Politicians and business leaders highlighted the issue during the Recognizing Rural Communities discussion, led by former MP Candice Bergen. The event featured two panels.

Bergen said federal politicians must better understand that Canada has a diversity of rural communities and different approaches are needed to meet their specific needs.

“Many of those challenges can only be addressed through a really focused effort, sector by sector.”

Accessible broadband internet and the need for reliable web connectivity in rural areas was a primary focus.

Gudie Hutchings, minister of rural economic development, spoke about her experience with this issue in the largely rural riding of Long Range Mountains in western Newfoundland.

“We heard from rural Canadians that broadband internet was the equalizer for economic development and for life,” she said.

She said broadband can help long-distance learning, career support and medical care and “it’s given families peace of mind.”

Dan Mazier, Manitoba MP for Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa and shadow minister of rural economic development, called rural Canada “the lifeline that fuels our country’s growth and prosperity,” but also acknowledged the gap in internet access that could prevent rural Canada from reaching its full potential.

“That means unlocking our abundant natural resources, including our energy and agriculture, not only for ourselves, but for the rest of the world. However, to fully harness this potential, we must address a pressing need, the need for high-speed internet and cellular connectivity.”

The first panel, Putting Rural Canada on the National Agenda, featured Liberal MP Francis Drouin, Conservative MP Lianne Rood and NDP MP Taylor Bachrach.

Drouin said a major concern in his Ontario riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell is the “exodus” of youth to Ottawa and Montreal. “Remote working, that’s a huge opportunity for us now, but we need access to internet.”

Bachrach, meanwhile, noted the challenge in recruiting health-care professionals to rural areas.

“We’re seeing emergency rooms put on diversion, people having to travel to other communities to access emergency services because there aren’t enough doctors. We need to ask ourselves: how do we create vibrant and sustainable communities that doctors and nurses want to move to?”

Rood said rural Canadians do not have enough options for fibre-optic internet.

Connecting “the last mile” to networks is an often noted challenge, she said, while other residents complain of “simply not having access even to basic cell phone service in some areas where, you know, farmers are very reliant on technology now, more than most people realize.

“Not having access to cell phone service, to the internet, availability to run the programs in their tractors, when you’re field mapping or you’re trying to test different places in your soil, it makes it very difficult.”

Investment and growth

The second panel, Business and Investment in Rural Canada, included Forest Products Association of Canada CEO Derek Nighbor, Canadian Telecoms Association CEO and former P.E.I. premier Robert Ghiz and Cathy Jo Noble of the National Cattle Feeders’ Association.

Ghiz said connectivity is “one of the themes to the solution.”

“We want to be able to connect more people. The more customers you have, the better off you do.”

But cost is a problem. Ghiz said most Canadians have access to broadband internet but the disparity grows when looking at rural communities.

“If you look at rural Canada today, rural Canada is only 67 per cent connected to home internet. That’s a lot of connectivity that needs to take place.”

The post Push continues for rural connectivity appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

That was one of the main takeaways from a recent poll commissioned by the Association of Manitoba Municipalities.

The poll, conducted by Probe Research, found that rural Manitobans are overwhelmingly concerned about mobile connectivity outside of the province’s cities.

Why it matters: Unreliable cellular service can be a safety concern that disproportionately affects farmers in remote areas.

Only a third of rural and northern Manitobans said their cell service is completely reliable in an emergency. Just under half indicated coverage is somewhat reliable, and one in five stated their service wasn’t reliable at all.

“Reliable cell network coverage is not just about making phone calls. It’s about safety,” said AMM president Kam Blight, noting poll results speak to the larger issue of rural connectivity, including broadband service.

“That has become critical infrastructure for work, for school, for running a business, for farming,” he said. “We need to get this right.”

Rural connectivity has been on the agenda of the Keystone Agricultural Producers since 2008. That year, the organization first passed a resolution committing to lobby for enhanced cell and high-speed internet. KAP president Jill Verwey said the organization continues to advocate on those services.

“Both are very important for farming operations,” she said.

Back in 2020, when Verwey was vice-president of the organization, KAP conducted a survey that closely mirrored the findings of the AMM poll. That survey found almost two-thirds of respondents were dissatisfied with their mobile phone and internet coverage.

“Farm operations require strong internet and cell coverage to conduct business and ensure that food continues to make its way to market,” said Verwey. “We have heard deep-seated frustration from both farm families and non-farmers about the state of connectivity in rural Manitoba, and providers cannot continue to ask us to pay for a service that is subpar, at best.”

The issue also burst into the spotlight in summer 2018 following a grain elevator fire in the southern Manitoba community of Crystal City and a tornado in the northwestern community of Alonsa.

Following the twister, Alonsa residents complained that they did not get the expected weather alerts on their phones, and community officials noted local government and community services could not spread warnings due to lack of cell service.

The fire caused similar complaints. Farmers trying to organize water hauling or contact friends or family said they could not connect, text messages didn’t go through and, unlike first responders, they did not have radios.

Election 2023

Under their Let’s Grow Manitoba Together pre-election campaign, the AMM has put the spotlight on issues like rural connectivity, hoping to turn them into election issues.

The campaign included a debate in April that invited all provincial party leaders. Rural connectivity was raised by Manitoba Liberal leader Dougald Lamont during a broader discussion on infrastructure.

“We’ve all experienced bad cell service. And that’s another thing that needs to be a huge priority,” he said. “Cell service is not a luxury. It’s absolutely essential because there are farmers and others who need to contact emergency services who can’t even get a cell signal.”

The province declined to comment on the AMM poll, saying cellular service falls under federal jurisdiction.

In May, James Teitsma, Manitoba minister of consumer protection and government services, said reliable connectivity is “critically important for the safety, well-being and economic success of all Manitobans.”

He was speaking about a contract dispute between internet company Xplore and Manitoba Hydro, which had paused a project to convert surplus Manitoba Hydro fibre-optic cable to an expanded broadband network in remote areas of the province.

“We are taking action to close the telecommunications gap for rural, northern and Indigenous communities, and this work is underway,” Teitsma said.

But he also said the responsibility doesn’t fall only to the provincial government.

“There is a role for the private sector as well as government, including the federal government’s commitment to connecting 98 per cent of Canadians to high-speed Internet by 2026,” he said.

The AMM poll, which included questions about funding for municipalities and public safety, was conducted in the first two weeks of June. It reached 1,000 Manitobans, 60 per cent in Winnipeg and 40 per cent outside the perimeter. The survey results are considered to have a margin of error of 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

“It’s an election year. We thought we’d check our provincial priorities against public sentiment,” Blight said. “It turns out the issues we’ve been pressing are through the roof in the public’s mind.”

The post AMM puts rural cell service in the hot seat appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

A deal between the rural-focused internet provider Xplore and Manitoba Hydro to use the Crown corporation’s surplus fibre-optic cables recently ground to a halt. Xplore had planned to use them to bring broadband internet services to remote rural and northern communities, but it is now complaining that it was being overcharged.

The issue came to light during question period at the Manitoba Legislature April 27, when NDP leader Wab Kinew read from a leaked internal email from Hydro that indicated progress had stopped.

The email, dated April 23, said the project was put on hold in mid-February and “remains on hold at the request of Xplore.”

Why it matters: Broadband connectivity is largely unavailable in rural Manitoba, especially at the farm level.

The email said Xplore was disputing the costs and that it had directed Manitoba Hydro to cease fibre work until the dispute was resolved.

“[Manitoba Hydro] is actively working to resolve this dispute; however, at this time, it’s unknown when a resolution will be reached or when the project will resume,” read the email.

At the time the project was shut down in mid-February, the email indicated only about 20 per cent of the project had been completed.

Neither Manitoba Hydro nor Xplore responded to requests for comment on the dispute.

The government deal with Xplore was announced in May 2021, when Brian Pallister was premier. The aim was to provide broadband services to nearly 30 First Nations and approximately 270 rural and northern communities. The agreement also included a commitment to provide 350 communities with cell phone access.

The province owned thousands of kilometres of unused, surplus-capacity fibre-optic cable. The network had been created to communicate with northern hydroelectric facilities and transmit data. After a competitive process, Xplore was awarded the contract, and the surplus fibre-optic capacity was made available to the company to expand its broadband and cell phone services to remote communities.

In an NDP press release, the party blamed the PC government’s “privatization agenda” for shutting down the project.

“A private company has forced Hydro to cease work on the project, and staff have been redeployed as there is no timeline to resume work. This sets a dangerous precedent that puts our publicly owned assets at risk,” said Adrien Sala, NDP critic for Manitoba Hydro.

“We are seeing yet again why the PC government’s privatization agenda is bad for rural Manitobans.”

In an email, Consumer Protection and Government Services Minister James Teitsma said the government remains committed to connecting remote communities.

“Reliable connectivity is critically important for the safety, well-being and economic success of all Manitobans,” he said.

Tietsma also defended having a private company provide the service.

“To connect more Manitobans with faster internet and cell service, there is a role for the private sector as well as government,” he said. “We are taking action to close the telecommunications gap for rural, northern and Indigenous communities, including making surplus fibre-optic capacity through the Manitoba Hydro network available.”

According to Keystone Agricultural Producers president Jill Verwey, it’s critical that the parties resolve their differences and get work back on track.

“Access to reliable and affordable broadband is something that we have been advocating for all along,” said Verway. “Without affordable broadband service, farmers are definitely at a disadvantage.”

She didn’t want to weigh in on the dispute, but said she hopes for a speedy resolution.

“I think we’re a long way away from getting that equitable access right across Manitoba just because of the vast nature of the province, but hopefully that work will continue to move in the direction where all farmers will have access to broadband as well as cell phone service. Both are very important for farming operations.”

The post Financial dispute halts rural broadband expansion appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Growing up in rural Manitoba, where our telephone “party line” was shared by six large families, connectivity was often a topic of discussion. Sometimes the line was in use when you wanted it. Sometimes, there was a little too much connectivity because the neighbour kids liked to listen in when the boyfriend called.

The late Gilbert Alexander Muir, formerly the chief engineer for the government-owned Manitoba Telephone System, wrote a whimsical history for the Manitoba Historical Society back in the 1960s of how this province became a North American leader in telecom services. Despite the utilitarian title, “A History of the Telephone in Manitoba,” Muir wrote a fun story well worth the read.

“In our age of jet transportation, space communications, computer technology and data transmission, the remembrances of the age in which the telephone took hold seems strange — like the tin-plated pictures in the family albums of yesteryear showing frock-coated grandfather, arms akimbo staring grimly at the camera,” he wrote.

Here’s the condensed version. Alexander Graham Bell discovered the telephone in 1876. The first telephones came to Winnipeg two years later. Bell’s patent expired in 1893. The resulting competition that saw linemen from competing companies cutting each other’s lines or sawing off their poles prompted the Manitoba government to take over responsibility for telecom services in 1908.

By the Roaring Twenties, almost every corner of the province was linked to the rest of Canada, the United States and several overseas points. Accomplishing all of that spanned five decades.

By comparison, the internet was first discovered in 1983, and nearly 40 years later, we are nowhere near to having rural Canadians connected beyond the most rudimentary levels — if at all.

The Council of Canadian Academies report “Waiting to Connect: The Expert Panel on High-Throughput Networks for Rural and Remote Communities in Canada” is a not-so-fun read, but nonetheless worthwhile as it zeros in on the urgency for a better strategy.

“Compared to urban centres, broadband connectivity in rural and remote regions has generally been characterized by slower transmission speeds, less availability, and higher costs,” it says.

Nationwide, more than half of rural households lacked access to services meeting the federal target, compared to just 1.4 per cent of urban households. In 2019, 86 per cent rural of Manitoba households lacked access to the federal government target of 50/10 (Mbps download/upload speeds) with unlimited monthly data transfer. Saskatchewan is doing only modestly better. The only places in Canada faring worse are Nunavut and Northwest Territories.

Plus, rural Canada is falling further behind. Even if the current strategy, which relies heavily on providing incentives to the private sector, meets the target of getting everyone in Canada up to those speeds, woefully slow by even 2021 standards, by 2030, urban Canada has already progressed far beyond. And the pace of change is accelerating.

“The reliance on market-based mechanisms to fund broadband connectivity programs in rural and remote communities has consistently failed to deliver levels of service comparable to those available in urban Canada,” the report says.

The authors note that the pandemic has sharpened focus on the impact of these connectivity gaps. People living in underserved communities were less able to function virtually, students were shut out of education, and patients have been unable to access health care.

It is not just about delivering access. Adoption rates are lower in rural Canada as well.

Incomes tend to be lower, which makes the higher cost of service less affordable. Digital literacy is lower and there is a lack of IT support when things go wrong. Indigenous communities are particularly hard hit by these factors, which places them at a disproportionate disadvantage.

In a nutshell, the report says improving access and adoption is not only fundamental to the future of rural Canada, it’s an important path towards our reconciliation of historic wrongs.

The story of connecting rural Canada via broadband has yet to be finished, but it’s becoming clearer that more of the same is not our path to a happy ending.

The post Editorial: Rural connectivity gap widening appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

In a tweet May 13, the AMM thanked Central Services Minister Reg Helwer for signing a memo of understanding with the internet service provider.

The province says the deal will bring broadband to about 300 rural and northern communities, including 30 First Nations, and will serve 350 communities with cellphone access, according to a May 13 news release.

It’s not clear how many of these communities do not have reliable internet or cellular service — Steinbach is on the list.

Xplornet will use surplus fibre-optic cable and infrastructure Manitoba Hydro owns throughout the province to expand its network.

“Access to Manitoba Hydro’s fibre-optic network and tower infrastructure will also greatly reduce the capital investments Xplornet needs to expand into rural and remote communities, allowing for a positive return on investment and the quick delivery of service to Manitobans,” said Helwer in a news release May 13.

Not all rural residents were pleased to hear the news.

“Their customer service is the worst I’ve ever had,” one woman commented on a Facebook post from Steinbach news outlet Steinbach Online. “I have to walk down my driveway in order to make calls to Xplornet when our service is down and then they argue that I need to be near my modem.”

The southeast corner of the province has long struggled with patchy internet and cellular service, as do many areas of rural and northern Manitoba.

“Partnering with the worst internet provider there is. Good luck,” said another commenter on the same Facebook page.

“What a disappointment,” a farmer wrote on Twitter.

Details of the agreement are still being finalized, the province said in a news release. It did not say when work will begin on the new project.

The post Province announces rural internet deal with Xplornet appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The Winnipeg Jets were battling the Edmonton Oilers on one laptop screen, while my spouse’s family were catching up on a Zoom call on the other.

As we closed the gap COVID has imposed amongst us, I couldn’t help but reflect how nice it would be to be able to do the same with my family.

However, that simply wouldn’t work. While the farm does have internet, and even Wi-Fi, the available bandwidth simply wouldn’t support a Zoom call. Or streaming Netflix. Or a myriad of other applications most of Canada now takes for granted.

It’s a frustrating reality for too many rural Canadians, and one that simply shouldn’t be.

We’re long past the time when internet access is anything but a necessity. Business, education, entertainment, interpersonal relationships — they’ve all rushed online in the past two decades.

But rural Manitoba continues to badly lag urban Manitoba when it comes to accessing the much-touted information superhighway.

Innovative farmers complain they can’t easily enter the world of data-driven agriculture because their data is being transported horse-and-buggy style. Farm families fret their children are being put at a disadvantage as more education resources move online. And a recent move to close MARD and MASC offices throughout rural Manitoba is sure to push more much-needed services online.

We’ve seen this rural disadvantage before. Take rural electrification in Manitoba, which began in earnest in the 1920s. The network slowly expanded connecting one rural community after another to the electrical grid.

But farms were largely left behind until a “push” in the postwar years electrified 50,000 farms in a 10-year period. By the time the program wound down in 1954, 90 per cent of the province’s farms were wired, and Manitoba led Western Canada in rural electrification.

A similar situation emerged with telephones. Provincial governments were extremely reluctant to run wire out to each individual farm.

Some farmers went so far as to build their own jury-rigged local party lines, using catalogue telephones connected to barbed wire fences.

Eventually however, the province got on board and telephone lines were run to farms across the province. But the same can’t be said for farm internet in 2021.

So far, the provincial and federal governments have done little but pay lip service to addressing this serious shortfall.

The federal government, for example, has earmarked $1.75 billion through its Universal Broadband Fund initiative. While it’s not exactly chump change, it’s also a relative drop in the bucket for a country of Canada’s size.

To put it in perspective, in 2019 a single telecommunications company — Rogers in this case — exceeded that with a $2.5-billion investment in its network, according to the company’s annual report.

Another company, Bell, has announced an $800-million spend in two cities alone. It will pump $400 million into both Hamilton and Winnipeg in the coming years.

Most of these private companies will almost undoubtedly make their investments in urban Canada, where they feel they’ll get the best bang for their buck.

Provincially, the response from the perennially cash-strapped provincial government has been even more anemic. It has partnered here and there with some of the existing telecom companies, and opened up Manitoba Hydro’s existing fibre optic network to some commercial operators. But that’s about it.

It seems if Canada’s new economy is going to be a digital one, the already infrastructure rich are about to get richer.

And it’s important to note that what little funding that has been earmarked is almost always aimed at “rural communities.” It would seem that Canada’s farms are, once again, going to be at the very end of the line for services the rest of the country has come to take for granted.

And unlike the past examples of building infrastructure out to farms, there seems to be little to no political will to invest in a digital push.

Perhaps that’s because there’s no longer a lot of farm votes to be had. Back in the ’40s and ’50s, so many more Manitobans lived on the farm, providing leaders with a powerful incentive to serve them.

But even more, it seems our society has lost its way when it comes to making investments for our own future. We don’t have that ‘moon shot’ mentality anymore.

One wonders, in today’s climate, if farmers would be told to fend for themselves when it comes to electrification and telephones.

Perhaps, eventually, Elon Musk’s vision of low-earth-orbit satellite internet will blanket the globe. But that’s a long way off.

In the meantime, as the digital age gathers steam, Manitoba’s farm families are getting left further and further behind.

The post Editor’s Take: The digital divide appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Most agricultural towns have broadband, but in the country cell service fades. Telematics produced by farm equipment has to be stored, getting pushed to the cloud at the farmyards while IoT devices use networks, like LoRaWAn. Network-controlled automation is impossible.

New tech in agriculture – like self-driving tractors, precision water uses or blockchains – can make a farm more efficient and sustainable, but a strong cellphone signal, or internet, is needed to make it work.

Consumers wanting well-sourced, sustainable food – and a story behind it – have little understanding of this technology.

Farmers haven’t told them. It is an untold chapter in the story of our food.

But if consumers knew about it – even a little bit, they might start realizing the need for better rural internet.

I live in a diverse city, surrounded by tons of millennials who have little knowledge of modern agriculture and big ideas about ensuring their food is sustainable.

The modern-day consumer is just trying to do the right thing in a world where it’s sometimes easy, but usually really hard, to figure out what the right thing actually is.

Vertical farming is an easy sell as the right thing to do, in part because it’s simple to explain to the consumer.

The disruptive technology is helping reduce food waste from harvest or travel, and the companies making these automated growing systems boast of reducing the geographic footprint of farming, lowering labour costs and decreasing water usage.

Plus, reliable crop yields.

Urban consumers love this stuff.

It seems like the right thing to do and it’s easy enough to understand.

Trouble is there isn’t even close to enough vertical farming to feed the country – let alone the world. Consumers trying to find the right thing to do can’t rely on vertical farming to meet their demands.

Thankfully, farmers are trying to do the right thing, too.

They’re adopting precision agriculture tools to become more sustainable by using technology to manage inputs and reduce waste.

But to do so, they’ll need access to the internet.

If consumers understand the role internet access plays in the story of making their food sustainable, they will realize the right thing to do is to ensure farmers can have that access.

Rural communities alone don’t have enough political pull to convince wide-scale government investment in improving universal broadband services.

Canada’s major telecoms don’t have enough of a business incentive to take it upon themselves and improve services, either.

Governments seem unsure of where or how to build out networks in an affordable way and, despite making investments or commitments, appear to be hoping if they wait long enough, the private sector will figure it out for them.

One of those wait-and-see private sector plays is Elon Musk’s StarLink. The famed tech titan is planning to launch low-orbit satellites to bring internet to remote places. It is likely years away from being successful, despite its huge potential.

Regional investment strategies between the telecoms and industry have promise, but aren’t happening on a wide scale.

Farmers should include the way they are using technology, and their need for the internet to do so, with the story of the food they are producing for consumers.

In turn, consumers wanting to reduce the carbon intensity of their food should advocate for better rural internet.

If there is enough will among consumers – voters – then universal internet can become a reality.

The post Opinion: Universal internet helps make food more sustainable appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Farmers will be well familiar with the frustrations of long-distance service, from the challenge of describing or diagnosing problems over the phone, to the trials of navigating number-option phone systems and automated messages.

The result, Saik argues, is often a “lacklustre experience,” and it’s something that he hopes his company’s Tech Direct platform can change.

Launched earlier this summer, Tech Direct promises to connect farmers for free with experts from a range of agribusinesses signed on with the service.

“The reason that we believe this is important is because, for one thing, a lot of the technical support people in companies are at home right now and they’re not on the road and not driving and many farmers don’t want them to drive into their yards,” Saik said, pointing to the ongoing issues with COVID-19.

Why it matters: More farmers are getting service remotely thanks to COVID-19, but AGvisorPRO says Tech Direct can take some of the inherent frustration out of the process.

Measures to curb the spread of the pandemic have created an “excess capacity” of experts, often company technicians or technical sales representatives, available for help, Saik said.

“What we do with Tech Direct is we register the company’s name and we register the company’s proprietary products and services and we register the company’s representatives,” he said.

Producers using the AGvisorPRO app can then search for the expert best able to help solve their specific issue.

Once connected, producers can interact with that expert through either audio or video. Sessions are set up to share technical information and high-resolution photos and are also recorded for later reference, if needed.

“As a farmer, I can go back next year and I can say, ‘What did he say last year about the timing for boron on canola?’ and all of that stuff is saved in the user’s account,” Saik said.

Visual elements of the service, such as video, are meant to ease some of the issues compared to audio alone.

Descriptions such as the, “blue ball valve on the north side of the sprayer,” are of limited use to technicians, Saik argued, compared to the ability to simply share visuals for diagnosis and service.

“We believe that this will not only support farmers, but we also believe this will support ag retail, because ag retail can have instantaneous conversations,” he said.

Similar benefits could apply to veterinary services, he noted. Earlier this year, local vets reported limiting farm visits due to COVID-19.

Flipping costs

The platform expands the prior AGvisorPRO service, launched last year as a “minimal viable product.”

“Farmers would pay,” Saik said. “They’d download the app for free and then they would be able to connect with experts and they would pay for that expertise. That’s only fair when you’re dealing with somebody who makes their living by basically offering their expertise.”

The business model for Tech Direct, however, flips that system on its head. Farmers no longer pay for their connection. Instead, Saik says, AGvisorPRO will make its money from agribusiness partners. Businesses pay an annual subscription, plus connection fee, to access customers using the platform.

The benefit, Saik says, is ultimate cost savings for the subscribing company.

“We save the company money by keeping the rep at home,” while still having that rep answer questions as if they were on site, he said.

Eleven businesses have signed on with Tech Direct so far, ranging from equipment firms AGI, Flaman and Pattison Liquid Systems, to agronomy or precision ag consultants like Point Forward Solutions, Sure Growth Solutions and Taurus Agricultural Marketing, to ATP Nutrition and Brandon’s Aberhart Ag Solutions. Realty firms like Hammond Realty, risk manage firm Global Ag Risk Solutions and financial firm 33seven round out the list.

Ag in Motion

The Tech Direct launch was enough to take honours from this year’s Ag in Motion (AIM) virtual farm show. AGvisorPRO, which launched its basic services during AIM last year, earned the farm show’s 2020 AIM Innovation Award for agribusiness services earlier this summer.

“To have AGvisorPRO come in with, I think, a new way to communicate with experts in the field — I think that’s pretty cool,” show director Rob O’Connor said at the time.

“The discussion at the committee level was, ‘How much further will this go?’” he added. “This probably opens up some new doors.”

The sheer size of Western Canada could easily translate to hours of distance between an expert and the farmer who needs to talk to them, O’Connor noted, while the Tech Direct has the possibility of instantaneous communication.

Connectivity

Lack of rural connectivity does provide some challenge to the technology.

“I’ll always bring this up,” Saik said. “You can’t have a smart farm with a stupid internet connection.”

Tech Direct was designed with “thin architecture” in order to make the most of sometimes scarce bandwidth, Saik noted. For example, he said, a video call will drop down to audio only if the connection lags.

“With all that being said, as we build out more robust functionality into the future, we’d like to have better coverage, and that’s an issue. That’s an issue for agriculture. Everybody is suffering from the same thing,” he said.

O’Connor also acknowledged the problem, although he expects the situation to improve.

“As these innovations come down the pipe, I think we’re going to see those data providers also improve those systems too,” he said.

A survey by Keystone Agricultural Producers this spring found that almost two-thirds of rural respondents were somewhat to very dissatisfied with their cellular and internet service.

The post Face to face from the comfort of home appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

He had other commitments so he told me the lot number, what he was willing to pay, and wished me luck.

I was going to need it. Not (necessarily) because I’m an inept bidder, but because of the horse-and-buggy nature of rural internet in Canada.

The family farm is at the end of seven miles of gravel, just over 11 miles from the nearest town, and many miles from the nearest telephone hub. The distance to the nearest fibre optic cable is likely measured in hours of driving time.

The available internet is a radio tower system, with a serious built-in lag time. You click on something and you wait. That proved to be my undoing during the auction as I sat there, hammering the button to bid one last time, while watching the item go to another buyer.

The loss of a new-to-him water tank wasn’t the end of the world for my brother, but it was disappointing. And that’s just one small example. Many rural families have recently run into far more serious challenges as COVID has pushed education online.

Our Geralyn Wichers reported this spring even farm families that can get rural internet were struggling with the new-found demands of learning from home. Some were dreading the cost, saying they didn’t want to see just how big the bill was going to be.

It was leading some to fret that there’s be two-tiered education in the province, with the dividing line between the internet haves and have-nots.

There have been some programs aimed at closing this digital divide. This spring for example the provincial government announced a plan to use a fibre optic network developed by Manitoba Hydro for its northern work camps to bring broadband internet to rural and northern Manitoba.

Bell MTS intends to spend $1 billion to bring high-speed fibre internet to more communities across the province.

But all of these efforts share the limitation of requiring laying a pipe, albeit in this case one filled with thousands of tiny glass threads the diameter of a human hair.

It’s exceedingly unlikely that pipe will ever come to the majority of farm homes throughout the Prairies. Our wide-open spaces and miles between farmyards would make that cost-prohibitive.

And while wireless technology such as cellular data is improving, there are still plenty of dead zones throughout the province, and even the fastest current 4G connection is just 12 megabits per second.

The much-talked-about 5G cellular data system could dwarf that, but it comes with a major caveat. It will operate on so-called “small cell” technology that required the towers to be built closer together. Much closer.

Today a cell tower can theoretically provide service as far as 45 miles away, but typically it’s more along the line of 20 or so miles.

The new 5G networks would require a tower roughly every 500 feet. That would work for downtown Winnipeg or Brandon, but it’s unlikely to work for Manitoba farms.

If this were simply a niggling inconvenience, preventing streaming Netflix or other leisure pursuits, that status quo might continue for some time.

But like the students struggling to watch videos for school and submit homework online, farmers will increasingly find themselves holding the short end of the digital stick.

There’s little doubt the future of most work, including farming, is digital. From self-driving equipment, to autonomous small robots constantly roaming fields on a search-and-destroy mission, the future of farming is going to require transmitting huge amounts of information back-and-forth virtually simultaneously.

Getting there is going to require a rethink and that could mean cutting the cord entirely and taking an extraterrestrial approach, as Glacier FarmMedia’s Jennifer Blair reports.

She took a look at mad genius Elon Musk’s proposed low-Earth orbit satellite array that he’s intending to use to bring broadband internet to Canada and the northern U.S. in the coming years.

While she found some skepticism, it raises a tantalizing possibility that this new approach could forgo the wired network or cell tower everywhere you look approach for something seamless and ubiquitous.

There’s a parallel to be found in Africa, where a wired telephone network was never built, and many nations instead adopted cell phones in large numbers as soon as they were available.

Nobody knows if Musk’s considerable fortune is large enough to launch the hundreds of satellites needed for the system. And it’s anyone’s guess what it will cost.

But the potential true high-speed internet will offer farmers is great enough that they should all be pulling for him.

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During this time of suspended in-person classes due to the COVID pandemic, the article explained how across the province “an easy upload to distance learning has been all but impossible for teachers and students.”

In contrast, high school students (in both Hutterian and public schools) in Prairie Spirit School Division have continued their blended learning courses with little change. Why the difference?

In the late 1990s, the school boards of Pembina Valley, Tiger Hills, and Mountain School Divisions were part of a tripartite agreement with the federal and provincial governments to take initial steps towards a distance education system. With the formation of Prairie Spirit School Division in 1998, the board of the day continued to grow the vision set by the previous boards.

With a large land base (5,600 sq. km), declining enrolment (currently stable at approx. 2,000 students) and community desires to educate students in their home communities rather than busing them great distances, a comprehensive distance education system was felt to be the best option to enhance student learning.

Initially, this meant a two-way audio/visual system capable of transmitting to multiple schools, but the system has grown and developed over time.

In 2012, the board courageously embarked upon a $3-million infrastructure project to enhance transmission of information. Apart from the $60 per student annual tech grant the province gave to each school division, there was no help from the province.

At that point, the only other tech provider in the area was Manitoba Telephone Systems, that proved to be prohibitively expensive and therefore impractical to deal with. A 10-year loan was taken out, financed through local taxation by our local levy. The project was completed and the loan was paid off in advance. The infrastructure put in place through that project continues to be an integral part of our system today.

With ongoing technological enhancements and continued board vision and commitment, the system has grown to incorporate online lessons and online transmission of course work, while allowing for one-on-one student:teacher engagement. It has also empowered greater student learning through better utilization of teachers, allowing more students to access specialized teaching for higher-level courses. The Prairie Spirit board remains committed to offering quality learning opportunities to all Prairie Spirit students, regardless of where they live in the division.

Through this system, we have also been able to substantially cut phone costs (by approximately $30,000 annually) through the use of VOIP technology for division phones, and the system transmits our bus radio system (saving another $34,000 annually) while providing for greater safety for our transported students. The system also has the capacity to offer professional development for our staff, and board meetings have seamlessly transferred to the online format during our time of social distancing.

When the province halted in-person classes in March, Prairie Spirit students from middle school to high school were sent home with Chromebooks to access their courses and learning through our distance ed system. Primary students have also been able to utilize our technology to access teachers and course work.

The biggest challenge we have faced has been the lack of reliable internet connections outside of the school setting, due to inadequate rural internet services. We have sought to address this problem by offering internet in our parking lots so that students who are unable to access the internet at home, can download information at the school and submit assignments and questions back to their teachers the same way.

Distance learning has not occurred without challenges. Our students and families have worked with us as our system has developed. Our divisional staff have worked to build, maintain and regularly update the system, and our teachers use it on a regular basis to offer high-quality education to our students. We are grateful to each one for their contribution to getting us to where we are today. During this pandemic, they have all stepped up, going the extra mile to enable student learning through distance education.

The province conducted a Review of Public Education in Manitoba during 2019. This review was to have been released to the public in March, but due to the pandemic its release has been delayed, with no date currently set for release. There is concern in the education community that this review may recommend massive change to public education, perhaps larger amalgamations, and perhaps the elimination of school boards.

Our experience in Prairie Spirit has shown the direct benefit of local school boards to local students, schools and communities. Without the vision, foresight, courage and persistence of the Prairie Spirit Board of Trustees, in combination with prudent school board financial management, distance learning would not be where it is today for the students of Prairie Spirit.

Many core high school courses would be offered by telephone or solely online with no direct student-teacher interaction, and many course options would be unavailable to our students.

For the cost of a mere 0.6 per cent of the school division’s budget to operate the board of trustees, the ratepayers of Prairie Spirit ensure that local people address local educational needs specific to the students living in our communities.

Ultimately we all benefit, as today’s well-educated students are tomorrow’s small business owners, farmers, health-care providers, educators, and other members of the workforce and citizenry of our communities, province and world.

The value of a locally elected school board has been evident in Prairie Spirit for a number of years, and has been further highlighted during the pandemic. We can only hope that the authors of the Manitoba Education Review considered the capacity of local school boards to solve local problems creatively.

Now, we encourage the provincial government to consider the strong value of local school boards to their communities, its ratepayers and the students they serve as they act upon the review.

Jan McIntyre is chair of the Prairie Spirit School Division Board of Trustees, and she writes here on behalf of that body.

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