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Dial-up Internet to be everywhere in Nunavut by 2004

CRTC gives green light to Northwestel

JIM BELL

No matter where you live in northern Canada, you will be able to enjoy some form of commercial dial-up Internet access by the end of 2004.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Canada's telecommunications watchdog, made that possible in a decision late last month giving Northwestel permission to sell dial-up Internet access in all communities where the service is not available.

"We're really happy with that Internet decision. That was really good news," said Anne Kennedy, Northwestel's director of public affairs. "I think we'll have to do a celebration or something for the very last community that gets dial-up in Nunavut."

The decision means Northwestel may offer a dial-up Internet service to all communities in its operating area with fewer than 2,000 telephones.

However, the company does not yet have a schedule stating when and where it will offer the service.

"We are working on that even as we speak. We have to work fast. But we didn't have the resources to put into developing the schedule when we had no idea how the CRTC was going to respond to the proposal," Kennedy said.

About 50 communities in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Yukon will get dial-up Internet access because of the CRTC decision, released June 20.

The edict arose out of a CRTC review of Northwestel's four-year, $75-million service improvement plan, which is aimed at upgrading northern telecommunications systems.

In a ruling in 1999, the CRTC redefined the meaning of "basic service" in Canada to include local dial-up Internet and calling features such as call display.

But in a landmark decision in 2000 that dealt with long distance telephone competition, the creation of a supplementary fund to subsidize local telephone services in northern Canada, and Northwestel's service improvement plan, the CRTC did not deal with dial-up Internet and calling features.

That changed after a recent review of the first year of Northwestel's service improvement plan, when the CRTC agreed that the phone company should be allowed to offer dial-up Internet in any community where it is not currently available.

The CRTC is still saying no to the extension of call display in northern Canada, however.

Northwestel's previously announced plan to offer a DSL high-speed Internet service in Iqaluit in August remains unchanged, Kennedy said.

"That was not included in the supplementary funding or anything like that. There was a good business case for it - market demand. There was a lot of lobbying, asking when is Northwestel going to bring in high-speed Internet," she said.

When that service arrives, Iqaluit will be the first community in Nunavut to enjoy high-speed Internet access.

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