It isn’t just Barrett Xplore that is deploying a combination of satellite and WiMax to deliver broadband to tame the wild frontier.
AT&T; has announced that they are going to pursue a similar architecture, which provides a major vote of confidence to what John Maduri and his team are doing.
What is troubling to me is that everyone seems to be convinced that we need to follow the great Canadian tradition of government subsidies and handouts in order to push broadband to the masses. Everyone other than Barrett Xplore itself, which has been executing its business plan using its own money.
So, when Barrett has launched a Cabinet appeal to fight against the CRTC Decision telling Bell to provide rural highspeed service using cash from the Deferral Account. Bell says it isn’t a subsidy. In their words, it is simply topping up the business case…
Among many other items, we’ll be watching this unfold. Community broadband networks are being discussed at The Canadian Telecom Summit in two weeks.
Update: Tyler Hamilton has commentary on this issue in today’s Toronto Star: Telcos don’t deserve your $620M