{"id":15061,"date":"2019-04-27T11:12:42","date_gmt":"2019-04-27T18:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=15061"},"modified":"2019-04-27T11:17:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-27T18:17:59","slug":"broadband-for-all-closing-the-digital-divide-in-bc-without-big-telecom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=15061","title":{"rendered":"Broadband For All: Closing the Digital Divide in BC Without Big Telecom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BC’s remote and coastal communities have a golden opportunity to keep their internet service \u2013 and profits \u2013 in local hands<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Claire Gilmore \u00a0– April 23, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Many communities across North America are eschewing much-hyped 5G wireless networks to build and operate their own \u201cfiber-to-the-premises,\u201d or wired, networks. BC\u2019s remote and coastal communities now have a golden window of opportunity to follow suit.<\/p>\n

On March 8, the BC government announced<\/a> an investment of $50 million to expand high-speed internet service for people living in approximately 200 rural and Indigenous communities. The money, administered through the Northern Development Initiative Trust<\/a>, is aimed at closing the \u201cdigital divide\u201d \u2013 the discrepancy between Canadians who have access to information and communication technologies, and those who don\u2019t. Then on March 19, the federal government tabled their budget, committing<\/a> another $750 million to \u201cextend \u2018backbone\u2019 infrastructure to underserved communities,\u201d and fund \u201clast-mile\u201d connections to homes and businesses.<\/p>\n

In other words, the digital divide is closing now, and Canadian communities have important decisions to make about how they want to do it.<\/p>\n

The \u201clast mile\u201d and why it matters<\/h3>\n

Over the next few years, the Connected Coast project<\/a> plans to bring high-speed internet to 155 coastal BC communities, but there\u2019s a hitch: the project\u2019s sub-sea fiber-optic cable will only reach the shore of each community involved. From there, communities must decide if they will connect to the cable, and if so, how they will finance and implement the \u201clast mile\u201d of their new information highway.<\/p>\n

They must decide whether they want to create a their own Internet utility or become customers of large Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and choose what kind of last-mile connection will serve them best in the long run: wired or wireless<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWireless networks and services, compared to wired access, are inherently more complex, more costly, more unstable (subject to frequent revision and \u2018upgrades\u2019), and more constrained in what they can deliver.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the First Nations Technology Council<\/a>, communities that form their own ISPs can control pricing policies, priorities, and how their network is deployed \u2013 and avoid the tricky issues with right-of-way and Rights and Title that can arise when a telecom agreement is signed with a large ISP. Municipalities and First Nations can choose to deploy, maintain, and manage the service themselves, or to only build the network infrastructure, and let ISPs sell services over it \u2013 netting a revenue stream in the process.<\/p>\n

Wired versus wireless<\/h3>\n

A 2018 report<\/a> from the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy in Washington, DC, succinctly explains the popularity of wireless infrastructure: \u201cCorporations will invariably seek the cheapest, quickest, and most profitable path, which has led to the current emphasis on wireless.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same report explains the benefits of wired networks over wireless networks: \u201cFirst and foremost, the public needs publicly-owned and controlled wired infrastructure that is inherently more future-proof, more reliable, more sustainable, more energy efficient, safer, and more essential to many other services. Wireless networks and services, compared to wired access, are inherently more complex, more costly, more unstable (subject to frequent revision and \u201cupgrades\u201d), and more constrained in what they can deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

In short, community-owned fiber-to-the-premises generates profit for the community, and keeps the Internet in local hands.<\/p>\n

Wired is also safer. In March 2018, The Nation reported<\/a> on a meta-analysis of studies to date: \u201c90% of the 200 existing studies included in the National Institute of Health\u2019s PubMed database on the oxidative effects of wireless radiation \u2013 its tendency to cause cells to shed electrons, which can lead to cancer and other diseases \u2013 have found a significant impact.\u201d The technology also has shown effects on birds and insects<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5G<\/h3>\n

While communities with their own wired networks can control future upgrades, customers of large ISPs will likely find their networks rolled over to 5G in the coming years, according to BC-based independent communications analyst Oona McOuat.<\/p>\n

The security risks associated with Huawei\u2019s 5th Generation (5G) millimetre wave technology have exploded in the media<\/a> lately, increasing scrutiny of the whole 5G project \u2013 including long-term health effects. As Eric Reguly, European Bureau Chief for the Globe and Mail, emphasized in a March 9 article<\/a>, there has not been a single study on the health effects of 5G, even as the worldwide roll-out begins. According to the article, the US telecom industry has admitted they are \u201ckind of flying blind there so far as health and safety are concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Read More: 5G Corporate Grail<\/a> by Joyce Nelson<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Wireless infrastructure consumes at least 10 times as much energy as wired technologies \u2013 and the Guardian<\/em> reported in July 2018<\/a> that the energy used in our digital consumption is already set to have a bigger impact on global warming than the entire aviation industry. The 5G rollout (and its purported end game, the \u201cInternet of Things\u201d) would likely see the energy demand of internet communication increase exponentially<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Community control<\/h3>\n

Most of us have never heard of \u201cmunicipal broadband,\u201d but over 800 communities in the US<\/a> are currently served by some form of municipally or cooperatively owned network. According to McOuat,\u00a0Seattle<\/a>, Portland, and San Francisco are also now looking at using a similar model, in no small part to preserve \u201cnet neutrality<\/a>\u201d \u2013 the principle that ISPs should enable access to all web-based content and applications regardless of the source.<\/p>\n

In Canada, municipal broadband exists in a handful of cities including Olds, Alberta<\/a>, Coquitlam, BC<\/a>, and Thunder Bay, Ontario<\/a>. More recently, the Gwaii Tel Society<\/a> began installing an extensive fibre optic network<\/a>to reach all households on Haida Gwaii \u2013 a major improvement over the spotty wireless coverage that had been beamed over the Hecate Strait by microwave radio link.<\/p>\n

McOuat recently launched a website \u2013\u00a0Connected Communities ~ Wired fiber for Sustainable Last-Mile Solutions<\/a> \u2013\u00a0intended as a toolkit for communities to walk themselves through the process of getting their own network together, starting with how to access funding. As she says, \u201cwe want to create strong, resilient communities, especially in the face of global warming. It\u2019s not an either\/or thing. It\u2019s going to take a little bit of initiative but it\u2019s going to create lasting benefits for our communities for generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Claire Gilmore is the Watershed Sentinel<\/em>\u2019s managing (and occasionally contributing) editor. She lives in Comox, BC<\/p>\n

https:\/\/watershedsentinel.ca\/articles\/broadband-for-all-closing-the-digital-divide-in-bc-without-big-telecom\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BC’s remote and coastal communities have a golden opportunity to keep their internet service \u2013 and profits \u2013 in local hands Claire Gilmore \u00a0– April 23, 2019   Many communities across North America are eschewing much-hyped 5G wireless networks to build and operate their own \u201cfiber-to-the-premises,\u201d or wired, networks. BC\u2019s remote and coastal communities now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346,515,512,173,689,117,682],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5g","category-fiber-optic","category-fiber-based","category-first-nations","category-ftth","category-wired","category-wired-smart-cities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15061"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15064,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15061\/revisions\/15064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}