Comments on: Study concludes Canadian broadband is too expensive and too slow

By: Nate

Nate — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:29:46 +0000

For slow service? Not really an excuse for that, no. I’m talking about penetration though, and Geology is a factor in that.

By: Nate

Nate — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:28:20 +0000

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.

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:33:01 +0000

In S. Korea people can download couple gig files in couple minutes.. the internet here in canada is ridiculously slow.. ridiculously, slow. part of the problem is that there are only so many internet providers.. and low population .. therefore low competition.

By: Ron

Ron — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:36:52 +0000

rogers has been ripping people off forever. marketplace did a story on this issue and they proved rogers is ripping people off. i’m paying $200. a month to rogers. that’s basic phone, cable with a few extras but not much and internet. that’s it. my internet is slow and clunky. i think this is an extreme rip-off. typical corporate greed. now rogers wants us to pay even more for cable. what are these greedy scumbags going to do when all the money is gone because they’ve sucked everybody dry. the crtc can jump in the lake and drown. they’re too useless and gutless to do anything about it. harper is a jack-ass.

By: James

James — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:19:37 +0000

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.

By: BuzzBuzz

BuzzBuzz — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:09:35 +0000

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.

By: Josh

Josh — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:01:21 +0000

And the explanation for Australia, specifically their 3G penetration is….?

By: Nate

Nate — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:07:45 +0000

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.

By: William Brown

William Brown — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:34:02 +0000

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!

By: old in the cold

old in the cold — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:48:42 +0000

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.

By: Bent

Bent — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:11:06 +0000

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!

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:33:19 +0000

Now tell us something that we didn’t already know.

By: Loren

Loren — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:15:41 +0000

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).

By: Tired

Tired — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:11:45 +0000

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.

By: WakkaWakka

WakkaWakka — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:34:23 +0000

No kidding, ever wonder why such a vast country as Canada has only one bus carrier.