Public good, private providers?: Alternative internet networks in Alberta
Date
2021-01-15
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Abstract
Despite high-speed broadband access being named a basic service by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in late 2016, many Canadians remain cut off from the internet, unable to participate in the social, economic, and political facets of life that have increasingly moved online. This research project considers existing alternative internet network models in Alberta. Instead of waiting for incumbent internet service providers to solve the problem of universal access, several Albertan communities have taken steps to connect themselves. Twenty years after the inception of the provincial internet backbone, the SuperNet, how have Albertan communities engaged with internet infrastructure? As politicians, regulators, and citizens increasingly state the essential nature of high-quality, affordable internet service as a public good, what lessons, if any, can be learned from the different ways non-incumbent operators conceptualize, build, and operate alternative networks? Using qualitative interviews, policy documents, and marketing materials, I focus on three network models: a fixed wireless access network in a rural community, a non-profit internet exchange, and a municipally-owned and operated fibre network in an urban centre. Drawing upon political economy of communications literature as a theoretical framework, I consider what policy recommendations can be made based on these case studies.
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community broadband, alternative networks, political economy of communications, Internet policy, telecommunications policy
Citation
Anderson, K. M. (2021). Public good, private providers?: Alternative internet networks in Alberta (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.