What are the key driving factors affecting our society?

Consideration of 5 of the last major technological revolutions of the last 200 years might be useful tool to provide a focus for current development challenges:

• Mechanization and production exemplified by the Industrial Revolution of Britain. 1770-1800.
• The Age of Steam and the development of robust and efficient transportation networks with railways effecting national economies and international economies effected more by Ocean Steam Liners. 1830-1850
• Steel Electricity and Heavy Engineering. 1875-1900
• The Age of Oil, Automobiles and Mass Production. 1900-1930
• The Age of Information and Telecommunications. 1970-2000

Notice that each of the revolutions took roughly 30 years from inception to proliferation. From the point of mass adoption offering "proof" of the value of the technology, the ultimate success in how well any technological revolution provides society with sustained positive affects depends in part on how well we manage those challenges.

Some of these particular revolutions have obviously had varying degrees of impact throughout the life cycle of it's impact. For example, right now many are concerned about the future availability of energy and the impact of fosil fuel consumption on our climate. Still others are concerned about transportation and the impact of energy costs on our lives.

The recent problems in our economy have very much been impacted by each of these technological revolutions. Any particular technology hasn't by itself solved all of society's long term challenges. Each successive revolution feeds into the next and the evolutionary path of each revolution is riddled with collapes and societal upheaval including many revolutions marking the significant turning points.

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry can surely play a substantial roll in helping to provide many solutions to our communities problems. The directions we take with these new technologies can have a profound impact on our economies both globally and locally.

We believe the Medicine Hat Fiber To The Home project can help provide our community some of the critical infrastructure that can help our community take full advantage of the Information and Knowledge revolution to contribute to a prosperous future for our community.

Customer Empowered Networking is at the core of this fundamental paradigm shift. The communication networks of tomorrow need to be built in a robust fashion and it doesn't make sense to allow several providers to deploy parallel networks in every city.

The goal should be to build a robust infrastructure that can be shared by many service providers just like we build railways and roads to facilitate trade, we need to take control of our networked future.

The solution involves building the supporting fibre optic network infrastructure in our communities which can contribute to the effective utilization of new technologies. The availability and proliferation of fibre is a critical infrastructure element for our communities during the natural progression of the revolution brought about in our society by the Information Age.

This allows people to connect to other people. Users can extend their network at home to Schools, Libraries, Medical Facilities. Users can access Telephone, Video and of course literally thousands of other services on "The Internet". The global economic network represented by "The Internet" is the emergence of a new era of global competition and innovation.

A number of municipalities across Canada and around the world are deploying fibre networks. It is clear that our municipalities and regional governments have a role to play in helping facilitate building the infrastructure that will allow the people of our communities to have fibre.

The benefits that municipal broadband project bring to a community are large and many, including:

• Attracting new families made up of "knowledge workers" and telecommuters to the community, to get away from the cities, traffic, and to enjoy a healthier lifestyle.
• Attracting businesses that need large bandwidth, like call centres, engineering companies.
• Stimulating economic development.
• Boosting quality of life within the community.
• Delivering cost-effective communication helping to eliminate isolation.
• Providing technical jobs, so young adults are not forced to leave the community to pursue career opportunities.
• Stimulating the economy for new, local, home-based business start-ups that operate over the Internet.

These benefits can be a powerful justification for funders. Another option is for community residents to form a community based “service provider co-operative,” whereby they pool funding and resources to aggregate their purchasing power and start up a service provider business themselves, enabling the benefits of inexpensive high-speed broadband access.

Significant opportunities exist for a municipality to fulfill many of it's goals for all it's citizens. The SuperNet provides an excellent model to learn from and Community FIber To The Home projects represent the completion and full realization of the benefits of fibre broadband.

Organizations who are interested in learning more or starting a similar project us are encouraged to contact us.

Of course an email with an expression of support would be much appreciated.

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