Rural high speed not on the horizon any time soon
DECEMBER 2006 — VOLUME 4 ISSUE 12
Whitecroft residents and their rural neighbours are fed up with dial-up Internet service. They want access to high-speed service like neighbouring Sun Peaks but they’re about as likely to get a Starbucks.
Access to high-speed service would be extremely beneficial to business owners like Ian McArthur at Sun Valley Bed and Breakfast in Whitecroft, who spends about an hour every morning just checking e-mail on dial-up service.
“We’re living on the dark side of the moon here,” says McArthur.
Not only does dial-up service make it difficult to maintain a website, but McArthur notes he’s also lost out on business because he can’t offer his guests the convenience of a high-speed connection.
However, it’s not economically feasible for an Internet provider to make the initial investment that would be required for Whitecroft and area to get connected. There are various options for providing an area with high-speed service, but it would be difficult for any provider to yield a profit from such an undertaking.
A ruling earlier this year by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ordered Telus to utilize funds currently held in deferral accounts to provide rural areas with services, including broadband. However, it’s not the CRTC’s agenda to force corporations to lose money by providing an $18,000 tower to every farm or even every small community in B.C.
Instead, the provincial government and Telus teamed up to form the Connecting Communities initiative, whose mandate is to provide high-speed internet service to 366 communities by the end of this year. $110 million has already been spent on this project and 119 communities have benefited, said Shawn Hall, spokeperson for Telus, External Communications. In order for a community to qualify for this project, however, it must have a library, school or health centre, which leaves Whitecroft out of the running.
That means that for the foreseeable future local residents who live outside the villages of Heffley Creek and Sun Peaks will remain on the side of the road when it comes to the information highway—while slow may be the way to go for winter driving, it’s not winning any fans among those whose Internet access feels like it belongs in the last century.
Site designed and maintained by: PeaksMedia.com