Forty years ago, when I was finishing high school, I spent the summer in Israel, visiting relatives and working on an archaeological dig on what turned out to be the southern entry steps for the biblical era Temple in Jerusalem. In those days, transatlantic phone calls were prohibitively expensive, multiple dollars per minute – more than an hour’s pay per minute of calling. Real time communications with home was just not an option. Instead, we relied on aerograms, a letter written on tissue-paper thin paper, pre-printed with postage that would get folded up and sent via airmail. It would take about a week and a half, so roughly 3-4 weeks to get a response from home.
That was 40 years ago. This year, 2014, marks another milestone for my family. It was 25 years ago – the summer of 1989 – that I moved back to Canada to work on establishing competition in telecommunications in Canada. We changed the telecommunications landscape in Canada, having to convince the regulator that competition was a good thing. That’s right. In 1989, we had to start by proving for the regulator that the case for competition in the telecommunications sector outweighed the benefits of a regulated monopoly.
What a different world we created to enable today’s global digital connectivity. There are low cost ways to call most people on the planet and we regularly make calls to our kids living overseas for just pennies a minute. Sometimes it is helping to provide a sounding board for a difficult issue; other times, it is helping with a recipe for dinner. We don’t think twice about the cost of communicating.
This reflection was triggered a few hours ago, when my daughter gave birth to our first grandchild in a hospital in Tel Aviv. My wife was with her and I was kept up to date, connecting with her using a local Israeli SIM card. It just took a little bit of advanced planning. Over the next few days, I plan to have video chats using Skype and Facetime over the hospital’s WiFi network.
What a different world. I don’t ever take it for granted.
I get concerned thinking about whether enough is being done for our strategy for the next generation. How do we envision the evolution of information and communications technology? How do we ensure inclusiveness, providing benefits to citizens across all economic strata.
Five years from now, my new grandson will get his first mobile phone when he goes to kindergarten; unfortunately, it is a public safety imperative over there. Within the next few years, he won’t have to think of the technology that enables him to touch an icon on his tablet, launching a video chat with his grandparents on the other side of the world, sharing news of holidays, butterflies, losing a tooth, eating an ice cream, scraping a knee.
Not every kid has access to these kinds of technologies. That should bother more of us.
When the federal government released its Digital Canada 150 strategy 6 weeks ago, it looked forward just 3 years:
By Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017, our vision is for a thriving digital Canada, underscored by five key pillars: connecting Canadians, protecting Canadians, economic opportunities, digital government and Canadian content.
To deliver on this vision, it will take leadership from the private sector – the kind of folks who will be meeting at The Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto, in just 4 weeks, from June 16-18.
At last year’s event, it was the private sector that launched a pilot program to place connected computers into low income households. It is the private sector that has just announced a half billion dollars to launch two new satellites [Viasat 2 and Echostar XIX] for next generation rural broadband connectivity.
What do we need to do to create real economic opportunities in a digital Canada? How will you help create a thriving digital Canada? How do we build a better digital world?
