Official Ares Free Download

p2pnet news view P2P:- Consultants Mark Goldberg and Giganomics released a new report this week on the state of Canada’s broadband infrastructure.  Commissioned by Bell Canada, Bell Aliant, Cogeco, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw, and Telus, it states as its purpose to “confirm or disprove whether Canada faces a real problem in terms of broadband infrastructure.”

Given the sources, there is never much doubt that it will conclude that Canada is doing well and that studies that reach a different conclusion must surely be flawed.  Indeed, the report claims that “we are a broadband leader, scoring in the top ten or better for most international broadband rankings or measures, despite facing greater geographic challenges than most others.”

Yet reading the report, you are hard pressed to find anything resembling a leader.  For example, on broadband speed (download only, the report does not address upload speed), it points to reports from ITIF (10th), Akamai (14th), and OECD (25th).  On price per Mbps, it cites reports from the OECD (which it argues is flawed, 28th) and ITIF (21st).

On broader e-readiness, it points to reports from LECG/NSN (7th), the Economist/IBM (9th), and the ITU (19th).  There may be varying definitions of leadership, but I’m pretty sure none would qualify Canada as a leader based on these reports.

Michael Geist – Michael Geist’s Blog
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist @ uottawa dot ca]

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

October, 2009

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