ACPWG Aboriginal Community Connectivity Infrastructure Study

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ACPWG Aboriginal Community Connectivity
Infrastructure Study
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Aboriginal Community Connectivity Infrastructure

• Purpose
• Verify the existence of, then track trends of
  the Aboriginal digital divide

• Important to aggregate all connectivity
  initiatives to present the most accurate picture
  to policy makers

• Provide a source of information for communities
  that are struggling to get online

• Address the need to track trends in connectivity
  rather than capture a snapshot Internet
  connectivity rates are a moving target.

• Create a coordinated centre to deal with the
  difficulties of analyzing connectivity in
  Aboriginal communities
• Population, counting, geographic challenges
• Seasonal populations
• Community definitions

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Difficulties Faced when collecting Information

• Community Definitions

A locality which is considered to be an Indian,
Inuit or Métis community (Indian reserve, Indian
settlement, Métis settlement, Inuit hamlet or
census sub-division with 25 percent or more
aboriginal population) having the following
attributes a name, distinct physical location
and territory, and aboriginal governance
structure, mandate and constituency

• Not all Band or community administration offices
  are on reserve

• Survey Fatigue

• Connectivity status changes quicker than our
  survey turnaround

• Change in community administrative personnel

• How do you assess the degree of connectivity for
  urban Aboriginals

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2003 Report - Building on 2002

• This is a follow up to the 2002 connectivity
  report

• Moved away from defining a community with
  dial-in (long distance)
• access as connected

• Beginning to track urban connectivity

• Attempt made at qualifying the digital divide

• Further analysis of connectivity rates based
  upon degree of remoteness

• Year to year trend analysis

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General Findings
Community Access
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General Findings
Community Access

• Northern communities are better connected to
  high speed services but less connected overall

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General Findings
Community Access

• Northern communities are better connected to
  high speed services but less connected overall

• Remote Aboriginal communities (north 55, 50 KM
  from service centre, no year round road access)
  are not surprisingly, poorly connected

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General Findings
Household Access

• Connectivity rates at the household are slightly
  below that of the general community

• Community members are slow to subscribe to
  Internet services

What percentage of community residents currently
subscribe to an ISP service?
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Comparing 2003 to 2002

• High Speed access rates have increased

• So has the percentage of totally disconnected
  communities

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A Digital Divide?
Many different ways to look at existence

• On reserve Aboriginal population vs. rest of
  Canada - Digital Divide exists (25 vs. 75).

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A Digital Divide?
Many different ways to look at existence

• Percentage of Aboriginal communities with HS vs.
  all Canadian communities moderate digital
  divide (21 vs. 24)

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A Digital Divide?
Many different ways to look at existence

• Northern Aboriginal communities vs. all Canadian
  communities a digital divide exists on basic
  access (46 vs. 28) but not high speed (26 vs.
  24)

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A Digital Divide?
Many different ways to look at existence

• Remote Aboriginal communities vs. all Canadian
  communities a strong digital divide exists for
  both HS access (15 vs. 24), and basic access
  (43 vs. 28)

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Next Steps

• Collect feedback (until January 24) on draft
  report and implement recommendations - mailto
  connectivity_at_inac.gc.ca or contact me directly

• Publish statistics, graphs, .pdf report to the
  connectivity section of Portal

• Complete mapping of Aboriginal communities with
  links to detailed
• connectivity statistics

• Distribute report to Aboriginal communities

• Begin work on 2004 statistics