Aboriginal Connectivity Statistics

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Aboriginal Connectivity Statistics

• Purpose
• Initial purpose was to verify the existence of,
  then track trends of the Aboriginal digital
  divide.

• Other countries are tracking Aboriginal
  connectivity issues

• Important to aggregate all connectivity
  initiatives to present the most accurate picture
  to policy makers

• Provide a source of information for communities
  that are struggling to get online

• Address the need to track trends in connectivity
  rather than capture a snapshot Internet
  connectivity rates are a moving target.

• Create a coordinated centre to deal with the
  difficulties of analysing connectivity in
  Aboriginal communities
• Population, counting, geographic challenges
• Seasonal populations
• Community definitions

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Team/Interdepartmental/Stakeholder Sources
Report currently contains information from
Industry Canada Schoolnet, Community Access
Point sites, insight and dialogue with broadband
research group.

• Indian and Northern Affairs
• Survey of 720 Aboriginal communities with a 75
  response rate
• Population community data

Private Sector Telecom Service Improvement
plans filed with the CRTC and IPS dial in
locations
Statistics Canada Census data for community
demographics.
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Difficulties Faced when collecting Information

• Community Definitions

A locality which is considered to be an Indian,
Inuit or Métis community (Indian reserve, Indian
settlement, Métis settlement, Inuit hamlet or
census sub-division with 25 percent or more
aboriginal population) having the following
attributes a name, distinct physical location
and territory, and aboriginal governance
structure, mandate and constituency

• Not all Band or community administration offices
  are on reserve

• Survey Fatigue

• Connectivity status changes quicker than our
  survey turnaround

• Change in community administrative personnel.

• Potential skewing of data because of inability
  to contact some communities

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General Findings
Community Access

• Over 85 of Aboriginal communities
• are connected to the Internet at the
• community level.

• Most communities access the
• Internet using dial-in modems

• 28 of dial-in users incur long
• distance telephone charges.

• Use of the Internet at the community
• administration office varies between
• Provinces and Territories

• Subscription to high speed Internet
• services at the community administration
• office are low but increasing.

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General Findings
Household Access

• 89 of Aboriginal communities can
• have access to the Internet at the
• household level.

• 84 rely on modems for their
• connection

• 29 of dial-in users incur long
• distance telephone charges.

• Use of the High Speed Internet
• services varies between Provinces
• and Territories

• Availability of high-speed Internet
• services is directly correlated to
• community population.

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CRTC High Cost Serving Areas Ruling

• In 1999 the CRTC established the following basic
  service objective for local carriers which
  included
• Individual line local service with touch-tone
  dialing, provided by a digital switch
• capability to connect via low speed data
  transmission to the Internet at local rates
• other functionality such as call display etc

In keeping with ruling, phone companies have/are
submitting Service Improvement Plans (SIPs) which
describes, who, how much and why not (to
expensive, no demand, too few houses etc)

• Our analysis of the submitted
• SIPs indicates that
• 148 Aboriginal communities
• could benefit
• approximate investment of
• 41million dollars in
• telecommunications infrastructure
• more to come, someSIPs returned
• back from the CRTC to the phone
• company for more details

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CRTC High Cost Serving Areas Ruling (cont)
Internet Access Assessment by Telephone Providers

• As illustrated there are 145 exchanges serving
  Aboriginal communities that
• currently do not have an Internet Service
  Provider
• 61 of these locations are served via satellite,
  which makes toll free Internet
• access very costly
• Remaining 71 include small communities and
  locations served by older
• technology.
• Equipment upgrades may solve the technical
  issues but community size may
• limit the commercial attractiveness for an ISP.

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Issues to be address in the Future

• Re-survey Aboriginal communities that have
  provided incomplete or no information.

• Continue to analyse Service Improvement Plans as
  they are approved, and put into action

• Continue to track Federal and regional
  connectivity initiatives.

• Integrate data on Health Canada telehealth
  connectivity and remote sites project.

Next Steps

• Collect feedback on draft report and implement
  recommendations
• mailto connectivity_at_inac.gc.ca

• By April 30th launch of the Aboriginal
  Connectivity Website (real-time results - Instant
  results, graphics and statistics whenever a
  community connectivity profile is updated)

• Forward completed report to the CRTC, Telcos,
  Innovation/IC and other telecommunications policy
  makers for their review and input

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End