THIS IS FOR ARCHIVAL PURPOSE ONLY
RURAL OTTAWA BROADBAND
Oct. 2006: City of Ottawa in partnership with Xplornet, a division of Barrett Xplore, to spend $1 million to provide affordable broadband access to all rural residents and businesses. Currently 60% of rural Ottawa has broadband service.
Nov. 2007: High-speed Internet service is now available to virtually all of rural Ottawa. [Rural Broadband Project]
2006: Rural Profile (City of Ottawa)
The following provides statistics about Ottawa's rural population, types of businesses, workers, and broadband Internet service.
Ottawa's rural regions have a low population density - on average just
over 3 persons per hectare, or approximately 33 persons per square kilometer.
More than 40% of the residents and businesses in the region have no access
to broadband Internet.
The low population density makes the cost of providing DSL or cable
broadband services prohibitive because of the large capital infrastructure
costs.
While line-of-sight wireless solutions are affordable in areas
where topography permits and towers are available, this too, is only a
partial solution without prohibitively large capital infrastructure costs
to provide full coverage.
Most residents in the City's rural regions are farmers, small business
owners, and commuters and tele-workers that work in the city's urban centre.
There are approximately 1,700 farms and 2,000 other businesses
in the area.
The primary industries are agriculture, property and construction,
service, retail, and tourism and hospitality.
There are an estimated 5,000 SoHo (small office, home office) workers
in the rural regions. They are the single largest economically significant
group.
For information contact:
Chris Cope 613-580-2424 x 28991 Chris.Cope@ottawa.ca
Economic Development Branch,
Planning and Growth Management Dept.
City of Ottawa
110 Laurier Ave. West, 4th Floor
Ottawa, ON K1P 1J
Oct/2006 