Ray Van Eng (09/08/97)
Alexander Graham Bell had often said that his idea of a telephone was conceived in Brantford, Ontario at his parent's house while the actual device was built in Boston, MA. Bell was a U.S. citizen, though he and his parent first settled in Canada when they came over from Scotland in 1871. In December 1901, St. John's, Newfoundland was the focus of international attention where telegraph inventor Guglielmo Marconi got his first wireless message across the Atlantic from Cornwall, England. There are also economic factors involved here too. In the Atlantic provinces, natural resources industries such as fishery and mining are rapidly fading into the sunset, both the government and businesses are looking towards telecommunication and information technology as sunrise industries for growth. New Brunswick's NBTel is in limited commercial roll out of their high-speed 'Vibe' service. While not exactly a fast Internet access service, Vibe is a broadband multimedia offering including the delivery of full motion video right to your PC via its VideoActive Network. NBTel also becomes the first telephone company in Canada to allow customers to use the Internet to pay their phone bills and activate or cancel calling features immediately. Andersen Consulting who co-authored the Internet software with NBTel is responsible in selling the product to other telcos. Though it is fair to point out that Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. was actually the first to offer Internet bill payment services in March this year, but the program lasted only a couple of weeks because of customers' unfounded concerns that their phone bills could be viewed by anyone on the open global network. NBTel side-stepped the problem by declaring that the service was only available to those who ask for it by phone. MTS subsequently re-introduced the service in July but so far it has only attracted a few hundred users out of 680,000 accounts. As for high speed Internet access, the people of New Brunswick can turn to their cable companies for cable modem services at download speeds of up to 30 faster than regular modems in use today and at charges that are comparable to regular Internet access charges. Fundy Communications Inc. serving 98 per cent of New Brunswick cable customers is offering cable modem service in all major cities including Moncton, Saint John, Fredericton and Oromocto located throughout the province. A nearby province, Nova Scotia is also offering cable network data services. Halifax Cable is offering cable modem services to 168,000 of its subscribers in Nova Scotia. But after all is said and done, which province do you think has the most Internet servers per capita? No, not Ontario, Quebec or other Atlantic provinces, it is British Columbia on the westcoast of Canada. B.C. has always been a place for wide, eccentric and creative people. May be because it is being cut off from the rest of Canada by the Rockies, the Super-Natural province has aligned itself more with California than any place else. One of the three sister cities of Vancouver is Edinburgh, Scotland, the birth place of Alexander Graham Bell where he was born on March 3 some 150 years ago. |