I am off to Baikonur, Kazakhstan next week to watch the launch of Xplornet’s 4G satellite, designed to bring faster and more affordable broadband connections to more Canadians in rural and remote areas, beyond the reach of terrestrial facilities.

Xplornet has secured 100% of the Canadian Ka-band capacity on the Viasat-1 4th generation broadband satellite; it will use that entirely for rural broadband.

Together with the planned launch of a second, similar 4G satellite in 2012 and with its national fixed-wireless 4G network, Xplornet says it will effectively end Canada’s urban / rural digital-divide. ViaSat-1 can support customer download speeds of up to 25 Mbps. Its capacity is greater than the capacity of all current North American broadband satellites combined, with the ability to provide broadband service to 1.5 million customers in North America.

With the launch planned for Wednesday, Canada joins a group of other countries (including France, Germany, the UK, Australia and India) that have endorsed 4G satellite as the solution for ensuring universal access to affordable broadband. These next generation satellites deliver more than ten times the speed and capacity of current systems, at a much lower cost per customer.

I’m proud to be associated with the team at Xplornet and I look forward to sharing the excitement of next week’s launch with you. Be sure to monitor Xplornet’s countdown website for a live feed of the launch.

Statistics Canada released an interesting variant on its Internet Use Survey yesterday. Unlike its release from May which examined household use, yesterday’s numbers provide an indicator for individual usage for Canadians aged 16 and older. Both reports are for the same period.

Many of the stories I read focused on the regional differences in internet adoption – a phenomenon we have explored before for internet [such as here] and for mobile services.

There are subtle differences between the individual and household data that raised some interesting questions for me. For instance, in May we learned that 97% of households in the top income quartile had internet access, but yesterday we learned that only 94% of individuals in that quartile use the internet. On the other hand, 59% of individuals in the lowest income quartile use the internet, despite only 54% of the households having access. What is causing these discrepancies? Fewer individuals per household are on-line in upper income homes; the opposite in lower income households.

For the non-users, I like to read the excuses with a critical eye:

A majority of non-users (62%) said they did not use the Internet because they had no need or interest, did not find it useful, or did not have time. Over one-fifth (22%) mentioned a lack of skills or training, or that they found the Internet or computers too difficult to use. Limited access to a computer (12%), cost of service or equipment (9%) or age (9%) were other reasons cited for not going online.

In my view, almost all of these are euphemisms for “it’s the money.”

Yesterday’s report indicated that 88% of individuals in Halifax are online, versus 79% of Nova Scotia as a whole. Since the Halifax Census Metropolitan Area represents about 40% of the province, this means that the rest of the province has only about 73% of individuals using the internet. Why?

It is always important to look at the data and ask lots of questions. How do we increase adoption across geographies, ages, incomes, education and other demographic factors?

Can mission critical IT systems migrate to the cloud?

Information technology (IT) executives have to be reviewing their options as Research in Motion (RIM) enters its third day of service interruption. Amazon’s 3-day outage in April (and subsequent partial service loss in August) should have boards of directors asking CIOs to review their architectures.

Of course, cloud architectures can be more survivable than any single data centre, or single company networked operation. But these celebrated network failures should force an introspective process within  companies’ IT departments to ensure continuity strategies are consistent with the business objectives. All networks and systems will experience failures; anticipating and designing to survive the failure becomes a business decision.

To what extent are companies willing to lose control of the restoration process? This has to be the key frustration for corporate cloud services users today. When the CEO calls to find out the status, will the CIO be able to provide a credible answer?

Planning for The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit is underway. We’ll explore Cloud Computing among other issues facing communications and information technology leaders today. Please get in touch to discuss how you can get involved in this year’s event – June 4-6, 2012 in Toronto.

Frequent readers know that I like to highlight unusual regulatory proceedings.

In today’s chapter, I want to look at an application to expand the use of the 8-1-1 dialing code. N11 numbers are a very limited resource: there are only 8 numbers that can be assigned. We are all familiar with 9-1-1 emergency dialing. 6-1-1 is used for reaching your phone company’s repair service; 4-1-1 is local information. Five years ago, I wrote about the CRTC’s assignment of 5-1-1 for travel information. The full list is available from the Canadian Number Administrator website, which indicates that 8-1-1 is currently assigned for “Non-urgent Health Care Telephone Triage Service.”

In my area, this service isn’t available. Only 4 provinces are currently using the 8-1-1 code and consumers have a very low awareness of its assignment. This past July, the Canadian Common Ground Alliance filed an application with the CRTC to gain access to the 811 code for Call Before You Dig services, as a matter of public safety.

The application received broad public support, including that of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and there have been endorsements by two federal Cabinet Ministers: Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver.

Minister Toews wrote:

Public Safety Canada recognizes that the 811 number currently provides a valuable service to the public by offering around-the-clock health information and non-urgent medical advice. Broadening this service to include “Call Before You Dig” would help mitigate unnecessary risks to the public, and reduce interruptions of services provided by critical infrastructure sectors.

Minister Oliver spoke at a the September 29 meeting of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, saying:

I know that you are doing your part in maintaining your safety record. I know you fully understand that a good track record in safety and environmental performance helps to create a distinct competitive advantage. This is why we support your campaign to create an “811” number for Canada’s “Call Before You Dig” program.

It is unusual for Cabinet members to weigh into CRTC proceedings; in addition, another federal tribunal, the National Energy Board, voiced its support for the initiative.

The primary cause of disruption to critical infrastructure, such as telecommunications or electrical facilities and energy pipelines, is accidental excavation by homeowners or contractors. It has been 6 years since the CRTC approved the application by Alberta Health and Wellness for the assignment of 8-1-1 “for access to non-urgent health care telephone triage services” [Telecom Decision 2005-39]. Although it was the applicant for the original CRTC assignment, Alberta is not offering the service. Just a few months before the CRTC approved 8-1-1 for health services, the FCC designated 8-1-1 as “the nationwide number for contractors and others to call before conducting excavation activities.”

The provincial health agencies are less enthusiastic, despite the failure by most of them to activate their own service. Even those provinces that have no plans to activate 8-1-1 seem to want to hoard the dialing code and block any other groups from using the scarce numbering resource.

The file is now closed. The CRTC will now need to determine whether to expand the scope of 8-1-1 to include Public Safety, and bring Canada’s assignment into consistency with the US.

It has been more than 37 years since I was last in Moscow. I went to Russia in March of 1974, when Western relationships with a cold-war era Soviet Union were being thawed by hockey summits. Our grade 12 history teacher found a special way to bring life to a curriculum looking at the “History of Revolutions.”

We had a broad cultural immersion that week. I recall learning to drink vodka shots in a loud disco in our hotel in Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was then called), arguing about whether (current Canadian Senator) Frank Mahovlich was really Russian. I recall the fun we had with their mispronunciation of his name, claiming it was really Махолович [Maholovich], so we responded with our index finger raised:  Махолович один, Канада один. I still proudly display my collection of pins from trading Bazooka chewing gum with people on the streets.

There were other extra-curricular activities that are best shared at a later time.

Next Sunday, I am going back to a very different Moscow, en route to the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the launch of the world’s most advanced communications satellite. It has been a while since I have been this excited about a business trip. Xplornet is partnering to dramatically increase the amount of capacity available for rural and remote broadband service, enabling far faster speeds at a more attractive price point.

As I mentioned last week, Xplornet has a special website (4gsatellite.ca) that allows you to share in the excitement as launch day approaches. The space shot itself will be streamed to a live feed on that site.

I don’t expect to be arguing about hockey in the hotel bar, but one of the Russian phrases we learned 37 years ago will still come in handy: “водки, пожалуйста”.