Study concludes Canadian broadband is too expensive and too slow
A study released this week by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School this week, which compared broadband service across thirty OECD countries has concluded that Canada’s is lagging most developed countries in critical broadband measures.
Despite high penetration rates, researchers found Canada to rank low on critical measures such as download speeds, 3G mobile Next Generation Connectivity and most importantly, pricing.
The study found Canada to be a second quintile performer in penetration, down from the first quintile in 2003 and only a fourth quintile performer on speeds and prices.
Canada ranked 26th on 3G penetration, 25th out of 30 on maximum speed, 17th on overall speed, 20th on the number of public wireless hotspots, 25th on average advertised speed and 25th on overall pricing.
Of 28 countries that offered very high speed internet service, Canada ranked second last on pricing. Canada was also just one of eight countries, none of whom were top performers, which imposed bit caps.
The report’s verdict on Canada was noted in the section discussing pricing which concluded “While penetration there is high, not only is speed lower, but prices too are high in every tier of service.”
Source: Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
Top ranked countries on various price measures were Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France and the U.K. The United States was ranked 12th.
Read the entire Berkman Center Broadband Study (.pdf file)
http://www.fcc.gov/stage/pdf/Berkman_Center_Broadband_Study_13Oct09.pdf
Comment below or discuss Canadian Broadband practices in our Canadian High Speed Internet forum. http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=28
This probably tracks similar to telecom and mobile phone service, underpowered and overpriced.
As Canadians, there is too little competition with most tech related products and services held by only a few entities and they often hold 2, 3 or more of the services.
Canada was once known as a leader in these fields due to our vastness, what has happened?
I’ll tell you what happened: monopolies, greed, short-sightedness, government complicity…………….any questions?
It’s the joke known as the CRTC, that’s what happened.
Here’s an interesting quote from the study which might answer your question:
“Canada, for example, is often thought of as a very high performer, based on the most commonly used benchmark of penetration per 100 inhabitants. Because our analysis includes important measures on which Canada has had weaker outcomes—prices, speeds, and 3G mobile Next Generation Connectivity broadband penetration—in our analysis it shows up as quite a weak performer, overall.”
Having direct comparative experience with UK, where I can get a phone/broadband package with blisteringly fast internet, free evening & weekend UK & international telephone calls, genuinely unlimited, reliable internet access for the equivilent of $30 pm… including tax! Whereas, here I still have to put up with dreadfully inadequate dialup! Canadian Government Departments have made it so that the internet is virtually the only way to make contact and the only practical way to get information… so, come on Canadain Government you’ve made the internet a necessity and it’s time (overdue) to fund the infrastructure properly so that every Canadian can have good, broadband internet for a reasonable price… and anything over $30 pm is unreasonable!
No kidding, ever wonder why such a vast country as Canada has only one bus carrier.
What happened? Well, as I sit on my 600kbs download (100kbs upload) line, the maximum I can get despite living in the middle of Ottawa, which costs 40% more than the last year, I’m pretty sure I know what happened…no competition.
could be… could also be that the country is just huge. Second biggest after Russia, with a population 1/10th that of the USA – putting the infrastructure in place is crazy-expensive. Still, that’s no excuse for service being shite in high-concentration areas (say, metro areas with 500K people or more).
Now tell us something that we didn’t already know.
Easy enough to correct methinks.
Let’s err on the side of openness for the next 5 years with an open access policy. The more the incumbents cry – the better assured we will be that we’ve taken the right approach!
I wish I could get Tired’s 600 kbs – it would take me about 15 min to get that much of a file downloaded…I get a measly 3.5 kbs with no other options than dial-up.
I live 5 minutes from one large city and 3 smaller towns – and while they have both cable and broadband we get absolutely nothing…oh, sorry we do get something…crap dial-up that costs over $50 mos when you figure in the cost of access plus the separate phone line for our computer access.
Even my iphone is useless as a tethering device since the 3G network signal, actually Rogers has no signal, on the strip of road where I live…so I can’t even get internet using this device.
This is the real result of a country that listens more to the lobbyist on how they can’t exist if the gov’t allows open access to the industry.
For lots of info about our gov’t hearings into the industry check out this blog: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/
The blog belongs a guy who’s a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law.
Canadians are being ripped off by these companies and our government does nothing to protect us. The CRTC is a joke that allows cable, internet, and other communication companies to gouge us on prices and short change us on service. Get rid of the CRTC!
Excluding the US, Mexico and maybe Hungary, those countries ahead (and behind) us, are physically smaller than most Canadian provinces.
Considering how spread out the population is, we’re not doing bad.
And the explanation for Australia, specifically their 3G penetration is….?
Australia is well ahead in 3g, true. I suspect we’re way behind because Canada only had one GSM carrier for quite awhile and just now starting to catch up. Not an excuse, just the way it went and now we’re behind because of it.
You’ll notice though, that Canada is quite aways ahead of Australia when it comes to broadband penetration. As for speed, well not knowing what the average local connection is like, I do know that they’re continuing to have major problems with bandwidth to anywhere outside of Australia.
Our sparse population density is an issue but if there were more competition, then more innovative companies could start-up and figure out a strategy to get high speed internet to those in the areas outside of major cities. Satellite internet is a good start but more cost effective solutions need to be found.
That excuse doesn’t fly. That is simply a scape-goat. There is NO excuse for the slow service in Canada. ESPECIALLY in the major cities.
For slow service? Not really an excuse for that, no. I’m talking about penetration though, and Geology is a factor in that.