It sounds great. It’s one of the reasons I moved to Fredericton two years ago. But while this is wonderful for Fredericton and Moncton, what about the rest of New Brunswick? I’m not sure where Saint John might rank but I would guess it’s okay, relatively speaking, given the population size and some of the businesses located there – but I don’t know.
What I wonder about, though, is how things stand once you get out of the three major urban centres. Where are we at in the north? What about the rural areas? And how are we in terms of demographic penetration? Even within these cities, who is using this broadband and how? I ask because I sense a divide between white collar and blue collar (for lack of a better term). I recall reading recently that New Brunswick, having been in the lead years ago, has now fallen to the bottom, or close to, as far as uptake was concerned. Is that true? If so, how did that happen?
I recall something Kurt Vonnegut once wrote. Paraphrasing, it was this: everyone wants to build but no one wants to do maintenance. I think of this because once things like the Fred-eZone wireless network (in Fredericton) was put in place, was it updated? Upgraded? I know I’ve had problems connecting to it. I sent an email a few months ago to what appeared to be the correct address asking questions but it went into the void.
How many people in New Brunswick are on Facebook, Twitter etc., and what about the businesses?
Is there any data available on how many New Brunswickers are using the Internet? Who are they? Where are they? How are they using it? What are they using?
I may be completely wrong. I’m really asking questions out of utter ignorance. But I have a sense there is a divide in New Brunswick, maybe based on age, maybe based on income, maybe based on career, maybe based on location … maybe all of these and more.
Is there a report somewhere that draws a picture of all of New Brunswick and has answers to these questions?
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