cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11349801
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The federal government of Canada will help to fund “a sovereign broadband backbone that connects Canadians from coast to coast to coast, with more direct and secure links to Europe and Asia,” Prime Minister Mark Carney announced.
A “broadband backbone” is the high-capacity core of the internet network that carries traffic between cities and countries. Speaking with reporters later, Mr. Carney said the backbone would also include connections to the Arctic.
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Representatives for Canada’s major telecom companies supported Mr. Carney’s announcement … As Mr. Carney’s government continues to seek alternatives to reduce dependence on the United States, calls have grown to develop more networking infrastructure that would avoid routing Canadian data through U.S. internet exchanges, thereby exposing that data to potential surveillance.
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Researchers at the University of Toronto and York University studying the journey taken by data between two points in Canada have found that, among their data sets, about a quarter of those journeys routed through American interchanges, exposing that information to access by the U.S. National Security Agency.
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Mr. Carney did not provide further details about the broadband project. However, discussions about the ownership and financing model for the project are currently being held between telecom companies and the Major Projects Office, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.
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Given that we don’t know exactly what they’re building, how it will be financed, or who will own it, I guess we’re all free to imagine that it will involve something other than just giving lots of money to the Canadian telecom cartel.
Three years! How much progress have they made since then in restoring competition to the market for home Internet service? Any at all? At a glance it looks like the rate for TPIA is still prohibitively high, leading to retail prices from Teksavvy — the only independent ISP I know of which still exists — which are roughly double what I’m currently paying through Bell’s flanker brand. It’s looking like the promised repair of the once-great system will never happen. Not under a Liberal government, anyway. It will continue to be left to rot. Go on Carney, prove me wrong.
Edit to add: Here is Teksavvy once again pointing out that the wholesale rates set by the CRTC, like the ones Bell was complaining about 3 years ago, are still higher than the retail prices charged by the dominant providers.
I don’t think it takes away from the value of what Carney is proposing here - kind of two very different problems really - but you’re absolutely right that more competition in our telecoms sector is something we desperately need.
More? More than what, zero? Where I live there is Bell, Rogers, Cogego, or Teksavvy (who is forced to pay inflated prices and can not compete).
Canada is 3 telecos and an oil company in a trench coat.