cmoullas.net

Yesterday there was an Industry Canada sponsored conference on the digital economy. Incredible... The keynotes said exactly what I've been saying for nearly two years now while sounding like a broken record. In all fairness, it's Google's Jacob Glick who seems to get it the most. I actually saw him a couple of weeks ago at the SaveOurNet.ca "Town Hall Meeting" in Ottawa which was a much smaller event dedicated mostly to educating the public. In any case, here goes:

“About 90 per cent of the cost of laying fibre is the construction costs, so if the ground is already ripped up, why don’t you put the fibre optic cable down?”

--Jacob Glick, who heads Google Inc.’s Canadian Policy Counsel

Bell drives me insane when they lay down new copper phone lines just to protect their margins. We had brand new copper lines installed this year in my area. There's some wasted investment for you...

“Without proper investment and dedication to ICT, innovation and protecting intellectual property rights, Canada’s productivity will be limited and other nations will eclipse us as a destination of choice for business investment.”

--Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce

How has it taken so long for somebody to come out and say this? I hear that from IT managers working for SMBs all the time: they want to connect branch offices and do remote backups and work remotely... For less than $10k/mo preferably.

"The private sector could work with the public sector in these projects to lay the fibre”

--Jacob Glick, who heads Google Inc.’s Canadian Policy Counsel

Brilliant (but very old) idea! Now when Hydro Quebec or Hydro Ottawa or other electric utilities make changes to their existing power infrastructure they can lay a fiber line right next to it. Fiber isn't affected by electromagnetic interference, making placement far easier and cheaper.

“When government money is used to develop broadband networks, it should be required that they are open,” Public money should not be used for walled gardens."

--Jacob Glick, who heads Google Inc.’s Canadian Policy Counsel

Finally somebody talking about net neutrality with regards to new broadband deployment! If only the CRTC had people qualified to to realize that the telcos are lying through their teeth about all their "insurmountable" taffic management problems.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad that people are waking up to these issues, espeically in government; it's just that I've been reminded of how long it's taken. Rant over.

 I’m staying with my aunt and uncle in Ottawa (the capital of Canada, get it right!) over the summer. Now they have four kids and lead incredibly busy lives. The last thing on their mind is probably how much their kids download and staying below artificial bandwidth caps. This all lead to them, as a family, reaching the 60 GB cap that Rogers imposes on broadband subscribers.

Now the cap didn’t surprise me, nor did the fact that a family of six can use up such a relatively small amount of bandwidth in a month. The really interesting part to me is how Rogers warns you about it: they integrate a warning straight into whatever web page you are viewing. I find this a little disturbing because it’s a blatant admission that they have and use technology to modify the code that any web page is sending out to you.

As it turns out, Bell is attacking Canadian Internet once again, this time with a push for metered access for their wholesale providers. Basically it means that if the CRTC passes the motion, Bell will be able to stop third-party Canadian providers using its network from providing unlimited bandwidth to customers. The proposed caps start at just 2GB per month for users of 512 kilobits per second services up to 60GB per month for 5 megabit users. This was first brought to my attention yesterday when I received an email from Rocky Gaudrault, the CEO and founder of TekSavvy Solutions on the issue.