limites de transferts contraignantes.