Canadian Telecom Networks - What's the Story?

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i think it's important to realize, is just the legacy in the history of these networks. Part of these histories being really caught up in canadas, a centa colonial state. And so the possibility of these networks to be built isn't something that's accidental or easy to do. For bell's own relationship, it really goes back to the railroad. The same rights of way that the railway run on are now being used for fibre back pones. You know, when we talk about tele communications inter structure, we're not tiing ou stuff that springs up overnight. This stuff has history and it has dependencies and legacies.

Paris Marx is joined by Fenwick McKelvey to discuss the massive outage at Rogers, why it’s challenging the narrative that more competition will fix Canada’s telecom sector, and the need for better regulation and even public ownership.

Fenwick McKelvey is the author of Internet Daemons: Digital Communications Possessed. He’s also an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University and a director of Machine Agencies at the Milieu Institute. Follow Fenwick on Twitter at @mckelveyf.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Fenwick spoke to CBC about the Rogers outage and previously spoke to Daniel Joseph about changing the way we think about media platforms in Canada.
Paris has previously argued for telecom nationalization in Canada and has written about the history of Canadian telecom.
After the outage, Canadian innovation minister François-Philippe Champagne forced telcos to come up with a new agreement on several key areas of emergency cooperation.
The Competition Bureau is objecting to a proposed merger between Rogers and Shaw.
Last year, the Rogers family was engaged in a protracted feud that affected management of the company.
ZeD was an “open-source television” series aired by Canada’s public broadcaster from 2002 to 2006.