G77

Been looking at various house listings - if it doesn't explicitly say "Cable Available", should I assume that it's not or that they just forgot to list it? Alternatively, how prevalent are DSL connections in Canada? I know Satellite based connections are available in remote areas, but think the latency would drive me insane....

Tuppence

Halifax would cover a lot of it. Depends where you would want to go to in the US though (I think we do New York, Washington, Boston and Tampa direct).

Low crime - of the sort of stuff that would probably affect you, yes, low. If you hang out in rough bits of town with the wrong people, you could get yourself shot if you really tried!

Just seen your cable comment. You can get 15Mb internet access in most of the HRM (I think) with Eastlink.

iaink

I wouldnt read too much into whether it says on the listing or not.

My area has cable...most home owners have satelite TV as its marginally cheaper, so might not necessarily remember it on a listing. Having said that we are too far from town to get cable internet.

DSL isnt uncommon, but I dont think its as ubiquitous as it is in the UK

Others have the microwave internet link, and latency isnt as bad as they thought it would be. For example dbd seems to get by OK doing work stuff...at least, he doesnt complain about it, and Im sure he would if it was bad

Snave

Well, I'm in Manotick and working in Kanata. 15 minutes from home to YOW, 30 minutes to the office. Rogers HiSpeed, and several properties available: http://orebweb1.oreb.ca/mlssearch/Se...sults_RES.aspx sorry - never worked out how to insert a hyperlink.
Village atmosphere, 30 minutes to downtown Ottawa for weekend breakfasts in the market, Ogdensburg just over the border an hour away. Love it!!!

club_biscuit

In ontario, if you really need to travel to many US destinations you need to get to pearson (toronto).

the idea that kingston or sarnia is an hour to a major airport is just silliness - it's an hour flight or 2.5hr drive from kingston to toronto. Ottawa gets you to a handful of U.S. cities, but not nearly as many and not nearly as often as Toronto does.

The east of the GTA may as well be another city if you need to get across to the airport in rush hour. Go west of the city toward oakville or burlington for better prices and access to the airport....and in those areas cable is not going to be a problem - so much so that people don't even think to include it as a feature on their house listing sometimes.

best of luck!

Danny B

It's not on the East Coast, but have you thought about the Thompson Okanagan area in BC?

Kamloops & Vernon in particular?

AlvicBC

Have a look at my location...it ticks all your boxes

MarkG

Saskatoon, though perhaps not on the last count: the murder rate here is something like 5 per 100,000, though it mostly seems to be drunk people stabbing each other in the more run-down parts of town. The worst crime that happens around where we live is people stealing construction supplies from the new houses being built, though we did have someone spray graffiti on a wall a couple of months back.

Also, at least for now, there are more decently-paid jobs than many areas with lower housing costs.

Mr Bean

Yeah me too.

clynnog

Cable is available in basically most communities in excess of about 1000 people in Canada. I believe most of the cable companies offer high speed internet with them. DSL is offered by Bell Sympatico and a series of re-sellers. I'm on cable internet and it works fine for me.

There is satellite internet available, but I believe it is more costly and slower.

Finally, there are a number of companies (i.e http://storm.ca/ that serve rural and small town communities that don't have either cable internet or Bell DSL.

In urban and small town areas, cable is standard and all homes have the wiring etc. already done. In rural areas for TV you have the rabbit ears or satellite TV option and then something like Storm. Storm seems to cover eastern Ontario, but I"m sure there are other companies in other areas.

stepnek

I don't think Cornwall has been mentioned, has it? We live in Cornwall and I've grown to be rather fond of the place. A population of 46,000 with very affordable property. It's right on the border with the States, and an hour's drive from both airports in Ottawa and Montreal.

No longer afflicted with the smelly output of the now closed Domtar plant I really think Cornwall should be promoting itself more.

clynnog

I may have said this before but the area along the river between Cornwall and Lancaster is very nice and the community of South Lancaster is quite pretty. As a City, Cornwall seems to have got out of the rut that Domtar was the only show in town. It is on the 401, an hour to Ottawa or Montreal, quite bi-lingual, steps to cheap smokes in the US and the hard scrabble world of northern New York, good skiing in the Adirondacks etc.

Now if they could just get rid of some of the houses you see on the bridge as you enter Cornwall from the US (on the east side of the bridge) and teach people how to drive on the roundabout on the street leading to the bridge.

Greenhill

Here're a couple of examples of what you'd get up here in NS.

http://www.mls.ca/PropertyDetails.as...ertyID=6606513

http://www.mls.ca/PropertyDetails.as...ertyID=6549956

If these houses have Eastlink, then you'd get 15Mbps (which I'm told is soon to go up to 25Mbps). Slightly rural locations and not too many jobs around but the area pretty much suits the requirements you listed.

stepnek

Ah so true. That roundabout is my little piece of England but people here really don't know how to use it.

And you're right about the very nice drive towards Lancaster by the river. There are some really nice spots around here.

G77

Wow, they are crazy! My concern would be around what would happen if I got made redundant or wanted to change jobs - no such thing as a job for life these days..... Very nice though