The internet system

Today, the news were that Obama had managed to go through with his reform on Health Care. From our perspective here in Canada it seems like something that was a long time coming. For the past few weeks however, what has caught my attention was the growing support into providing broadband internet access anywhere. In the US, the FCC proposed a national broadband plan, something that would end up as something similar to the construction of the highway system in the past century. This post from Google’s Eric Schmidt pretty much transmits how exciting this plan is.

Obviously this is only for the US, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the strength of the internet in the future will not only be in the information it already contains but in the information that people are bringing in in real-time. For this, having millions more connected will benefit all of us.

With this being said, It’s also good to look at what is going on here in Canada. I think a lot of people will agree that our telecommunications system is a bit lacking. Our cell phone plans cost significantly more than elsewhere and, from my perspective at least, it seems like our CRTC is preventing a lot of innovations from ever finding themselves to this side of the border.

As for an internet plan, the government had announced about a year ago that they would invest to provide access to under-served communities. There doesn’t seem to be a well defined plan although this is a beginning. It should be noted that a broadband plan in Canada is much harder than in the US because of our population density and the huge territory to cover. This being said, if we do not want to create two classes of citizens (connected and unconnected), then we need to act. Because, I think that, very soon, we will not have a choice but to say that internet access IS a fundamental right.