Technology has radically transformed many industries, from manufacturing and textiles to travel agencies or the entertainment business. Many have greatly suffered before accepting their fate and adapting to a new digital world. Now, the wider arts industry is in the...
Disruption
Spectrum auction delivers more wireless competition, mostly in Alberta and BC
What does the federal government’s policy to enhance wireless competition look like the morning after the 700 MHz spectrum auction results were announced? We have another player, Videotron, in BC and Alberta. Videotron, Quebec’s largest cable company, has...
Federal budget announces $305 million for rural and northern broadband
The federal budget provides for $305 million for rural and northern broadband access. There are no details yet on the structure of the program. How this is structured and delivered will be key to its success. There are a wide range of options of what...
Broadcasting Developments in 2014
The year 2014 will see more key developments in broadcasting around the world and in Canada. These developments are all related to the topics we have addressed under InfoComm, from Usage Based Billing (UBB) for Internet access service to rebuilding the Last...
Featured News
Preston Manning: Report of the COVID Commission
Introductory Comment Brian Giesbrecht, Retired Judge, Frontier Centre Senior Fellow: The Frontier Centre for Public Policy is honoured to present Mr. Manning’s latest offering, in what he calls a fictionalized story. It is about everything that has happened to this...
Canada: Returning to the Original Vision
Many Canadians are aware of stories of how immigrants were originally attracted to Canada through the promise of free land. The then Minister responsible for immigration, Clifford Sifton, had his staff spread out across central and eastern Europe promising free land...
Telecommuting and Working at Home in the Emerging Work Environment: The Benefits of Working at Home
Wendell Cox documents the rise of telecommuting and working from home in Canada.
Why Should Urban Care about Rural
Finally a commentator that comes along and states that rural is not a charity case
Ronald Coase, Gordon Moore, and your Career: “Moore” communication technology means smaller organisations.
Communication technology is ever growing, and this will continue to mean that smaller organisations and individuals can more effectively collaborate without the need to be ensconced in large companies.
What Part of Junk Mail is Essential?
Remove the Junk Mail Mandate from Canada Post
Keeping the NHL in Winnipeg
Want to keep the NHL in Winnipeg? Modernize public policy so the city will grow to the size it should be.
Moore’s Law, Egypt and Western Liberty: A powerful technological trend may tip the balance of power between individuals and the state.
The exponential growth in available computer power is bad news for central planners and good news for individuals who desire greater freedom from the state.
Data Centres in Manitoba – What’s Missing?
Both Manitoba Hydro and the Manitoba Government promote the fact that Manitoba offers the lowest cost of electricity in North America. As an additional benefit, virtually all of that power is produced from renewable hydro instead of coal, natural gas or nuclear.
According to this post, the major criteria for site selection of large data centres includes low cost power, ability to use or dissipate heat, and low-cost real estate. An obvious additional category would be very high capacity, low cost and multiple path multi-gigabit fibre links to major Internet nodes across North America.
As we go into a fall election, the political parties should be challenged to identify why Manitoba is not already attracting this type of investment in data centres and what changes in government policy will enable our province to become a home to this type of business enterprise.
Net Neutrality in Europe
BBC reports that the European Union is to investigate whether internet service providers (ISPs) are providing fair access to online services. Announcing the action, the EU's commissioner for the digital agenda, Neelie Kroes, said: "I am absolutely determined that...
Sask Tel Network Investment Plan
Yesterday, Sasktel announced a plan to invest in network upgrades across Saskatchewan. While some media reports focused on the plans for the province’s nine major cities, the plans announced offer a combination of urban and rural commitments.
Over the next 7 years, SaskTel intends to invest $670 million in their broadband broadband access program. Under this program, the intent is to replace legacy twisted pair copper networks with fibre optics that can support much higher speeds and virtually eliminate problems of network congestion. The initial speeds for the new network will be 200 Mbps download and 50 – 60 Mbps upload. Over time, the network has the ability to reach or exceed 1 gigabit per second speeds. By 2017, SaskTel intends to have 100% of homes served in 9 cities passed by this network.