i-valley

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  • Community Broadband in BC: A Development Champion Gains New Power

    Rural Communities in British Columbia now have a faster runway to accessible broadband connectivity, with the announcement that Roel Coert has officially taken on the role of i-VALLEY Vice President, B.C.

    Roel Coert is one of Canada’s foremost experts in telecom technologies, Open Access broadband,
    infrastructures and telecom operations. He has designed and managed networks in a dozen or more cities and townships in the province.

    i-VALLEY is a not-for-profit association currently building Canada’s largest municipal rural broadband network in Nova Scotia. The alliance with Roel is a “bridging of Canada,” according to i-VALLEY President Terry Dalton.

    “We have worked with Roel on rural broadband in the past, and we are delighted that he will be joining us to help BC communities connect with the global Internet,” stated Mr. Dalton. “Roel is one of Canada’s most experienced and successful network planners, with an exemplary grasp of community networks, which are now urgently needed in today’s pandemic crises.”

    “I am looking forward to combining my provincial knowledge with the power of the i-VALLEY team,” stated Mr. Coert. “It is vital to plug our rural communities into the global network now that COVID has altered everyone’s ability to interact in person. Even before COVID, most of the world’s economic growth was happening online; now, an online connection is an essential tool to enable families and businesses to obtain services like healthcare and economic sustainability.”

    Roel Coert and i-VALLEY have developed programs that can quickly design rural networks, develop financial plans, arrange to finance and implement the network. “Rural areas have the advantage of treating their networks like utilities,” said Mr. Dalton, “financing them over 30 years just like roads or electric power. Future-proofing an accessible network is the key, and we are looking forward to working in BC with Roel.”

    Roel Coert founded open access networks in communities such as the cities of Coquitlam (QNet), New Westminster (BridgeNet), and Campbell River (CR Advantage). These networks involved community access through fibre and wireless structures, with multiple competitive service providers and a range of network plans and financial models. Roel has also worked in Bamfield, Kamloops, Delta, Kelowna, Chilliwack, the Township of Langley, and the City of Port Moody. He has led the TELUS team to provide fibre-to-the-home deployment and has been instrumental in the success of multi-million-dollar projects abroad.

    Mr. Coert retains his role as President of Go4objectives Ltd., based in Lions Bay, BC.

    For further information, please contact:

    Barry Gander
    Co-Founder, i-VALLEY
    Barry.Gander@i-valley.ca
    604 767 7498

    Roel Coert
    Vice President, i-VALLEY BC
    Roel.Coert@i-valley.ca

  • Canada’s largest rural municipally-owned broadband project is getting underway

    Press Release
    For Immediate Release
    August 31, 2020
    Pictou County Begins Network Construction
    PICTOU, NS – The Municipality of Pictou County (MOPC) has begun construction on phase one of its rural internet project.
    MOPC Council recently approved $11 million to fund the first phase of its rural internet project that will see residents in the areas of Lyons Brook, Hardwood Hill, Abercrombie, and Granton have access to high-speed internet.
    “The COVID pandemic both highlighted the need for the network, and slowed down the start of our construction,” said Warden Robert Parker. “We had many urgent matters to attend to, to deal with the pandemic. Now, we are able to get the network underway.”
    Municipality of Pictou County CAO Brian Cullen described the network design as a ‘fibre-rich’ plan, with extensive use of fibre optic cable to provide service to residents: “This will provide additional future-proofing of the network and give us the ability to better serve our community. When the network is complete, it will meet or exceed the CRTC guidelines for directly connected speeds of 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) up and 50 Mbps down, and for wireless/satellite speeds of 5 Mbps up 25 Mbps down.”
    This municipally led network combines revenue sharing and world-class quality with competitive Open Access pricing and choice. Public and private sectors will combine strengths for the quick delivery of a network that sparks new businesses and social initiatives, according to i-VALLEY President Terry Dalton, which provides municipal oversight on the project.
    The Municipality of Pictou County and i-VALLEY chose a consortium of providers led by Nova Communications, a division of ROCK Networks to perform engineering planning and network construction, with NCS Networks being the lead Internet service provider.
    “The COVID crises showed how much the world relies on digital networking for information and a sense of community. Rural residents see this as a fundamental utility – like electricity or roads,” said Warden Parker. “We have heard from so many people over the years that this is important to them, and now the first step in underway.” The municipality has recently obtained Federal Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission status as a “telecommunications carrier”. Construction of other phases of the network will follow the completion of Phase One. Information will be posted to the MOPC website.
    For more information, contact:
    Sueann Musick
    Communications Officer
    Municipality of Pictou County
    902-485-2238
    sueann.musick@munpict.ca

    Barry Gander
    Co-Founder
    i-VALLEY
    613-340-0701
    barry.gander@i-valley.ca

  • Fibre advice from Corning

    The Fiber to the Premise knowledge center is your one-stop source for information about Corning’s array of solutions and products.

    https://www.corning.com/fiber-to-the-premise/worldwide/en/home/knowledge-center.html#whitepapers 

  • Digital Divide: Canada’s rural-urban internet gap widens during pandemic

    https://www.capebretonpost.com/news/provincial/digital-divide-gap-between-canadas-rural-urban-internet-speeds-widens-during-covid-19-485368/ 

     

    cape breton post

  • Congratulations to Halifax on its Technology Win

    Halifax has been rated as one of the top 25 tech cities in North America, according to CBRE.  CBRE Group, Inc. is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, with 2019 revenues of $23.9 billion and more than 100,000 employees.

    The study reviewed cities based on their ability to attract and grow tech talent. Thirteen metrics (each weighted by relative significance to job creation and innovation) were used to measure market depth, vitality, and attractiveness.

    Halifax had more than 13,000 people working in its tech sector in 2019, beating much larger U.S. cities such as Tulsa.  Halifax was in 12th place, joined in the Top 25 by fellow Canadian cities like Waterloo, Quebec City, Edmonton, and Winnipeg, with Toronto entering Top Ten.  The six Canadian cities thus made up one-quarter of the Top 25 list.  This is hitting well above our weight, as Canada’s population is only one-tenth that of the U.S., and we should therefore have been expected to have only two or three cities in the CBRE list.

    Congratulations from i-VALLEY to Halifax Mayor Savage and the organizations that have contributed to this win, including Dalhousie University, Digital Nova Scotia, the tech firms in the city, and all of the rest of us who have contributed talent to make the Halifax possible!  It is a good day for Nova Scotia.

  • Key: Your Own Network

    The most advanced broadband communities supply their own communications networks.

    Not one of the 14 winners of the ICF’s global “Most Intelligent Community” award, has had their network provided by a telecommunications company.

    Networks that are provided with the mission of community value, are more advanced than those run to make a profit. Here are some examples of community-owned network activity:

    • The Next Century Cities project in the US has 120 member cities that provide non-telco solutions; these include Boston, Boulder, Kansas City, Oakland, Palo Alto, Pittsburgh, South San Francisco
    • 22 communities in Mass. are building their own gigabit networks
    • In Connecticut, 46 municipalities representing more than half the state’s population have joined an effort to make Connecticut the first Gigabit State.
    • In Grand Junction, Colorado, residents voted overwhelmingly to approve the city’s right to provide Internet access and local leaders are now exploring plans for a new community broadband network.
    • Bristol, Virginia, serves most of its residents and businesses with a fiber to the premises network, and it was praised in the federal government’s National Broadband Plan as “a good example of the potential of community broadband in rural America.“
    • The public-run municipal network model is very common in the Nordic countries (from Stockholm to Suupohja in rural Finland) and has led to very successful deployments, in terms of coverage, service availability, end-user sign up, competition levels, and financial sustainability.

    Return on Investment from Network Ownership (Chattanooga, TN)

    • ROI (new businesses, social benefits): $865.3-million
    • Numbers of additional people employed: 2,800
    • Influx of VC Funding: from $0 (2009) – $50-million (2014)
    • “America’s first true Smart Grid”: Saving $50-million/yr
    • New businesses enticed to Chattanooga: VW, Amazon, medical, 3D printing …anything with big data

    Among the advantages that drive these communities to provision of their own network, are:

    • Provision of an additional revenue stream for the community;
    • Added online services and options;
    • Lower cost of subscriber service for residents;
    • Move up the value chain for business investment, both local and from abroad
    • Ability to become the carriers’ carrier, renting network space to telecommunications providers
      • Full use of any current network capacity in the community, and efficient use of other capacities already in place in terms of infrastructure and service delivery from community departments
      • Revenues from businesses
      • Savings to municipalities from hosting current online Public Service activities.

  • Rural Survival Means Broadband

    • Between 25-50% of all rural job loss is due to a lack of broadband (Broadband Communities Magazine)
    • The average home today has six Internet-connected devices that require increasingly dense broadband capacity
      • High-definition video produces five times more data than normal
      • The telecom infrastructure currently available to residential consumers in Ottawa is not capable of supporting bandwidth requirements of these latest high definition technologies, let alone the rising capacity needed for surging Video-on-Demand and Gaming applications.
    • Canada already lags globally
      • These speeds provide true interactive broadband connectivity with average speeds approaching 100Mbs. That is 20 X faster than current residential Internet download speeds in Canada and 70 X faster than current upload speeds in Canada.
      • The big Internet service providers have responded to this explosive growth by blocking or restricting service on their networks in order to provide an acceptable level of service to all of its customers.
      • Properties that have broadband access are valued at $5-7k more than otherwise.

  • Rural Survival

    Network-driven innovation is the most important single factor creating economic growth today:

    • Innovation has created two-thirds of all economic growth (study: 2000-2008, UK)
    • The face of Innovation is networked:
      • The Internet accounts for 21% of all global GDP growth among developed nations
      • Facebook is now worth more than Walmart, the world’s largest retailer
      • Apple, Microsoft and Google top the list of most valued companies in US — and their activity is innovation, not new research; they do not make new discoveries.

  • Broadband For Smart Rural Regions: The Need

    A Smart Rural Region is anyone or grouping of communities, large or small, central or remote, that enjoys the economic development, job growth and social prosperity that bloom when software applications are used to engage the energy of all sectors of the community.

    • Broadband: The next essential utility, after hydro
    • Innovation: Ecosystems charge the community
    • Knowledge Workforce: The value-add of skill
    • Digital Equality: Broadband not available to all
    • Sustainability: Reduced environmental impact

    “Broadband is an essential human right”– Suvi Linden, UN Broadband Commission

  • Network-In-A-Box

    i-Valley is a not-for-profit movement to create Smart Rural Communities and regions, that mobilize citizens to achieve faster economic growth, better health care and greater sustainability, through the engagement of users with advanced enabling technologies.

    We unite with a Consortium of best-practice partners, selected to suit each community’s specific situation – to provide a complete broadband “Utility” for communities:

    1. Managed Services
    2. Consultancy
    3. Strategic Future-proof Plans
    4. Network Build
    5. Network Maintenance
    6. Network Operation
    7. Community Engagement
    8. Events