The State of Brandenburg has announced that it will include satellite broadband services from Eutelsat as part of its “Broadband supply for rural areas” programme. The objective is to bridge the digital divide in the German state by the end of 2009.

Minister President Matthias Platzeck made the announcement last week at an information event on broadband:

The broadband initiative of the Government that aims to reduce to the minimum all remaining white spots once again demonstrates that no region or community in Brandenburg will be left behind.

As I have written many times before, in Canada, Barrett Xplore has continued to invest in bringing next generation satellite broadband services to complement the reach of its fixed wireless services in rural Canada.

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Canada’s Telecom Hall of Fame has announced this year’s laureates, to be inducted at its November 4 gala dinner in Ottawa.

This year’s class includes 2 cable TV pioneers among the 5 individuals to be honoured.

Hall of Fame director Lorne Abugov said:

For a fifth straight year, we are proud and thrilled to shine a spotlight – this year more of a coastal beacon – on outstanding Canadian telecom achievers and achievements

The inductees are:

• André Chagnon, the founder of Quebec cable giant, Vidéotron, not only propelled the company into international success but was also first brought interactivity to cable TV service in the early 1990s.
• Israel (Sruki) Switzer is widely regarded as the most knowledgeable cable technology engineer Canada has produced, provided leadership and advocacy in the development of concepts and practices that advanced the cable television industry and inspired other great Canadian broadcast entrepreneurs.
• Colin A. Franklin advanced Canada’s early global leadership in satellite communications as chief electrical engineer for Canada’s first satellite programme, the Alouette 1.
• Francis Fox helped pioneer the introduction of cellular wireless telephony in this country when he, as Minister of Communications, made the historic 1983 decision to issue cellular radiocommunication licences.
• the late Donald A. Chisholm has been hailed as the ‘Father of the Digital World’, the Bell Northern Research digital switching initiative of the mid-1970s that ranks as one of the boldest and most successful technology advances in telecommunications technology of the 20th Century.

In addition, the Hall of Fame will recognize the two small coastal communities of Heart’s Content, Newfoundland and Bamfield, British Columbia that for decades were Canada’s international telecommunications gateways to the world – the original landing sites of Canada’s first Atlantic and Pacific trans-oceanic submarine telegraph cables.

I encourage you to visit the Telecom Hall of Fame website and tour the virtual hall of fame. You can find additional background information about the laureates here.

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Some folks are apparently upset that Rogers is inserting an information frame onto the top of some users’ web browsers. It is an added frame to let users know that their usage is bumping up close to the maximum under their plan or to let the user know that their old anti-virus software is about to expire.

How would you tell your customers that there is about to be a problem? With 1.6M internet subscribers, the alternative is to wait for tens of thousands of extra calls to the call centre after people get sticker shock from the extra usage charges or call technical support to find out why their free software isn’t working.

It is hardly a case of interfering with the webpage. From what I have seen, the message is directly associated with important information about the customer’s internet access service. Maybe the market research was correct that Rogers has found an acceptable and effective way to target those using its services?

Just like when the issue first arose in late 2007, this latest kerfuffle is much ado about nothing.

In a move that helps consolidate its 5-service bundle offering in Manitoba, MTS Allstream and SaskTel have exchanged some of their security customers. SaskTel’s SecureTek gave up its Manitoba customers in exchange for MTS Allstream’s AAA Alarm customers located outside Manitoba – mainly in Alberta.

According to SaskTel CEO Robert Watson

This agreement will allow SecurTek to focus on geographic growth in its target growth markets of Saskatchewan, Ontario, B.C. and Alberta.

In my question to MTS Allstream chief Pierre Blouin last week at The Canadian Telecom Summit, I commented about the prairie phenomenon of home security services as an adjacency to telephone, TV, internet and mobile services. Other Canadian service providers have 4 arrows in their quiver. MTS Allstream and SaskTel carry a fifth.

This announced swap of customers helps MTS Allstream offer more bundling to more Manitoba customers while providing SaskTel with greater scale in its operations outside its core territory.

Why aren’t more communications services providers offering home security?

Everyone in Canada has access to broadband internet access. This isn’t a forecast; it is a statement of fact. Most Canadians have access to at least three different facilities-based broadband suppliers (cable, DSL and satellite) and many have a choice of fixed wireless as well.

In the next few months, most Canadians will have a choice of a number of mobile broadband suppliers, all of which providing even more choice. This array of competition doesn’t include the companies that co-locate their DSLAMs to provide broadband over the telco loops or the companies that use the telco’s aggregated access service to provide broadband alternatives.

All Canadians can have broadband, but what is holding them back?

According to StatsCan, in 2006, three quarters of Canadian homes had computers; more than 90% of those households used the computers to access the internet.

Obviously, presence of a home computer sets an asymptote for broadband subscription. We need to hear more discussion of basic computer literacy for the Canadians that still don’t see the value of putting another screen in their homes.

As we wrote last November about PEI’s low adoption rates despite universal accessibility, increasing broadband penetration requires a more holistic, critical analysis.