I don't think we have far worse service than the US. North America lags parts of Europe and Asia by a wide margin, but I fail to see how the US is ahead of Canada.
Rural areas here are often underserved and it's no secret we are probably as bad as the US on that front. But worse? I doubt it.
My family in Barnwell, Alberta (pop. 600) has at least DSL these days, and possibly even cable, delivering streaming video and all that without any trouble. There are more remote locations so maybe it's not representative but it's the only info I have personally verified on that.
I live in BC and use Shaw's network to transfer at least 100 gigs per month, every month, at about 15mbps down and about 0.5 to 2 mbps up (like everyone else in North America). This costs $40/mo or something like that. I've done this for over 7 years and have received exactly 1 email from Shaw to inform me that I'm exceeding my limit. The email politely asked that I not do so and I ignored it without hearing anything further.
When mobile I use my phone as a 3G modem tethering my notebook and/or iPad to it using BlueTooth or WiFi. I have 6 GB of transfer each month and regularly use 2 to 6 GB each month. Speeds are pretty good at around 2 to 3 mbps down and something typically abysmal up. I pay $20/mo for the data service.
I have a choice in service on both fronts. Not enough choice for my liking, but a choice nonetheless.
So how is Canada worse than the US? I think we need to establish that the situation is indeed poorer here than in the US before we ask why.
I've lived in Toronto, Ottawa, London, Waterloo, and Vancouver - and let me say Shaw's service is not the norm for the rest of Canada.
I live in the US now and I can say confidently that US home broadband is well ahead of most of Canada (particularly, Ontario), where the data caps are onerous, throttling and packet shaping extreme, prices sky-high, and your throughput is not anywhere near advertised. Ontario is a complete internet backwater by any measure.
I moved from the UK to the Toronto area and I have to say that Canada is the fall pile from a crap-chute.
I'm currently with Cogeco cable and they're mostly accurate with their throughput even close to peak times, however the price is high and the bandwidth amount is appallingly low.
I'm actually lucky that being tech-knowledgeable I've been able to deal with their workers well (it helps one of my friends works there, but didn't help when I moved into my apartment as he couldn't do the install) so they'll max-out my up and down (my mother-in-law has 3mbps upload when she should have ~500K thanks to me talking to the guy).
Rural areas here are often underserved and it's no secret we are probably as bad as the US on that front. But worse? I doubt it.
My family in Barnwell, Alberta (pop. 600) has at least DSL these days, and possibly even cable, delivering streaming video and all that without any trouble. There are more remote locations so maybe it's not representative but it's the only info I have personally verified on that.
I live in BC and use Shaw's network to transfer at least 100 gigs per month, every month, at about 15mbps down and about 0.5 to 2 mbps up (like everyone else in North America). This costs $40/mo or something like that. I've done this for over 7 years and have received exactly 1 email from Shaw to inform me that I'm exceeding my limit. The email politely asked that I not do so and I ignored it without hearing anything further.
When mobile I use my phone as a 3G modem tethering my notebook and/or iPad to it using BlueTooth or WiFi. I have 6 GB of transfer each month and regularly use 2 to 6 GB each month. Speeds are pretty good at around 2 to 3 mbps down and something typically abysmal up. I pay $20/mo for the data service.
I have a choice in service on both fronts. Not enough choice for my liking, but a choice nonetheless.
So how is Canada worse than the US? I think we need to establish that the situation is indeed poorer here than in the US before we ask why.
Looks like the % of population online is similar: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats14.htm#north
Any other relevant data on this?