Alex Reid

I love this!

From yesterday’s Globe and Mail:

Closing the digital divide in Winnipeg
Canadian Press

WINNIPEG — One of Winnipeg’s poorest neighbourhoods is poised to become the city’s only high-tech wireless Internet corridor, offering free access to low-income people.

Currently, there are hot spots associated with businesses throughout the city, but no neighbourhoods have joined the trend towards wireless Internet access.

Point Douglas is on its way to becoming the first.

“The Point Douglas area is one of the lowest-income areas in the city,” said Rhonda McCorriston, Neeginan Institute of Applied Technology education director.

“The people in Point Douglas are the ones that most need Internet access to bridge the digital divide.”

The digital divide is the gap between those who have access to a digital world of computers and Internet technologies and those who don’t because of their economic status. Those who don’t have access can miss out on job and educational opportunities.

The Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg has already installed a wireless antenna on its building with the help of Smart Partners of Manitoba and the Computer Lending Library.

Smart Partners of Manitoba, a non-profit group that focuses on giving low-income people access to computer and Internet technology, plans to loan out 1,000 computers.

“We don’t want to compete with the private sector. These people can’t afford to purchase their own Internet access,” Smart Partners executive director Karen Keppler said.

The broadcast area for the antenna is quite small and will only transmit a few blocks around the Aboriginal Centre.

Plans are in the works to get two-thirds of the Point Douglas wireless network completed by August, with the rest to be finished in stages.

Setting up the network will cost an estimated $45,000, with little needed for monthly maintenance, Ms. Keppler said.

Due to demand from the populace in Quebec and Southern Ontario, the Canadian telcos (Telecommunications Alliance) have agreed to add three digits to phone numbers in specific areas of Quebec and Ontario.

Between June 17 and June 24, 10-digit local dialing will begin in area codes 450, 514, and 819 in Quebec, and 519 and 613 in Ontario, and for local calls from 418 and 705 to those areas. Until October, callers who dial only seven digits will hear a recorded announcement advising them to dial 10 digits in future, but the call will go through.

Beginning in October, new area code 438 will be added to Montreal’s 514 area code, and area code 226 will supplement 519 in southwestern Ontario. The new codes will be assigned only to new numbers, once the 514 and 519 area code numbers are exhausted.

Toronto has had 10-digit dialing since 2000, and Vancouver since 2001. Other U.S. cities – including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Houston, and Miami – have also adopted the system.

With each new area code, brings 7 million new phone numbers.

See http://www.dial10.ca