News stories highlighting the breadth and depth of the digital divide and its impacts in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic have dominated the headlines in recent months, but a new report emphasizes the degree to which dozens of communities in one Canadian province have struggled with connectivity issues for years. The recently released Nunavut Infrastructure Gap Report [pdf] shows what broadband access looks like for the 35,000 or so mostly Inuit residents of the nation’s youngest province, and what solutions exist for closing the gap for tens of thousands who struggle to get online.

Nunavut is the northernmost of Canada’s provinces, made up of two interlocking geographies: the landmass immediately north of Manitoba and east of the Northwest Territories, and the large collection of islands curled around Baffin Bay to the west of Greenland. It has a population barely 1/20th the size of Wyoming (the U.S.’s smallest by population) despite being the second-largest political subdivision by area in North America, and a population density of just 0.05 persons/square mile.

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A Host of Infrastructure Gaps

News stories highlighting the breadth and depth of the digital divide and its impacts in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic have dominated the headlines in recent months, but a new report emphasizes the degree to which dozens of communities in one Canadian province have struggled with connectivity issues for years. The recently released Nunavut Infrastructure Gap Report [pdf] shows what broadband access looks like for the 35,000 or so mostly Inuit residents of the nation’s youngest province, and what solutions exist for closing the gap for tens of thousands who struggle to get online.

Nunavut is the northernmost of Canada’s provinces, made up of two interlocking geographies: the landmass immediately north of Manitoba and east of the Northwest Territories, and the large collection of islands curled around Baffin Bay to the west of Greenland. It has a population barely 1/20th the size of Wyoming (the U.S.’s smallest by population) despite being the second-largest political subdivision by area in North America, and a population density of just 0.05 persons/square mile.

Image

A Host of Infrastructure Gaps

News stories highlighting the breadth and depth of the digital divide and its impacts in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic have dominated the headlines in recent months, but a new report emphasizes the degree to which dozens of communities in one Canadian province have struggled with connectivity issues for years. The recently released Nunavut Infrastructure Gap Report [pdf] shows what broadband access looks like for the 35,000 or so mostly Inuit residents of the nation’s youngest province, and what solutions exist for closing the gap for tens of thousands who struggle to get online.

Nunavut is the northernmost of Canada’s provinces, made up of two interlocking geographies: the landmass immediately north of Manitoba and east of the Northwest Territories, and the large collection of islands curled around Baffin Bay to the west of Greenland. It has a population barely 1/20th the size of Wyoming (the U.S.’s smallest by population) despite being the second-largest political subdivision by area in North America, and a population density of just 0.05 persons/square mile.

Image

A Host of Infrastructure Gaps

News stories highlighting the breadth and depth of the digital divide and its impacts in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic have dominated the headlines in recent months, but a new report emphasizes the degree to which dozens of communities in one Canadian province have struggled with connectivity issues for years. The recently released Nunavut Infrastructure Gap Report [pdf] shows what broadband access looks like for the 35,000 or so mostly Inuit residents of the nation’s youngest province, and what solutions exist for closing the gap for tens of thousands who struggle to get online.

Nunavut is the northernmost of Canada’s provinces, made up of two interlocking geographies: the landmass immediately north of Manitoba and east of the Northwest Territories, and the large collection of islands curled around Baffin Bay to the west of Greenland. It has a population barely 1/20th the size of Wyoming (the U.S.’s smallest by population) despite being the second-largest political subdivision by area in North America, and a population density of just 0.05 persons/square mile.

Image

A Host of Infrastructure Gaps

News stories highlighting the breadth and depth of the digital divide and its impacts in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic have dominated the headlines in recent months, but a new report emphasizes the degree to which dozens of communities in one Canadian province have struggled with connectivity issues for years. The recently released Nunavut Infrastructure Gap Report [pdf] shows what broadband access looks like for the 35,000 or so mostly Inuit residents of the nation’s youngest province, and what solutions exist for closing the gap for tens of thousands who struggle to get online.

Nunavut is the northernmost of Canada’s provinces, made up of two interlocking geographies: the landmass immediately north of Manitoba and east of the Northwest Territories, and the large collection of islands curled around Baffin Bay to the west of Greenland. It has a population barely 1/20th the size of Wyoming (the U.S.’s smallest by population) despite being the second-largest political subdivision by area in North America, and a population density of just 0.05 persons/square mile.

Image

A Host of Infrastructure Gaps

News stories highlighting the breadth and depth of the digital divide and its impacts in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic have dominated the headlines in recent months, but a new report emphasizes the degree to which dozens of communities in one Canadian province have struggled with connectivity issues for years. The recently released Nunavut Infrastructure Gap Report [pdf] shows what broadband access looks like for the 35,000 or so mostly Inuit residents of the nation’s youngest province, and what solutions exist for closing the gap for tens of thousands who struggle to get online.

Nunavut is the northernmost of Canada’s provinces, made up of two interlocking geographies: the landmass immediately north of Manitoba and east of the Northwest Territories, and the large collection of islands curled around Baffin Bay to the west of Greenland. It has a population barely 1/20th the size of Wyoming (the U.S.’s smallest by population) despite being the second-largest political subdivision by area in North America, and a population density of just 0.05 persons/square mile.

Image

A Host of Infrastructure Gaps

News stories highlighting the breadth and depth of the digital divide and its impacts in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic have dominated the headlines in recent months, but a new report emphasizes the degree to which dozens of communities in one Canadian province have struggled with connectivity issues for years. The recently released Nunavut Infrastructure Gap Report [pdf] shows what broadband access looks like for the 35,000 or so mostly Inuit residents of the nation’s youngest province, and what solutions exist for closing the gap for tens of thousands who struggle to get online.

Nunavut is the northernmost of Canada’s provinces, made up of two interlocking geographies: the landmass immediately north of Manitoba and east of the Northwest Territories, and the large collection of islands curled around Baffin Bay to the west of Greenland. It has a population barely 1/20th the size of Wyoming (the U.S.’s smallest by population) despite being the second-largest political subdivision by area in North America, and a population density of just 0.05 persons/square mile.

Image

A Host of Infrastructure Gaps

News stories highlighting the breadth and depth of the digital divide and its impacts in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic have dominated the headlines in recent months, but a new report emphasizes the degree to which dozens of communities in one Canadian province have struggled with connectivity issues for years. The recently released Nunavut Infrastructure Gap Report [pdf] shows what broadband access looks like for the 35,000 or so mostly Inuit residents of the nation’s youngest province, and what solutions exist for closing the gap for tens of thousands who struggle to get online.

Nunavut is the northernmost of Canada’s provinces, made up of two interlocking geographies: the landmass immediately north of Manitoba and east of the Northwest Territories, and the large collection of islands curled around Baffin Bay to the west of Greenland. It has a population barely 1/20th the size of Wyoming (the U.S.’s smallest by population) despite being the second-largest political subdivision by area in North America, and a population density of just 0.05 persons/square mile.

Image

A Host of Infrastructure Gaps

The Fibre Centre began linking Boston and Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, in April 2015 with dark fiber. The network neutral 25,000 square foot is a network-neutral data center and meet-me-room where physical networks can connect. The project “offers a route around the big-city carrier hotels” and its visionaries hope to reproduce it in other communities.

Hub City Updated

In 2000, a now defunct company invested $960 million to lay a giant fiber-optic cable between the Canadian Maritimes and Europe. When the company went bankrupt, Hibernia acquired the fiber, which runs under the community of Moncton. There is also a second similar cable running in the city of about 72,000 people, which put Moncton in a good location for a colocation facility. The community obtained the nickname “Hub City” back when railroads where the main form of transportation, but the nickname still applies.

The city helped establish the Fibre Centre within Moncton as a way to contribute to economic development and improve services for the city. One of the owners of the facility, Hunter Newby, has visited us for the Community Broadband Bits podcast episodes 111 and 104. Newby has been involved in other carrier neutral projects and hopes to reproduce this model in other communities.

Ryan Sorrey, Director of Information Systems for Moncton described some of the benefits to the city:

“Our partnership with the Fibre Centre has provided our organization with several advantages, including enhanced reliability, access to higher speed network(s), and opportunity for increased connectivity between municipalities for greater collaboration, and the benefit of more direct connections to major cloud providers.”

Economic Development

The Fibre Centre began linking Boston and Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, in April 2015 with dark fiber. The network neutral 25,000 square foot is a network-neutral data center and meet-me-room where physical networks can connect. The project “offers a route around the big-city carrier hotels” and its visionaries hope to reproduce it in other communities.

Hub City Updated

In 2000, a now defunct company invested $960 million to lay a giant fiber-optic cable between the Canadian Maritimes and Europe. When the company went bankrupt, Hibernia acquired the fiber, which runs under the community of Moncton. There is also a second similar cable running in the city of about 72,000 people, which put Moncton in a good location for a colocation facility. The community obtained the nickname “Hub City” back when railroads where the main form of transportation, but the nickname still applies.

The city helped establish the Fibre Centre within Moncton as a way to contribute to economic development and improve services for the city. One of the owners of the facility, Hunter Newby, has visited us for the Community Broadband Bits podcast episodes 111 and 104. Newby has been involved in other carrier neutral projects and hopes to reproduce this model in other communities.

Ryan Sorrey, Director of Information Systems for Moncton described some of the benefits to the city:

“Our partnership with the Fibre Centre has provided our organization with several advantages, including enhanced reliability, access to higher speed network(s), and opportunity for increased connectivity between municipalities for greater collaboration, and the benefit of more direct connections to major cloud providers.”

Economic Development