They call it the fourth utility: Wiring for broadband Internet service in urban areas is more or less taken for granted these days, along with hydro, water and gas.
“High-speed access, both in terms of speed and overall capacity, are fundamental prerequisites for certain development decisions,” said Franklin Holtforster, president and chief executive officer of Ottawa-based MHPM Project Managers Inc. “Anybody who’s got land … and is looking at it for industrial or commercial use is keen to drag fibre as close to the site as they can.”
But the reality is very different in some smaller centres, where broadband availability is patchy to non-existent or businesses are still struggling with painfully slow dial-up service.
“I’ve been an Internet service provider for 13 years and it boggles my mind how we have come to expect ubiquitous high-speed access everywhere we go, but it’s just not true in the rural areas,” said Tom Copeland, chairman of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers and president of Eagle.ca in Cobourg, Ont.
Read the full story in ReportonBusiness.com here.
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