I’ve often maintained that without ubiquitous access to the internet for everyone regardless of where they live a lot of the technology people talk about for the future won’t happen; or we will deepen the existing technological divide. To do this requires some serious commitment and dollars. While I would prefer a more universal approach to dealing with making access it is great to see the Canadian province of Saskatchewan stepping up to the plate on this.

As part of a larger plan the government is committing to making high-speed internet available to everyone in the province. Now given that much of the province is rural part of the $129 million is also being committed to increasing cell phone coverage from its current 96 per cent up to 98 per cent. In an e-mail to CBC News Ian Grant, president of telecommunications consultancy SeaBoard Group said

“This initiative will bring Saskatchewan to [the] forefront of North America (where we’d argue it already almost was). One hundred per cent is a pretty ambitious goal, especially in a territory as big and as disseminated as Saskatchewan.”

While this approach will work for provincial crown corporations that run the provinces phone system as in Saskatchewan it won’t work for provinces where private corporations like Bell or Rogers controls communication services. Even so I am really glad to see this kind of initiative being taken as it addresses the very real problem of rural access to things like cell phone coverage and high-speed Internet access.

But while I might be happy that a Canadian province is taking this kind of initiative I’m disappointed it’s not the province I live in.

[hat tip to Michael Geist]

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