FEDS UNVEIL NATIONAL PLAN FOR HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ACCESS

The federal government has announced that high-speed broadband Internet access will be available to every business and home in Canada within four years. To accomplish such a feat, Univ of Waterloo president Dr David Johnston has been appointed to head up a National Broadband Task Force to develop a strategy and provide advice, similar to the Information Highway Advisory Committee which Johnston chaired several years ago. Task force membership will be announced in the coming weeks. The government did not indicate how much public funding it would be willing to provide, but the task force will likely have an idea once it reports by March 31/01. Issues that the task force will examine include technical, institutional and financial barriers to the initiative and the role government may play to resolve them. It will also determine whether or not pilot projects are an appropriate approach to take before a wider effort is launched....