Slipping through the 'net

In a recent chat with MD, we lamented the lack of a national effort to make high-speed “wi-fi” a free public utility across Canada. And we chastised the current approach taken by Ottawa to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on dying, 19th-century businesses like General Motors.

I think about it all the time – someone born in 1985 would have grown up not knowing a world with rabbit ears on a UHF/VHF television, or rotary dial telephones, or even pinball. It’s no shock that the new economy is embodied in the Internet – and we’re not just talking about replacing bricks and mortar stores. It’s developing new business concepts to connect knowledge from different parts of the world, it’s selling local/specialized goods to a global market; it’s replacing the need for travel with new ways to meet virtually – the possibilities are endless.

Michael Geist – a law professor from University of Ottawa – recently appeared before a Canadian Senate committee to brief them on Canadian broadband and wireless, and its rather miserable state. Actually, miserable is an understatement – deplorable is probably better. Let me lay it out for you because, like our leadership in high-speed trains or peacekeeping, here is another example of Canada slipping to the point where we are now trounced by other countries.

It’s a real shame. Geist says it best:

Our Failing System
“Last year the World Economic Forum pointed to problems in the wireless market as a key reason for Canada's slipping global ranking for "network readiness." We moved from 6th worldwide in 2005 to 13th today. Canada ranks 75th in terms of the number of mobile subscribers, trailing countries such as El Salvador, Kazakhstan and Libya. It lags behind countries such as the United Kingdom, Singapore, Italy, Sweden and Norway on mobile pricing.”

Once a Leader
“We should recognize that Canada was once a leader in the area. In the late 1990s, we became the first country in the world to ensure that every school from coast to coast to coast was connected to the Internet. Soon after that we launched the National Broadband Task Force committed to developing a strategy to ensure that all Canadians had access to high-speed networks.”

No Longer Ahead
“The Telecommunications Policy Review Panel from a couple of years ago undertook a detailed analysis of the Canadian marketplace with the goal of identifying whether the market could be relied upon to ensure that all Canadians would have access to broadband. Their conclusion was that it would not be relied upon. The panel concluded that at least 5 per cent of Canadians — hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens — will be without broadband access without public involvement.”

The Cost of Speed
“Last week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), released its latest report on global broadband, and the results should be mandatory reading for anyone concerned with these issues… Canada is relatively expensive, ranking 14th for monthly subscription costs at $45.65. By comparison, Japan costs $30.46 cents and the U.K. is $30.63. Second, the Canadian Internet is slow, ranking 24th out of the 30 OECD countries. It is truly a different Internet experience for people in Japan, Korea and France, where the speed allows for applications and opportunities that we do not have.”

Fibre, None
“Moreover, Canada lags behind in fibre connections direct to home fibre with 0 per cent penetration, according to the OECD. By comparison, Japan sits at 48 per cent, Korea at 43 per cent, Sweden at 20 per cent and the United States, which has been slow in this area, is at 4 per cent.”

“…[W]hen you combine speed and pricing, Canada drops to 28th out of the 30 OECD countries for price per megabyte. In other words, as consumers, we pay more for less — higher prices, slower speeds.”

A Lack of Choice
“Canada is one of only four OECD countries where consumers have no alternative but to take a service with bit caps. That means the service provider caps the amount of bandwidth that the consumer can use each month. In almost every other OECD country, consumers at least have a choice between providers that use bit caps and those that do not.”

Moving Towards a Solution
“We need a firm commitment to universal broadband access akin to the same type of commitment that we once had to universal telephone service. As I say, it is the price of admission for much that the Internet has to offer. All Canadians should have access to reliable, high-speed networks. In addition, we need a strategy for faster networks because it is clear that we cannot rely on our existing networks as we slip further and further behind. This might mean more competition, market-based incentives and potentially community-based networks as local communities take this issue into their own hands.”

Time to take action. This is a competitive disadvantage for our entire country and frankly, if the government is spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor, they should spend it on increasing our access to technology instead of wasting it on unsustainable peddling of Dodge Ram pickup trucks.
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AN UPDATE FROM LONDON, UK

Londoners, knowing the state of Canadian internet access and our declining economic productivity, have taken to random acts of kindness. Here, some benevolent soul has left us a bite or two of a smoked salmon and cucumber sandwich. Cheers, London! And God Save the Queen!

Vouloir, c'est Pouvoir!

I’m late in posting this week, but there’s a good reason:

Good day,
This is to inform you that the Screening Board has completed its review of the applications received for the Communication Officer appointment process and we are pleased to inform you that your application is being retained.

The next step in this selection process will be the Second Language Evaluation (SLE) and you will be assessed for Reading and/or Writing. However, if you already have valid results received from either the Public Service Commission or from the House of Commons, please submit a copy to us by June 11, 2009.

However, if you do not have valid SLE results, please inform me as soon as possible in order for us to submit a request. Please note that evaluations will/may take place on the following days: June 16, and/or June 18, 2009.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you.
Human Resources assistant/ Adjointe en ressources humaines
Senate of Canada / Sénat du Canada

Damn. I’m only half-way through Level 5 of my UN language course – my attempt to reignite the French part of my brain! Worse, the language level for this job is C-C-C, that is the very highest levels of French reading, writing and speaking. I'm going to have to conjure up all the powers of my previous high school French teachers -- Mme. Taylor, Mme. Canham and M. Walsh -- don't fail me now.

J’ai passé le weekend avec des exercices français. Ce jeudi, je prendrai l’examen orale de deuxième langue officielle par téléphone. J’espère qui je réussirai.

Wish me luck... et, si vous pouvez, ecrivez quelques annotations en français pour m'aider!

Rail against the machine

I was in Vancouver this weekend, visiting Red Canuck, MD and family. But getting there wasn't without some weather-related tribulation, including an unplanned stop at the Ramada 'Mall of America' for an overnight stay and some full frontal stereotyping of North American native culture -- like the 'Smok'em Peace Pipe' gift shop in the lobby, or the gentle savagery summarized in a display case of collectible American Indian porcelain. I hope you enjoy the picture (left) of the laughing water ("minnehaha") sculpture as much as I did when I saw it in person. The icing on the cake was the classic car show of 1950s Chevrolets being held in the large parking lot behind the hotel -- Heartbeat of America, indeed!

The travel by air experience has been incredibly convenient for the better part of four decades with the ushering in of the modern jet. By the mid-1980s, flying was a routine part of how we all travelled, to the detriment of other forms of travel, particularly trains. We know the story of trains in North America, which is not unlike the plight of our native population -- discarded, disintegrating, essentially decimated.

But where it was once a pleasure to hop on a plane and get to a far off destination quickly and conveniently, air travel has become a complete pain; fighting traffic to get to the airport on time, weather delays, burdensome security procedures, baggage fees, a measly pack of peanuts and maybe the whole tin of soda, if you ask nicely. Could my travel from New York to Vancouver have been done by high-speed rail?

I was forwarded an excellent article from Walrus Magazine on how Canada was once in a position of leadership in the train business and, once again, I lamented the Canadian inability to fend off the seduction of following an American model. That's undoubtedly a simplistic statement, but at the very least, couldn't we be smarter and hedge our bets? We have a history of being easily seduced out of business (remember the Avro Arrow?) to the detriment of home-grown industries, associated research advances and ultimately, national interest.

The article's author, Monte Paulsen, rhymes off a list of countries working on, or planning, high-speed rail including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Morocco, and succinctly sums up the basic intelligence behind building high-speed rail in two paras:

Why are these countries planning and building high-speed rail lines? Because they’re a kind of insurance policy for the twenty-first century. High-speed rail ensures that cities remain connected the next time the price of oil rises, and in the event that $150-a-barrel oil returns for good. Because it is so much more fuel efficient, high-speed rail is far, far greener than flying, and in a century of dwindling oil it’s also far more economically sustainable — a fact Saudi Arabia seems to grasp, but Canada does not.

Canada possesses both the expertise to build high-speed rail systems — Bombardier is a global leader — and the population to support them, along routes such as the Quebec City–Windsor and Calgary–Edmonton corridors. What it lacks is the political will to act. As a result, Canada is failing to leverage the recent wave of infrastructure spending, let alone nourish its legacy as a nation built on the spine of its railroad.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Instead, I leave you with original video footage by Bill Morrison, of the Sikorsky-designed, Montreal Locomotive Works-built, 167 kilometer-per-hour capable Canadian National Turbo Train outside Montreal's Central Station in October 1982 in preparation for one of its last runs. This is, drolly, spliced together with video footage of the Rapido Train scale model, probably in someone's basement. And, if that's what building Canadian infrastructure has come to, we should all be a little sad.