Canada ranks as the 21st in the world for Internet usage with 31.77 million users as of July 2016 (est), making up 89.8% of the population. [1] According to Harvard researchers, Canada has some of the lowest internet standards among OECD countries, as a result of high costs and slow internet speeds. [2]
According to the CIRA 2013 Factbook, Canadians spend more time online than anyone else in the world—an average of 45 hours a month. They also watch more online video, with an average of 300 views per month in 2011. [3]
The most popular websites in Canada are major sites such as Google, Facebook, and YouTube. [4] The 17th most popular website, Pornhub, is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. [5]
The most popular native Canadian websites are the major Canadian news media companies, which maintain an extensive web presence. According to a February 2008 report by comScore, the most popular Canadian sites are Quebecor Media, principally Canoe.ca, followed closely by CTVglobemedia which includes globeandmail.com and CTV.ca. [6]
Canada's DATAPAC was the world's first public data network designed specifically for X.25 when it opened for use in 1976. [7]
A 1983 project to network approximately 20 Canadian universities was initiated and driven at the University of Guelph by a small team including Bob McQueen, Kent Percival and Peter Jaspers-Fayer with the aim to share files and transfer emails. The IBM mainframe RSCS protocol was originally intended to connect remote printers and card readers to mainframes, but was easily adapted to this new networking use of file sharing and email forwarding. Dedicated telecommunication lines, typically 2400 bits per second, were leased point to point between neighboring universities, with each university paying the cost of one leased line to its nearest neighbor.
The scheme came after the development of the BITNET network in the United States which used the same protocols. An interconnection between the Canadian cluster of universities, called NetNorth, and the larger and quickly growing BITNET network in the US was negotiated and made operational at the startup in 1984. Before the end of the following year, coast-to-coast connectivity to BITNET was in place, 100 years to the day of the last spike being driven on the cross-Canada railroad. [8] Other gateways were developed to interconnect with ARPAnet, CSNET, NSFNET (in 1989) [9] and others. The early adopting Canadian universities were soon able to connect to many thousands of computer network nodes in the USA and internationally. This gatewayed international "network of networks" came to be known as the Internet.
In general, the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted material, whether for profit or for personal use, is illegal under Canada's Copyright Act. [10] However, certain exemptions are made for fair dealing copying of small portions of copyrighted works, for activities such as private study, criticism, and news reporting. Furthermore, the Act allows that the copying of sound recordings of musical works for the personal use is not copyright infringement. This is supported by a levy on blank recording media, which is distributed to record labels and musicians, although not evenly. While the unauthorized downloading or uploading of complete copyrighted works such as books, movies, or software is illegal under the Act, the situation regarding music files is more complex.
Multiple providers, including Bell Canada and Rogers Communications in Eastern Canada, Telus Internet in BC and Alberta, and SaskTel in Saskatchewan have made investments into upgrading their infrastructure to provide last mile fibreoptic connectivity, or fibre to the home (FTTH). [11] [12] [13] In December 2016, local company MNSi Telecom announced a $35 million fibre build in Windsor, Ontario. [14]
In July 2015, the CRTC ruled that major telecoms providing fibre to the home must allow smaller providers to purchase wholesale access to their networks. Bell Canada attempted to oppose the ruling, but failed. [15]
Regional Canadian ISPs peer through a few major Internet exchange points, the most notable of which is the Toronto Internet Exchange. However, these regional networks usually share the same backbones for longer distance connectivity.
The largest DSL provider in Canada is Bell Internet (formerly Bell Sympatico). Bell owns and maintains physical layer connectivity through a combination of optical fibre networks, DSLAM and Customer Premises Equipment. In British Columbia (BC), Alberta (AB), and parts of Quebec (QC), the incumbent telco is Telus, owning the DSLAMs and fibre, providing many of the same services Bell does.
The other major players offering DSL and IPTV services are SaskTel in Saskatchewan and Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS) in Manitoba. Download speeds are up to 25 Mbit/s for average users, though recent upgrades now make HDTV and much higher rates possible.[ citation needed ]
For cable offerings, standard North American DOCSIS based equipment are used. The largest cable internet providers in Canada are Shaw Communications (Western) and Rogers Cable (Eastern) offering internet speeds of up to 1000 Mbit/s.
Internet bandwidth limits and caps are considered by many to be too restrictive, due to the increasing popularity of online streaming media services such as Netflix, which require large amounts of bandwidth. [16]
The decision to impose bandwidth caps on smaller independent ISPs [17] caused controversy in 2011 when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada's telecommunications regulator, approved a request by Bell Internet to begin, on March 1, 2011, to apply a bandwidth cap on the users of smaller independent ISPs who use Bell's last mile infrastructure. This new billing structure is called "usage-based billing" or UBB.
Bell pushed for a cap as small as 25 gigabytes of transfer per month, plus a $1–2 CAD surcharge for every GB over the limit. The stated intent was to prevent the customers of independent ISPs from congesting Bell's network, [18] because many independent ISPs offer service with unlimited bandwidth, while most major Canadian ISPs do not. The CRTC was criticized for allowing Bell to use anti-competitive practices to favour its own Internet and television offerings. [19] Bell is also under fire for forcing its own pricing structure and business on its wholesalers. Bell admits that more than 10 percent of its subscribers (at the time of said download cap) exceed their limit, resulting in additional billing. [20]
Many savvy Internet users also accuse Bell of falsifying information to the public regarding network congestion. Network congestion is primarily caused by many users accessing the Internet at the same time (after school/work, 5pm–10pm) and not by heavy users alone. Similar criticism was levied when Eastlink Rural Connect applied UBB in July 2015, which many users reported made peak time congestion worse. See Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia initiative for this and related wireless broadband congestion problems.
On February 2, 2011, industry minister Tony Clement and Prime Minister Stephen Harper called on the CRTC to reverse the decision. The next day, the CRTC announced that it would delay its decision by 60 days. [21]
There are some supporters for usage-based-billing (UBB) at lower rates instead of the current $2/GB. One example is TekSavvy, providing "Lite" cable Internet services (6 Mbit/s down, ¼ Mbit/s up) at $30.95/month with 300 GB, equivalent to around 10¢/GB. [22] Rogers Hi-Speed Internet offers Internet access at the same speed for $41.49/month but with only 20 GB, equivalent to around $2.07/GB. [23] The difference of $1.97/GB between the two providers is one key reason why consumer advocates oppose UBB. Some also claim that it costs the incumbents as low as 3¢/GB. [24]
Supporters also suggest that instead of a penalty-based system (heavy users pay more), a credit-based system (light users be credited back monthly) would be much more consumer friendly and fair.
The digital divide in Canada refers to the discrepancy that exists between Canadians who have access to information and communication technologies (ICT) and the benefits they provide compared to those who do not. [25] This divide can be the result of many factors, including high costs for technology and online access, [26] differences in the availability of online connectivity resources in different locations across the country, [27] and lacking digital literacy. The digital divide in Canada also stems from income inequality among Canadians and differences in online practices exhibited by those of different age, gender, first language, and cultural background. [28]
The digital divide is greatest in Northern Canada due to the economic and geographical obstacles to setting up high speed internet connections between distant and sparsely populated towns, along with some residents' low digital literacy rates and lack of access to technology. [29]
Various government initiatives are currently being implemented to reduce the digital divide in Canada, including plans aimed at providing all Canadians with affordable high speed internet packages, [30] increasing the amount of free public Wi-Fi available, [31] and the improvement of digital literacy among students in public elementary and high schools. [32]The primary regulator of telecommunications in Malaysia is the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). It issues licenses under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, the Postal Services Act 2012 and the Digital Signature Act 1997.
Telecommunications infrastructure in South Africa provides modern and efficient service to urban areas, including cellular and internet services. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is the watchdog of the telecommunications in the country.
Telecommunications in Tuvalu cover Tuvalu's 6 atolls and 3 reef islands. The islands of Tuvalu rely on satellite dishes for communication and internet access.
In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Internet access. The transmission medium can be coaxial cable, optical fiber, wireless Internet (radio), twisted pair cable, or satellite.
Bell Internet, originally and frequently still called Sympatico, is the residential Internet service provider (ISP) division of BCE Inc. As of May 3, 2012, Bell Internet had over 3 million subscribers in Ontario and Quebec, making it the largest ISP in Canada.
Rogers Hi-Speed Internet is a broadband Internet service provider in Canada, owned by Rogers Communications. Rogers previously operated under the brand names Rogers@Home, Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet, WAVE, and Road Runner in Newfoundland. It is currently the second largest Internet provider in Canada, after Bell Internet by customer count.
Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, IPTV offers the ability to stream the source media continuously. As a result, a client media player can begin playing the content almost immediately. This is known as streaming media.
Bandwidth throttling consists in the limitation of the communication speed, of the ingoing (received) or outgoing (sent) data in a network node or in a network device such as computers and mobile phones.
A data cap, often erroneously referred to as a bandwidth cap, is an artificial restriction imposed on the transfer of data over a network. In particular, it refers to policies imposed by an internet service provider in order to limit customers' usage of their services; typically, exceeding a data cap would require the subscriber to pay additional fees based on whether they have exceeded this limit. Implementation of a data cap is sometimes termed a fair access policy, fair usage policy, or usage-based billing by ISPs.
Bragg Communications Inc., doing business as Eastlink, is a Canadian cable television and telecommunications company. The privately held company was founded in Nova Scotia in 1969 by the Bragg family, and has grown since through the amalgamation of several telecommunications companies.
Be Unlimited was an Internet service provider in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2014. Initially founded as an independent company by Boris Ivanovic and Dana Tobak in 2005, it was bought by Spanish group Telefónica Europe in 2006 before being sold on to BSkyB in March 2013 in an agreement which saw BSkyB buy the fixed telephone line and broadband business of Telefónica Europe which at the time traded under the O2 and BE brands. The deal saw BSkyB agree to pay £180 million initially, followed by a further £20 million after all customers had been transferred to Sky's existing business. The sale was subject to regulatory approval in April 2013, and was subsequently approved by the Office of Fair Trading on 16 May 2013.
In telecommunications, cable Internet access, shortened to cable Internet, is a form of broadband internet access which uses the same infrastructure as cable television. Like digital subscriber line and fiber to the premises services, cable Internet access provides network edge connectivity from the Internet service provider to an end user. It is integrated into the cable television infrastructure analogously to DSL which uses the existing telephone network. Cable TV networks and telecommunications networks are the two predominant forms of residential Internet access. Recently, both have seen increased competition from fiber deployments, wireless, mobile networks and satellite internet access.
The Internet in South Africa, one of the most technologically resourced countries on the African continent, is expanding. The internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .za is managed and regulated by the .za Domain Name Authority (.ZADNA) and was granted to South Africa by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1990. Over 60% of Internet traffic generated on the African continent originates from South Africa. As of 2020, 41.5 million people were Internet users.
Internet access is widely available in New Zealand, with 94% of New Zealanders having access to the internet as of January 2021. It first became accessible to university students in the country in 1989. As of June 2018, there are 1,867,000 broadband connections, of which 1,524,000 are residential and 361,000 are business or government.
The United Kingdom has been involved with the Internet throughout its origins and development. The telecommunications infrastructure in the United Kingdom provides Internet access to homes and businesses mainly through fibre, cable, mobile and fixed wireless networks, with the UK's 140-year-old copper network, maintained by Openreach, set to be withdrawn by December 2025.
Internet in India began in 1986 and was initially available only to the educational and research community. General public access to the internet in India began on 15 August 1995. By 2023, India had more than 900 million Internet users. It is reported that in 2022 an average mobile Internet consumption in India was 19.5 GB per month and the mobile data usage per month rose from 4.5 exabytes in 2018 to 14.4 exabytes in 2022.
Broadband is a term normally considered to be synonymous with a high-speed connection to the internet. Suitability for certain applications, or technically a certain quality of service, is often assumed. For instance, low round trip delay would normally be assumed to be well under 150ms and suitable for Voice over IP, online gaming, financial trading especially arbitrage, virtual private networks and other latency-sensitive applications. This would rule out satellite Internet as inherently high-latency. In some applications, utility-grade reliability or security are often also assumed or defined as requirements. There is no single definition of broadband and official plans may refer to any or none of these criteria.
TekSavvy Solutions Inc. (TSI) is a Canadian residential, business, and wholesale telecommunications company based in Chatham, Ontario. In most of the country, it is a wholesale-network-access-based service provider and voice reseller, connecting its service to existing last mile networks from telecom carriers Bell Canada and Telus Communications, and cable carriers Rogers Communications, Cogeco Cable, Shaw and Vidéotron. However, in parts of rural southwestern Ontario, the service is provided over TekSavvy's own fixed wireless network. Recently they have also rolled out their own fibre optic network in parts of southwestern Ontario.
Internet rush hour is the time period when the majority of Internet users are online at the same time. Typically, in the UK the peak hours are between 7 and 11 pm. During this time frame, users commonly experience slowness while browsing or downloading content. The congestion experienced during the rush hour is similar to transportation rush hour, where demand for resources outweighs capacity.
The digital divide in Canada refers to the discrepancy that exists between Canadians who have access to information and communication technologies (ICT) and the benefits they provide compared to those who do not. This divide can be the result of many factors, including high costs for technology and online access, differences in the availability of online connectivity resources in different locations across the country, and lacking digital literacy. The digital divide in Canada also stems from income inequality among Canadians and differences in online practices exhibited by those of different age, gender, first language, and cultural background.
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