Recent  Stories

Slow Lane: Canadian consumers are paying a premium price for the dubious privilege of being stuck in the slow lanes of the information highway. Figures provided by global telecommunications analysts TeleGeography Research shows international Internet speeds – the rate at which data moves to and from a computer – Canada may not be the slowest, but we’re far from the nimble speeds offered in Japan and Europe.

Plans go electrnonic: An Ontario-wide Electronic Plans Room is set to roll out in the New Year. John Mollenhauer, president of the Toronto Construction Association (TCA), said things are on track for an agreement between the 11 Ontario construction associations by Christmas.

Black Gold: Where most people see obsolete computers and electronics, Alfred Hambsch sees more than gold, he sees black gold. As the president of the largest eWaste recycling company on the planet, Mr. Hambsch has built not just a business but a calling, taking obsolete electronics and processing them back into useable raw materials including gold and diesel fuel.

Take Charge of Your Website: In the beginning there was the Webmaster and he was God. And the Webmaster said, let there be a domain for this business and there was; Then the Webmaster said let the home page be divided from the other pages, and it was. And then the Webmaster said: If you need to make any more changes, I bill by the hour and I don’t work nights or weekends.”  Ouch.

Videoconferencing: Dennis Sandow chuckles recalling his “Halo moment” – the illusion created by the videoconferencing system that a colleague was in intimate proximity even though they were thousands of miles apart.

Party Favours: If you’re going to crash a party, it’s best to bring something along to smooth your entry, like a keg of beer, or risk a humiliation and rejection. It’s a strategy businesses should consider as they seek to leverage the virtual block parties evolving from virtual communities and social media.

Silicon Valley, Calif – Imagine picking up your Toronto Star and seeing the headlines  update before your eyes. Science fiction? Don’t bet against it. ePaper as it’s often called, is a quest being funded with millions of dollars in research and development by some of the biggest names like Hewlett-Packard, Phillips Electronics and Xerox.

Social Media: Andy Warhol was half right: Fifteen minutes is just the beginning. Social media – the collective of blogs, forums, e-mail, Instant Messaging and text messaging – makes us all celebrities, all the time.

Getting there half the fun: “Kate” is not happy.“In 500 metres, make a U-turn,” she insists, the Irish lilt in her voice clear on the “ur” of the word “turn.” “Kate” as I’ve nicknamed her, is my newest traveling companion, a Ground Position Satellite guided navigation program running on my mobile phone.

Stuck in the Slow Lane

By IAN HARVEY

Canadian consumers are paying a premium price for the dubious privilege of being stuck in the slow lanes of the information highway.

Figures provided by global telecommunications analysts TeleGeography Research shows international Internet speeds – the rate at which data moves to and from a computer – Canada may not be the slowest, but we’re far from the nimble speeds offered in Japan and Europe.

The high speeds needed to download High Definition movies on demand, the continued evolution of Web 2.0 with all that sharing of user generated content and other services on the horizon mean the 5Mbps to 6 Mbps most most Canadians subscribe to may be a barrier to future growth.

In fact, North America not only lags in speed but also price. While technology has  dramatically dropped in price, Internet service providers have raised rates unlike Europe where rates are dropping.

 “With the European Union companies were forced to comply with harmonization rules,” says David Leach, Senior Research Analyst – Telecoms, Telegeography Research based in Exeter, England. “And of course, you have a much denser population over a smaller area.”

With a proliferation of copper wire over coaxial, ADSL2 (in Canada standard ADSL is the norm) has also produced much faster access while competition has driven prices down. Densities also mean it’s cheaper to run fibre optics because the cost can be recovered from more customers in a smaller area.

“They’re pushing 24 Mbps with ADSL2 and 100 Mbps with fibre optics,” he says. “And some areas are jumping straight to fibre optics like Hong Kong and Singapore, bypassing copper or coaxial cable.”

Charlotte Burke, Senior Vice President, Consumer Internet Services for Bell however says broadband speeds have increased. “Two years ago it was 1 Mbps,” she says. “Today we’re at five Mbps.”

And, she says, Bell is busily installing fibre optic cable in large urban areas where densities will support the cost, anticipating IPTV and the needs to switch to the ADSL2 (the current technology is ADSL) which should see speeds of 24 Mbps.

While the backbone and trunk cabling are switching to fibre, the last 100 metres to the consumer’s doorstep remains a bottleneck because it reverts to copper wire, she says.

“In Asia and Europe they have more highrises whereas here, with the exception perhaps of Toronto and Montreal, it’s single family homes,” Ms. Burke says..

Nikos Angelopoulos, a partner with Accenture’s Global Solutions Group in the Communications and High-Tech practice based in the U.K. says the EU is a dynamically changing market.

“New players need to differentiate themselves quickly and they did that in France for example by offering the maximum speed for the same price,” says Mr. Angelopoulos. “That meant 4, 6, 8 Mbps whatever they could.” The result is more than 55 per cent of French households have broadband today, he says.

The current phase in Europe, especially England, is to bundle broadband with other services, to make it appear “free” in the similar way Canadian mobile phone carriers “give” away phones to those who sign long term contracts.

“Orange gives customers free broadband service if they spend more than £30 a month and have a 12 month contract,” he says. “They only get 2 Mbps but they can get 8 Mbps for another £5 a month. Virgin Media’s is the most attractive today, it advertises Four for Forty – that’s four services, telephony, mobile with free weekends and cheap weekday, television and 2 Mbps broadband for £40 a month.”

But don’t look for a price war or dramatic increase in speeds given the genial and cosy environment Canadian network providers co-exist in. Canadian ISPs share a common interest in keeping higher speeds under wraps. For one, they fear the commoditization of their business, reducing it to a “dumb pipe” where the lowest price is the governing factor. And secondly, they also fear the “over the top” players, companies whose virtual goods and services are dependent on higher speeds who stand to reap huge profits while paying none of the costs of building the next generation networks.

It’s one reason why networks tried to float a plan which would see huge destinations like Google and eBay pay a network access fee – a concept which went over like a lead balloon but was a clear warning for the future.

“Deutsche Telekom tried to ring a fence to stop others taking advantage of their broadband network but it wasn’t successful,” notes Leach. “It’s going to take a combination of consumer demand and a couple of companies having a punt, breaking free of the pack.”

Sidebars: Unlocking the speed code and Comparative Chart