Canada-wide Internet Speed Targets Set By CRTC

I’ll throw this one in the I’ll believe it when I see it category but the CBC is reporting that the Canadian Radio-Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) is telling the country’s broadband providers that they are expecting all Canadians to have access to speeds of 5 megabits per second download; and 1 megabits per second, by 2015. Additionally these speeds must be actual speeds rather than the scam of advertised speeds that we have to deal with today.

This all comes out of a review of basic telecommunication services across the country and rather than make access to the internet a basic service the CRTC is going to rely on market forces and that regulatory intervention wasn’t needed at this point.

The CRTC also reported that more than 80 percent of households have access to the internet that already meet or exceed the CRTC’s expected minimum broadband speed and is targeting the remaining 20% using a variety of means.

More than 80 per cent of households already have access to download speeds of at least five megabits per second or higher, the CRTC reports.

The commission anticipates that the target will be reached for the remaining households through a combination of private investments, government funding and public-private partnerships. It says it will monitor the industry’s progress.

“This activitywill allow the commission, in future, to determine whether regulatory intervention may be needed,” it said.

via CBC

I might exceed the expected download speeds with my Bell DSL account but the upload speed doesn’t come close to what is proposed as the minimum.

Of course this won’t mean crap really if the CRTC continues to allow the current crop of broadband providers to institutes draconian usage based billing.