World's Fastest Internet™ in Canadaland

Sat Jun 27 04:15:59 UTC 2015

On 6/26/2015 7:26 PM, Joe Abley wrote:
>
> On 26 Jun 2015, at 15:04, Hank Disuko wrote:
>
>> Bell Canada is apparently gearing up to provide the good people of 
>> Toronto with the World's Fastest Internet™.
>> http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2015/06/25/bell-canada-to-give-toronto-worlds-fastest-internet.html 
>>
>
> Bell Canada is in the business of defending the current regulatory 
> regime from claims that internet speeds are slow, or that investment 
> by incumbents in the last mile is lacking, or that it ought to be 
> required to share its access network with competitors. Read the press 
> with that context in mind.
>
> There's cooperative, rural broadband in the UK [1] that offers 10G 
> access to farms at a lower price than Bell charges for some satellite 
> TV bundles. I don't think anybody need waste any cycles persuading 
> other people here that the "fastest internet" claims are not aligned 
> precisely with the kind reality you find even on this list.
>
> Joe
>
> [1] http://b4rn.org.uk

And defend the current regulatory regime well they do.  I live literally 
minutes outside of the Ottawa urban area and I have as choices for 
network connectivity either LoS wireless or satellite. I can, however, 
stand at the end of my driveway and look in EITHER direction to see 
houses that can get cable service, yet none of the incumbents are 
willing to service my little stretch of road (affecting me and ~5 
neighbours).

I'm told by the neighbours (I just moved here) that they've been bugging 
the incumbents for YEARS and getting no traction at all. I'm thinking of 
pricing out a fiber run and running a little local co-op network access 
provider for me and the neighbours, but I suspect that install costs 
might nix that idea.

(For extra fun, I was told by one of the incumbents that my address was 
serviceable with up to 150Mbps cable before I purchased the property.  
Then when I took possession and tried to get service set up -- nope, 
sorry.  But that's a whole other story...)