Rogers and the digital divide
OTTAWA—Don’t spend that five-day Rogers credit in one place, y’all. It’s now nearly two weeks after the outage that rocked the country, caused by Canada’s fastest and most reliable network. The Rogers outage laid bare that telecommunications infrastructure is critical for participation in society, much less industry. Strong and reliable networks were missed once 911, […]
Put Shaw merger back on the hot seat, say researchers, analysts, as politicos await answers from Rogers
Rogers Communications has until the end of the week to provide detailed answers to the country’s telecom regulator, explaining the “how” and “why” of the recent nationwide service outage, but policy analysts are already asking how much worse it would have been had the proposed merger with Shaw already gone through. The July 8 outage […]
Critical rethink needed following Rogers outage
Last Friday, a nationwide Rogers internet and wireless services outage left millions of Canadians and businesses reliving the pre-internet days. The company was still working to restore service to some customers throughout the weekend. Beyond cutting off the company’s 11 million wireless subscribers from their steady drip of social media, businesses—including banks—that use Rogers saw […]
Why a Foreign Influence Registry Act is necessary for Canada’s national security
The Trudeau government finally decided to ban Huawei and ZTE from our 5G networks after three years of controversies around the China telecoms equipment-makers and long after the United States’ first ban through a national security order. As a member of the Five Eyes, Canada is becoming one of the major targets for Beijing’s grand […]
Driving economic recovery together: infrastructure is the key to strong communities
As we consider our future in a post-pandemic world, and with a new federal budget, it is a good time to reflect on how we can continue to build strong, resilient local communities. Municipalities touch the lives of Canadians everyday, and as Canada recovers from the pandemic, this is the moment to learn from the […]
Digital infrastructure and broadband connectivity are vital for meeting emission objectives
As president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM), I welcome the opportunity to reflect on the recent announcement made by the federal government regarding their Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) and to highlight the digital divide between rural and urban municipalities that needs to be addressed. SARM is an independent association that […]
Scrap the overbuild policy to boost broadband infrastructure
Many will read this op-ed using a wireless device. Most Canadians don’t realize how much of a luxury that is. While it is laudable that the government has repeatedly committed to improving broadband access for rural and remote communities, many federal policies continue to frustrate this goal. For this reason, we have repeatedly raised the […]
Time to capitalize on Canada’s big AI advantage
Canada is a global leader in artificial intelligence because of decades of work by world-class luminaries at universities and government labs. Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have worked hard to further AI research and development. I successfully exited two AI startups in Canada and hold 48 patents in AI related to messaging and security. My […]
Price decline shows Canadian wireless on the right track
Recent headlines have been filled with news of the rising cost of housing, food, gas, and most other consumer items. So, it may have come as a surprise to some when Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry François-Philippe Champagne, recently announced that the price of mid-level mobile wireless plans have decreased by 25 per cent […]
Dis-connecting families: feds must expand program so all low-income people get internet access
The pandemic laid bare many of the inequities that persist in our systems. One issue that came to the fore was our need for the internet like never before. Every individual was forced to get on to the world wide web for anything and everything. Even eviction hearings moved online with extreme consequences for low-and-moderate […]
