Aliant to deliver rural high speed?????

An announcement was made today that Aliant will by 2009 provide highspeed for rural PEI. 

CHARLOTTETOWN, PEI -- Premier Robert Ghiz today announced in the Legislative Assembly that the Government of Prince Edward Island has entered into a development agreement with Aliant that will see Aliant investing $8.2 million to extend broadband services to every community in Prince Edward Island, the establishment of a $1.0 million Joint Innovation Fund and the renewal of the government’s telecommunications contract.

Before we all cheer too loudly, I would like to know what happened to the millions given to Aliant to do this nearly a decade ago. Check the comments in this link for the details of the disaster of the last promise.

Island Tel (now Aliant), who received $3.2 million of PEI government money to build an Island broadband network. Here's the meat of the news release from 1997:

"Premier Pat Binns today announced a bold initiative designed to catapult Prince Edward Island (PEI) into the forefront of the Information Age, recasting it from Canada's smallest province to the country's smartest province. The project is meant to create a massive increase in technology use in PEI, and revolutionize the way the world views the province.
PEI, in cooperation with Island Tel Advanced Solutions, Newbridge Networks and Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc., has begun building one of the most pervasive broadband communications networks in the world. Stretching from one end of PEI to the other, and joined by fibre optics to the mainland, the PEI Broadband Network will offer citizens, students, educators, business and government networked applications at some of the lowest costs available anywhere.

From high-speed Internet access and full-motion videoconferencing, to remote curriculum delivery and collaborative multimedia software development, this new infrastructure will transform the province into an ideal information technology testbed. Partnerships are being pursued with networking hardware and software firms and content creators. More importantly, unlike broadband networks in other provinces and states, PEI's will deliver top-speed connections into all parts of the province, not just a neighbourhood here and an industrial park there.

"We are pleased and excited to be building this critical piece of 21st century infrastructure today in Prince Edward Island. It heralds a big change in the relationship we have with the rest of the world," said Premier Binns."

All over North America the issue has been the same, the Big Pipes, have taken the money to connect rural communities and failed to deliver. We have to build around them. Why?

Please this time - let's hold their feet to the fire!

An announcement was made today that Aliant will by 2009 provide highspeed for rural PEI. 

CHARLOTTETOWN, PEI -- Premier Robert Ghiz today announced in the Legislative Assembly that the Government of Prince Edward Island has entered into a development agreement with Aliant that will see Aliant investing $8.2 million to extend broadband services to every community in Prince Edward Island, the establishment of a $1.0 million Joint Innovation Fund and the renewal of the government’s telecommunications contract.

Before we all cheer too loudly, I would like to know what happened to the millions given to Aliant to do this nearly a decade ago. Check the comments in this link for the details of the disaster of the last promise.

Island Tel (now Aliant), who received $3.2 million of PEI government money to build an Island broadband network. Here's the meat of the news release from 1997:

"Premier Pat Binns today announced a bold initiative designed to catapult Prince Edward Island (PEI) into the forefront of the Information Age, recasting it from Canada's smallest province to the country's smartest province. The project is meant to create a massive increase in technology use in PEI, and revolutionize the way the world views the province.
PEI, in cooperation with Island Tel Advanced Solutions, Newbridge Networks and Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc., has begun building one of the most pervasive broadband communications networks in the world. Stretching from one end of PEI to the other, and joined by fibre optics to the mainland, the PEI Broadband Network will offer citizens, students, educators, business and government networked applications at some of the lowest costs available anywhere.

From high-speed Internet access and full-motion videoconferencing, to remote curriculum delivery and collaborative multimedia software development, this new infrastructure will transform the province into an ideal information technology testbed. Partnerships are being pursued with networking hardware and software firms and content creators. More importantly, unlike broadband networks in other provinces and states, PEI's will deliver top-speed connections into all parts of the province, not just a neighbourhood here and an industrial park there.

"We are pleased and excited to be building this critical piece of 21st century infrastructure today in Prince Edward Island. It heralds a big change in the relationship we have with the rest of the world," said Premier Binns."

All over North America the issue has been the same, the Big Pipes, have taken the money to connect rural communities and failed to deliver. We have to build around them. Why?

Please this time - let's hold their feet to the fire!