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."

Less than 3 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll still be cleaning up New Orleans in 3 years. I want to move to Canada where the priorities are on the people and not "terrorists".

Canada wide, or inhabited canada wide?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

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.

Re:Canada wide, or inhabited canada wide?

[Avacar]

Bell and Rogers? Definitely only the inhabited areas. Possibly won't even hit the territories.

Wireless Broadband

[Daveznet]

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 competitors for broadband service and cell phone service here in Canada. Lets hope that this works out for us all!

T_T Good on Bell!

[ChocoBean]

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 with Rogers. I'm not about to forgive them for renaming the Skydome to Rogers Center and buying out my old faithful cell phone service provider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcell [wikipedia.org]

Wireless Internet in Canada? Been there, done that

[kyle90]

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.

Cartel?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Works perfectly fine for NY mob families & OPEC

Re:Canada wide, or inhabited canada wide?

[RexRhino]

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 of most rural areas (lots of wide open spaces) make WiFi a lot cheaper for those areas?

Interesting

[Vaystrem]

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.

Only $200M in deployment costs?

[davide marney]

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.

Re:Great name

[freeweed]

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 of the Trans-Canada Highway. Regular folk, aboriginal or otherwise, climb up the rock cliffs on either side of the road and build them for fun.

Don't worry, we're cool with it :)