What's the availability of broadband outside of the major Canadian cities?

I'll need to apply for work (Nursing) outside the major cities as I'll need to keep things 'cheap(er) and cheerful', applying on one of the PNP programmes.

I would be so miserable without my broadband access, skype, etc... but hey! If needs must.

Just thought I'd broach the subject on the forum. Is broadband access outside the major cities widespread, personal, or communal, such as inside the local civic centre or library?

Thanks

Coverage is very limited. We're 75 miles from the CN Tower and have no broadband option here.

I can't speak for the whole of Canada but there is alot of investment going on in NS. A commitment has been made to cover all rural areas around HRM by the end of 2009.

I am sure that if you google it you can find out what the plans are in other provinces.

Thanks for the quick reply... not looking good for my broadband access outside the big cities then!

May well have to have a re-think here.

Checked out your blog... now that's what I call snow

Thanks again

Don't be put off. You can find quite rural feeling areas hear to major cities that have broadband.

When you have decided on a province and rough location, just find a realtor and ask them to check out what areas are covered.

Why don't you put a poll on BE to give yourself some ideas?

I'm 4.5hrs from a major city (Vancouver), and 20 mins drive from downtown Kamloops. I've access to cable TV/phone/internet - it's going to depend very much on what local infrastructure's been put in place.

I agree with R I C H it very much depends on where you want to go.

Alberta has had a very ambitious program completed in 2006 I believe, called Alberta SuperNet were the intent was to bring high speed internet to virtually the entire province.

More information at this link. http://www.albertasupernet.ca/

Hi Doh....we're roughly 190 - 200 miles from Toronto, in the middle of very rural SW Ontario, and I'm writing this on Highspeed internet (Canadian-speak for Broadband), courtesy of Sympatico (part of Bell phone company). Only certain providers cover certain areas........the cheaper ones aren't in my area, but we negotiated a cheaper rate with Sympatico. I have friends who live about 30 miles west of here who don't have it! When we wanted to sign up there was a facility for keying in our postcode to find out whether or not it was available. We found all local libraries in this area have the highspeed service, so used that..........a free service, by the way....... til we went online.

Be very careful with that. Populated areas have local post codes, just the street or just the block, our six character post code translates to "Rural Dufferin County" and covers a large area some of which has cable, some of which has adsl, and most of which has neither. There are similar look ups based on phone number but they only tell you whether or not you can pay Bell for high speed, not whether or not it exists.

Other options in rural locations are microwave internet and satellite. We have the latter which is ok but expensive and weather prone.

I've just cleared it again. Do you fancy semi-rural living, a package deal on house, tractor, various critters?

Thank you - I am aware of that! The post codes out here are for only a particular town, and do work when checking for highspeed availability.

The post code thing was a surprise to me. In Toronto the postal code was just my house. When we moved here I wondered why mapquest thought we lived miles away. Recently I was working with a software package that pops up the descriptions and related maps and found out the awful truth.

Perhaps the Yukon has only one postal code.

Weird isn't it! But each town around here has it's own post code....just the one for the whole town!

That would maybe be because everyone has either a post office box or is listed as general delivery as an address?

No actual postal delivery?

Yup.....post office box in the post office from which we collect the mail. Population too small to warrant delivery by postpeople, friendly or otherwise.