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Canada-Wide Wireless Broadband Network Planned

Posted by Zonk on Fri Sep 16, 2005 12:48 PM
from the big-maple-leaf dept.
Wireless Networking Businesses IT Hardware
twilight30 writes "From the Globe and Mail, Rogers Communications Inc. and Bell Canada have said they will put aside their competitive differences to jointly build and manage a Canada-wide wireless broadband network. It is hoped they will initially reach more than two-thirds of Canadians in less than three years." From the article: "The two communications companies will pool their wireless broadband spectrum into a joint venture called Inukshuk Internet Inc. The network will cover more than 40 cities, and 50 rural and remote communities across the country. Users will be able to access the Internet and use voice, video streaming and data applications both inside their home, as well as on the go."
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  • Will they use... (Score:5, Funny)

    by msauve (701917) on Friday September 16 2005, @12:49PM (#13577848)
    802.11-eh?
  • If you are just covering the inhabited parts of Canada, I'd say it's doable. Otherwise somebody is smoking some serious stuff.

    Besides, I can see some problems with huge microwave transmitters trying to operate on top of permafrost.

    • I think it is pretty clear it will only cover those areas that where there is normal telephone service. People at their remote weather stations in the northern tundra will most likely need to use satalite internet. :)

      However, isn't a lot of the limits of WiFi caused by the radio signals being blocked by buildings or the landscape... or getting messed up by other radio signals? Shouldn't this mean that a normal WiFi station could cover a lot more area in say some barren northern tundra? Wouldn't the nature
    • Why provide broadband to uninhabited areas? Gladly, they do say they intend to cover rural areas, which the ADSL and cable providers don't.
  • Anyone know any details about this other than that it will be Canada?

  • Might be usefull to link the inukshuk web page (Score:4, Informative)

    by XXIstCenturyBoy (617054) on Friday September 16 2005, @12:56PM (#13577933)
    Which is weird, its not even listed in the article either.

    http://www.inukshuk.ca/anglais/index.html [slashdot.org]

    I used to work for Fido, the creator of the Inukshuk project. I'm glad Rogers picked it up after they bought Fido, I could never phantom how the smallest cell network in Canada could have implemented it by themselves.
    (They did try some lame attemp a wireless internet behind the Inukshuk banner, but you needed a bulky wireless modem to go with it... It wasn't very fast and the price was not very competitive)

  • Message to Bell (Score:5, Funny)

    by colenski (552404) on Friday September 16 2005, @12:57PM (#13577938) Homepage
    ...Hey, Bell, how about completing the fucking Alberta supernet first [globetechnology.com] before you start masturbating with Ted about Canada?
  • Being from Canada and having both Rogers broadband and Bell's cell phone service I can only see good things from this joint venture. Rogers has been doing alot of buying lately, just a couple months ago they bought Fido's wireless network. One problem I can see arising is support, both companies IMHO have less than mediocre support that and the fact that even though the executives have put aside their differences the actual employees have a slight disshate for eachother because they were the major competi

  • the article says rogers was pretty much forced into it. Good.

    I'm not really much of a wireless person. Things don't have to be wireless if all they ever do is sit on my desk anyway. And perhaps I'm mistaken but there are a lot more things wireless networks have to take care of than wired devices no? So I for one won't be jumping on the band wagon of wireless things unless it's much cheaper, much more effective and gets me stuff faster than plain old cable broadband.

    and even if I were I wouldn't sign up

  • Antenna (Score:5, Funny)

    by thatguywhoiam (524290) on Friday September 16 2005, @12:59PM (#13577965)
    Here is the antenna they will be using... [cntower.ca] In other news, construction of the world's biggest Pringles can is now underway in Sudbury.
  • I live out in the boonies, and I get a great wireless connection from the nearest town (pop. 540). On a good day it's close to 2 mbps, which is faster than my residence connection at the University of Toronto.
    • Maybe if you live in chestnut, or at utm/utsc, but any other res downtown at uoft has a 10-15mbps connection downstream and more upstream.

      Not to mention the fact that i was there 2 days ago at gerstein in the morison pavilion getting over 40mbps downstream and 10 up. Essentially maxing out my laptops hdd.

  • They are planning to use moose-based APs (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2005, @01:00PM (#13577974)
    But what happens when your AP migrates?

  • Cartel? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In the rest of the world associations like this would be called cartels.

    Works perfectly fine for NY mob families & OPEC

  • A Canadian's $0.02 (Score:5, Informative)

    by onion_breath (453270) on Friday September 16 2005, @01:02PM (#13578002) Homepage
    I live in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. It's just east of Maine for those who may not be aware. I live in a small city of about 50000 people, and we already have had free wireless public internet for a few years now. It's called the Fred-e-zone.

    It's availabe to most as long as you're living close to the valley and not behind some of the hills in town. I just bring my laptop from work, to coffee shop, to home... always connected for free.

    People are under the impression that Canada is huge and is sparsely populated. I can tell you that most cities are south by the US border, and only a small portion of Canada actually has people living together densely. It would be easier to build this type of infrastructure here in Canada than it would be in the States I would guess... just because most major cities are along the border.
    • I looked at the coverage map and it looks like a lot of the city doesn't have coverage.
      Frankly a lot of it seem to cover the river. Maybe that is where the mayor's boat is.
      Frankly I think fiber to the door every where would be more important to business than wifi. I mean for at least 3 months a year you really can not "work" in the park.
      • Fred-E-Zone is a spinoff of the citys fibre network. When they built it to handle the city's data in the late 90's, they installed tons of esxtra fibre (of course - fibre is cheap, laying it is not). Now they resell the capacity to business in the city. They make more money off of it than it costs to maintain the thing.

        So not only is the spinoff WiFi free, it makes money for the city.

          • Re:A Canadian's $0.02 (Score:5, Insightful)

            by bcs_metacon.ca (656767) on Friday September 16 2005, @01:54PM (#13578514)
            Most Canadians are happy to pay taxes in return for having solid public services, public works, universal healthcare, universal social security... you know, a social safety net like the rest of the world (*other* than the U.S) has. "Free" WiFi is a nice benefit to tourism and students (i.e., people who don't pay municipal taxes), and to the businesses in the downtown core where the service is strongest.

            I live in Fredericton too, and I don't use the e-Zone much but it's handy to have available. And I pay my taxes (happily).
  • They are looking to own that avenue BEFORE anybody decides to do it. It is a very cheap way to go.
  • It's called default

  • Collusion? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by absent_speaker (905145) on Friday September 16 2005, @01:11PM (#13578093)
    This would be great if telecos were benevelent entities looking after the share interests of society, but they're not. No copetition elimenates the incentive to innovate, the incentive to drive develop cost lowering efficiencies. Of course telco's are willing to put aside their competative differences to create a high-profit monopoly on wireless.

    I admit, There would still be competition in other forms and the telco's couldn't continuously raise their prices. However, I would imagine that the same telco's would also own most of those other means to get broadband.

    I'm a little rusty on my business law, but isn't this overt collusion.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion [wikipedia.org]

  • We need to tell Bush, that the real Axis of evil has joined forces in Canada. Spawn of Satan (Bell) and Son of Satan (Rogers), have combined to form the most feared mega-corp the world has seen since Syndicate!

    In typical fashion us Canadians will wait for somebody else to put and end to this evil while we complain about taxes and mutter under our breath.

    Maybe if we get Tim Hortons coupons too it will be ok.

  • Aagh (Score:2, Informative)

    by BlackShirt (690851)
    Finland and estonia also have plans to cover large rural areas with edge network for internet connection. In a year or two.

  • What about Sasktel?! Always forgotten... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Lukano (50323) on Friday September 16 2005, @01:23PM (#13578216) Journal
    I work for Sasktel (incumbent Telco in Saskatchewan - smack dab in the middle of canada for the geographically challenged) and we've had wireless internet services going for the better part of a year now.

    We're part of the 'Bell Wireless Alliance' which is a resource/competition sharing agreement between Bell, Sasktel, Aliant, MTS and most of the other CDMA cellular carriers (excluding Telus) - and yet Bell always seems to trump Sasktel where new technology is concerned.

    First company to roll out DSL in Canada - Sasktel. Who got credit? Bell.

    First company to have broadband/dsl television services in Canada - Sasktel. Who gets credit, Bell and a handful of US carriers who are still working on it.

    First company to have MTC wiress broadband in Canada - you guessed it, Sasktel. Who gets credit - Bell and Rogers.

    An example of this service can be found here https://commerce.sasktel.com/esales/start.swe?SWER owId=1-4NP&SWEField=s_2_2_24_1&SWERowIds=SWERowId0 %3D1-4NP&SWETVI=&SWEApplet=Product+Catalog+List+Ap plet+(eSales)&SWEView=Product+Catalog+View+(eSales )&SWEDIC=false&SWETargetView=&SWEVI=&SWENeedContex t=true&SWETA=&SWETS=&SWEContainer=&SWECmd=InvokeMe thod&SWEReqRowId=1&SWESP=false&SWESPa=&SWEPOC=&SWE BID=-1&SWEC=5&SWEM=&SWEMethod=Drilldown&SWETS=1092 677920239&SMIDENTITY=NO/ [sasktel.com] . It's basically the final step to getting broadband internet services to every single populated square inch of the province (Sitting at 70-80% currently with just regular copper and fibre - the wireless is to bridge the final remote areas).

    [/rant]

  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vaystrem (761) on Friday September 16 2005, @01:26PM (#13578242)
    Odd as it may seem this is not really about improving access for Canadians to broadband. In many provinces, Saskatchewan included, most communities over 500 people have DSL. Seriously.

    What this is really about is allowing Rogers and Bell to compete on 2 levels with Telco's in other provinces with a minimal investment in infrastructure. This is a comparatively minimal investment because they do not have to trench lines to every house to provide service.

    It will allow them to:
    A) Provide high speed internet access in markets they couldn't access before
    B) Allow them to provide VOIP service in markets they couldn't access before
    C) If they can get wireless VOIP handhelds... they will have coverage about as good as GSM based cell phone services in Canada.

    Its a very strategic move. As it stands the individual telcos, which either WERE or ARE publicly owned put the physical infrastructure in. There have been a series of rulings by the CRTC (our FCC equivalent) regarding what fees must be paid by competing organizations to access that infrastructure, but this bypasses all of that.

    I'm very intrigued.
  • ...it'd be nice if a group in each state got together and worked to wire the whole state.
  • Seems like two companies that would normally be driving rpices down decided to form up a new company with a single pricing plan.... anyone else read it that way?

    or, i may be too synical.
    • Not I. I read it as they've teamed up to build the infrastructure. It's unclear how the service will be sold to the customer (for example, presumably they'll also have to agree to lease out their infrastructure for resale by competitors, ala the current situation with cable and telephony).
  • Did I read that right in the article? They're only budgeting $200M to deploy a nationwide wireless network?

    That would be 1/1000th the amount of money Bush pledged the Feds to throw in to rebuilding the Gulf coast.

    Wow.
  • Just like those two announced their VoIP service was to be released soon. Nothing comparable to vonage/primus yet.

    Yes i know about Roger's home phone thing but no, it's not the same.

  • They're not using Haliburton (Score:5, Funny)

    by joelsanda (619660) on Friday September 16 2005, @01:40PM (#13578371) Homepage

    Did I read that right in the article? They're only budgeting $200M to deploy a nationwide wireless network?

    The Canadians are not using Haliburton.

  • I hope that Inukshuk (Score:4, Funny)

    by WormholeFiend (674934) on Friday September 16 2005, @01:42PM (#13578395)
    will install hotspots in Iqaluit.

    It's freakin' cold up there.
  • I want me some of that free wifi!

  • This project has a few things working for it and against it at the same time. One thing against it is the sheer size of Canada. Admittedly, I'm sure they're not going for all the middle-of-nowhere places way up in the north, but it's still a huge landmass. One thing for it is that "the phone company" is behind it. This means they can use existing lines, poles, towers, central offices, etc. to deploy infrastructure. I'm pretty sure telcos are deregulated in Canada too, but I also know that something like thi
  • Both companies mentioned have no presence in Newfoundland. If you can call two towers (Rogers) on the whole island a presence (servicing St. John's poorly.)

    This is kinda stupid; cause all sorts of Americas are buying up the real estate around Deer Lake (because of pristine flora, fauna, and you know there are 6 moose per square kilometer - making moose more abundand than people on the ol' rock.)

    It's funny seeing them say it will be nationwide at such a small number; as I doubt small and/or remote communiti

    • Country-wide broadband? (Score:5, Funny)

      by drgonzo59 (747139) on Friday September 16 2005, @01:10PM (#13578088)
      Country-wide broadband in Canada is not going to be easy when the whole middle of the country is mostly woods and not much else. But I guess even the bears in the woods want to read their Slashdot news...or is it Beardot News. Beardot: News for Bears, Stuff That Growls! ... comming to a tree next to you at 1.5Mbps.
    • Inuk is one sylable. It means person in Inuktitut.
    • Actually, pretty much everyone in Canada knows what an Inukshuk is, and how to pronounce the name properly. There's a sorta neat one sitting in downtown Winnipeg at the moment, and the logo for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver is an Inukshuk (can't wait to see the mascot for THAT!).

      In fact, over the past few decades they've become a common roadside feature in rockier areas of the country. Northwestern Ontario is positively LITTERED with these things, in some places several per kilometre on both sides o

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