Official site of the City of Ottawa

Broadband Plan

Executive Summary

The Broadband Plan has been developed for the residents, businesses and institutions of Ottawa based on research on the latest technology trends in networking and access technologies as well as broadband applications, and a review of initiatives implemented by other communities. The plan - stemming from the community-developed vision statement below - has also been shaped by extensive consultation with key stakeholders as well as the community at large.

Ottawa's Broadband Vision Statement

"Ottawa will be a world leader in the provision of affordable, high quality, equitable broadband access to all its citizens. Ottawa's new broadband network will form an integral part of the infrastructure of the City and will be rapidly deployed, competitive, cost effective, scaleable for future growth and compatible with existing and emerging provincial and national high-speed networks."

This plan is a road map for ensuring that Ottawa's vision of universal broadband services throughout the City becomes a reality in five years. Equipping businesses, institutions and residents in Ottawa with this service will help expand the City's innovative economy by attracting new jobs and investments to the community. Broadband connectivity will improve Ottawa's competitiveness with other jurisdictions, which are also aggressively pursuing similar broadband connectivity strategies.

The Broadband Plan outlines the activities required to make the Vision a reality within 5 years of Council's adoption of the document. The plan reviews the current state of broadband connectivity in Ottawa and the areas that are being served by this technology. Information concerning the technology and applications for broadband services and the economic benefits of ubiquitous broadband services throughout Ottawa are also discussed. The Broadband Plan identifies what is in place today and what is needed to ensure that Ottawa becomes a world leader in broadband access. The gaps in "infrastructure", the cables, wires and equipment needed to provide broadband services, are also outlined.

Objective: To Enhance Economic Growth and Quality of Life

Deploying state of the art telecommunication infrastructure that can support the next generation of high-bandwidth applications throughout all of Ottawa will help to:

• Expand the City's innovation economy by connecting businesses, organizations and people with ideas efficiently and cost effectively through broadband infrastructure and services;
• Enable companies to build, test and bring to market new high-bandwidth applications and services. These companies in turn will attract knowledge-based workers to the City and create new sources of wealth;
• Improve quality of life through access to innovative online healthcare, education, government and commercial services;
• Reduce daily commuter traffic by promoting tele-working via broadband from the home;
• Bridge the "digital divide" between urban and rural Ottawa and foster economic development outside the urban core. (In this context the digital divide refers to the social gap between those who have access to the Internet and those in the community who for various reasons, do not.)

Ottawa's Broadband Gaps

In 2000, Ottawa as a percentage of total households had the highest rate (i.e. 65.2%) of Internet users of all major centres in Canada - over 500,000 Ottawa citizens are home Internet users. In comparison, Toronto had a rate of 57.9% of total households connected to the Internet and Montreal achieved a rate of only 46.6%. Unfortunately the connectivity in Ottawa is not evenly distributed and is mostly found in the larger urban areas of the City. Outside of those areas approximately 6,000 households have access to currently available high-speed Internet service, while an estimated 24,000 households, in rural Ottawa, cannot get broadband service with the exception of relatively high cost satellite connectivity.

Next: Introduction