{"id":3615,"date":"2010-05-18T06:37:09","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T10:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=3615"},"modified":"2017-01-24T13:58:52","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T18:58:52","slug":"what-is-our-digital-starting-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=3615","title":{"rendered":"What is our digital starting point?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I received an email on Monday from CATA Alliance, asking<\/a>\u00a0for Canadians\u00a0to sign a petition<\/a> calling for a pledge of full endorsement of their i-Canada vision. I can’t endorse the document, let alone pledge that I “do fully endorse” it.\u00a0Quite simply, the preamble\u00a0contains too many flaws to merit my full endorsement.<\/p>\n

The message starts out by\u00a0inviting\u00a0us to view a video from TVO<\/a> featuring a soliloquy bemoaning Canada’s supposedly sorry network condition, citing a “recent study.” I won’t get into any further trashing of the\u00a0widely\u00a0discredited Harvard Berkman study, upon which the CATA Alliance release relies. After all, that is old news<\/a> to my regular readers. Even the FCC – the folks who commissioned the Berkman study – ignored the report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To call it a “Harvard” study implies credibility – as though there was an academic peer review of the paper. Ha! Just like there is no questioning of the facts set out in the TVO video.\u00a0Of course, a critical interviewer\u00a0might have destroyed so many of the premises of\u00a0the position that claims Canadian broadband is woefully inadequate – that we have “some of the poorest high-speed internet service in the developed world.”<\/p>\n

For example, Google’s gigabit network plans are said to be 1000 times faster than what we suffer with today in Canada. That would mean that the fastest connection in Canada is only 1 Mbps. Anyone care to offer a view on the accuracy of that?<\/p>\n

It speaks of Australia’s future plans, Google’s planned trials, a Swedish community network serving 50,000 people and confuses these by comparing it to the slowest networks in Canada.<\/p>\n

In the iCanada manifesto, the document lists Canada’s accomplishments of the past before ringing an alarm bell that cries out that “Canada has been falling down the international leadership staircase in terms of the innovation and application of technology.”<\/p>\n

It would have been inconvenient to point out that Canada is home to 3 of the world’s fastest mobile wireless networks – the only country in the world with 3 such networks and more being built [see our earlier post<\/a> on this point]. It wouldn’t have fit the hypothesis to note that Canada has led the world in the deployment of ultra-high speed DOCSIS 3.0 cable internet service.<\/p>\n

While the monologue talks about a community of 50,000 in Sweden investing $4500 per household to build a community fibre network, there is no mention of competition driving phone companies across Canada, from New Brunswick through Quebec and Manitoba to build fibre to the home – without individuals having to front the costs.<\/p>\n

There was no mention of the 14 Canadian communities recognized for excellence by the Intelligent Communities Forum<\/a>, more than half the number of communities named in the US; no other countries have more than 5 communities recognized. I didn’t hear\u00a0see CATA Alliance’s document\u00a0recognize New Brunswick premier Shawn Graham being named Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year<\/a> “based on his dedication to make New Brunswick the first complete broadband province in Canada and transform its educational system to pursue a knowledge-based economy.”<\/p>\n

CATA Alliance is apparently trying to build participation in the national dialog to set a direction for Canada’s Digital Economy. It seems to me that it can be hard to figure out where you are going if you don’t know where you are starting from.<\/p>\n

The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit<\/a><\/strong>, June 7-9, will be the place to find out where we are and discuss where we should be heading.<\/p>\n

Canada’s Digital Economy future will be prominently featured throughout The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit<\/a><\/strong>, right from the\u00a0 opening keynote address on June 7, delivered by Industry Minister Tony Clement. Tuesday June 8 will feature a number of sessions that examine these issues – how other countries are developing their ICT Strategies and some perspectives on what should be done here in Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have you registered yet? Download the complete conference brochure here [pdf<\/a>, 1.2MB].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I received an email on Monday from CATA Alliance, asking\u00a0for Canadians\u00a0to sign a petition calling for a pledge of full endorsement of their i-Canada vision. I can’t endorse the document, let alone pledge that I “do fully endorse” it.\u00a0Quite simply, the preamble\u00a0contains too many flaws to merit my full endorsement. The message starts out by\u00a0inviting\u00a0us …<\/p>\n

What is our digital starting point?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat is our digital starting point? • Telecom Trends<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I received an email on Monday from CATA Alliance, asking\u00a0for Canadians\u00a0to sign a petition calling for a pledge of full endorsement of their i-Canada • May 18, 2010\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=3615\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is our digital starting point? 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I can’t endorse the document, let alone pledge that I “do fully endorse” it.\u00a0Quite simply, the preamble\u00a0contains too many flaws to merit my full endorsement. The message starts out by\u00a0inviting\u00a0us…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}