In the new information economy, the value of a nation's citizenry can be measured in part by their ease of access to the high-speed data networks, most importantly the Internet, linking the world today. As the Internet evolves towards a rich, pervasive medium, so grows the importance of broadband—high-throughput, high-availability—Internet access at home. Many would expect the United States, birthplace of the Internet, to be a leader in residential broadband service. However, thanks to an early start in deploying these services and the aggressive targets set by its government, Canada is well ahead of the United States in providing broadband Internet access to its people.

Canada's leadership in broadband adoption is a fact. A report prepared in 2001 for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) lists Canada second among thirty member nations in terms of broadband penetration, with approximately six percent of households subscribing to either cable or DSL Internet service. The United States is fourth, at about half the figure [Paltridge, 2001, p. 14].

Part of the reason for this lead is the head start Canada had in deploying broadband services. Cable Internet access became available in November of 1996 with the rollout of the WAVE service [Careless, 1997], beating the arrival of cable broadband in the United States by roughly two years [Palazzo, 2000]. The competition created in the Canadian telecommunications market by WAVE then spurred the early launch of residential DSL service by telephone carriers. In fact, Saskatchewan's regional operating carrier, SaskTel, was one of the very first in the world to offer DSL service to residential customers [Paltridge, 2001, p. 24].

By comparison, broadband service got to a slow start in the United States, with cable Internet service unavailable until 1998. Surprisingly, this is due in part to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) itself, which regulates the U.S. communications industry. Its Cable Act, passed in 1992, brought legislation forcing a reduction in the subscription rates of cable services. This took revenue away from cable companies, who claim the loss prevented them from making investments in the cable infrastructure needed to support two-way data service [Hundt, 2000, p. 33]. Despite protest from the industry, the FCC repeated this mistake with another mandated rate reduction in February of 1994 [Cozic, 1996, p. 75].

The FCC's actions delayed the arrival of affordable broadband service from telephone providers as well. Without competition in the marketplace, the regional carriers had no motivation to offer DSL service to American homes, choosing instead to market more expensive T-1 and ISDN lines [Sachs, 2001]—the exact opposite of events in Canada.

While lack of interference by the government may have helped Canada get ahead of the U.S. in the early years of broadband, its actions now guarantee Canadian leadership in broadband for the years to come. The Canadian government has set for itself the goal of providing broadband access to every Canadian community by 2004, and in 2000 established the National Broadband Task Force to advise on achieving this target [“Broadband primer”, 2002].

An important component of the government's strategy will be fixed wireless technology, which delivers high-speed Internet access over two-way radio and promises to reach areas too remote for landline service. The government has already licensed spectrum for fixed wireless use [“Canada broadband overview”, 2002], and is promoting its development with large investments in the private sector. An example is the recent $4.6 million Technology Partnerships Canada investment in Redline Communications, Inc., a developer of fixed wireless technology [“Government of Canada investment”, 2002].

For the last eight years, Canadians have enjoyed living in one of the best-connected countries in the world. Thanks to aggressive planning by its government, Canada is set to maintain its position ahead of the United States as a provider of broadband access to its citizens.