Canada-Wide Wireless Broadband Network Planned

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."

Might be usefull to link the inukshuk web page

[XXIstCenturyBoy]

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)

A Canadian's $0.02

[onion_breath]

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.

Re:Wireless Broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Bell bought a significant part of my local telco, and in that same month, my truly unlimited long distance plan went up in price, and down to 1200 minutes max. Service is downhills, and there's been several strikes since then.

The price hike itself was enough for more to make me switch to VoIP. The base + LD (no caller ID, no voicemail or anything like that) was like 70$. So there is that mass exodus around here. Everybody's getting phone with the cable company for a LOT cheaper. I decided to be a cheap mofo and went with comwave for under 15$ a month with tax, plus actual LD usage @ 1.9 cents/min flat (not one of those pay for 800 minutes no matter if you use them or not or any of those things).

My brother has DSL with Bell (and they force you to have a landline with them as well - so no VoIP for you!), and he's paying a bit more before tax than I'm paying after tax, and I have about 3x that speed (not just claimed speed - it's actually 3x the speed).

They also have a bunch of annoying stupid ads that say things like "constant bandwidth!' -- like having a consistently slower connection than with any other ISP is a good deal. We teh suck more than every other ISP 24/7!

I also used to have a cell phone with them a few years ago, and that was ridiculously expensive. That's one of the purchases I've regretted the most.

For more information about Bell, check this [netaction.org] link out, it's worth a read.

To Bell: a royal Fuck You, you can shove that wifi up somewhere really deep, there isn't a chance in hell you'll see any money from me.

Re:Wireless Internet in Canada? Been there, done t

[beyonddeath]

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.

Aagh

[BlackShirt]

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...

[Lukano]

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]

Re:Aagh

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's [3g.co.uk] some info about the Finnish project. It should cover every corner of the country in 2009.

Re:Country-wide broadband?

[fishizzle]

You're thinking Rogers Cable, which is only a subsiduary of Rogers Communications (the company mentioned in TFA). Rogers Wireless and Rogers Video [rogers.com] both operate in BC, and Rogers Media owns a few radio stations [rogers.com] there as well. Bell Canada also offers their wireless service and satellite TV [www.bell.ca] in BC. I'm guessing it's mainly their wireless services that are involved in this venture anyway.

Re:Country-wide broadband?

[kent_eh]

Ummm.. You're talking about Rogers Cable. Rogers Wireless operates in all provinces, from coast [shoprogers.com] to coast [shoprogers.com]

Totally off topic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that there are more people in Saskatoon than Regina right?

Re:actually...

[LNahid2000]

Note that Canada's numbers are from Dec 2003 while the United States' numbers are from June 2005. A lot can change in a year and a half.