Leave no one offline

The knowledge society

A Canadian initiative to share our best practices in rural connectivity with all territories.

La Loma Projects

Photography: Christopher Miller / The New York Times.

La Loma projects Canada

SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT INNOVATION

METHODOLOGY BASED ON COMMUNITY NETWORKS
TVWS OPTIMIZATION

RRBS Remote Rural
Broadband System

This is Canada's way to have 93% broadband service availability in remote rural Areas.

LA LOMA PROJECTS CANADA CORP has developed an exclusive support package that includes the best practices of the RRBS program, including methodology, technology and advocacy so that states can innovate in their spectrum management policies.

Rural connectivity projects are currently underway in Colombia, Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru and Chile.

For more information about our work and ways to join forces, send an email to our headquarters in Vancouver BC: synergies@lalomaprojects.ca

Indigenous peoples in North America are pursuing innovative and independent ways to connect to the Internet. They face unique challenges to connectivity and, when it comes to policymaking, they are often left out of both national markets and the policymaking processes that support them. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become even more apparent that access to broadband is a basic service[1], similar to access to water or electricity.

As such, politicians must take bold and rapid action to reach digital equity in coordination with the Indigenous communities who lack affordable access.

La Loma Projects
Talking Stick

The Talking stick, used in many Indigenous cultures, is an ancient and powerful “communication tool” that ensures a code of conduct of respect during meetings is followed. The person holding the stick, and only that person, is designated as having the right to speak and all others must listen quietly and respectfully.

This is why we chose the talking stick as a symbol of the right of the first nations to tell their own story on the Internet.

Connectivity Map in Canada
Service availability – Urban vs. rural (% of households)
Internet Connectivity Graph

Notes:
The HSPA+ (high-speed packet access or 3G) and LTE bars show the additional effect that inclusion of these technologies would have on the following categories: HSPA+ and LTE for 1.5 to 4.9 Mbps availability, and LTE for 5 to 9.9 MBPS availability. Satellite services are excluded since they have a national footprint.

Source:
CRTC. “Figure Broadband service availability – Urban vs. rural (% of households), 2016”, Telecommunications Report 2017, 2017.

La Loma Projects Canada

In sinergy with

Internet Socierty - La Loma Projects
First Mile Canada - La Loma Project
University of Alberta La Loma Projects
University of Calgary La Loma Projects
EDC - La Loma Projects

Colombian west coast project

Since 2016, we have carried out a huge infrastructure project on the Colombian west coast, to provide internet in a jungle as large as Cuba. This project is carried out in partnership with UNIPACIFICO, the most important university in that region. For more information go to www.nodopacifico.com

Nodo Pacífico - La Loma Projects

Technology Partners

First BroadBand - La Loma Projects
Agrint - La Loma Projects
WND Group - La Loma Projects
Sigfox - La Loma Projects
Certus - La Loma Project
Iot latam - La Loma Projects
i4C Innovation - La Loma Projects

We acknowledge that we are on the unceded and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples. 

Stó:lõ, Salíwata?, Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam),
Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Stz’uminus Nations, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group

CONTACT:

3576 Rainier Pl Vancouver BC, Canada.
tellmemore@lalomaprojects.ca

LaLoma Projects Canada Corp. 2021.

Canada IT Supplier

SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT INNOVATION

Wireless broadband in many remote areas of northern Canada can trace its inception to a late addition to a footnote in a report issued in Istanbul, Turkey in 2000.

It was there at the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) that Canada joined other countries in what was institutionally labelled MOD S5.293; a change in allotment of frequencies to mobile services.

Different category of service: in Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the United States, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico and Panama and Peru, the allocation of the bands 470–512 MHz and 614–806 MHz to the fixed and mobile services is on a primary basis…. The international in-country footnote S5.293 has allocated the bands 470–512 MHz and 614–746 MHz for fixed and mobile services on a co-primary basis with the broadcasting service. (Industry Canada, June, 2001)

With this change in the spectrum allotment structure for members of region two of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Canada began to reconfigure its national frequency allocations to allow for fixed broadband in these bands that had traditionally been reserved for television broadcasting. In the years to follow, Canada embarked upon a unique policy experiment involving the opening of television white spaces (TVWS) for fixed wireless broadband service in the country’s vast rural hinterland.

Taylor, G., Remote Rural Broadband Systems in Canada, Telecommunications Policy (2017), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2018.02.001

METHODOLOGY BASED ON COMMUNITY NETWORKS

¨(…) Community networks as self-organised, self-managed or locally developed solutions for local access, based on the conviction that one of the keys to affordable access is giving local people the skills and tools to solve their own connectivity challenges. Instead of buying an access service from a large corporate entity, community networks allow community members to self-provide and share infrastructure.¨

GIS Watch 2018

TVWS OPTIMIZATION

In Canada Broadband over UHF ¨(..) is licensed but utilizes advantages inherent in empty spaces and a disperse population. It recognizes the continued place of broadcasting while noting that place is not nearly as prevalent as it once was.

If major companies truly wanted to deploy broadband in rural Canada, the government would have had no need to unveil a series of federal programs over the past decades. The small wireless providers interviewed for this study did not speak of dreams of great wealth; their primary concern was economic survival.

If successful, they could fill in the patches in Canada where major Internet providers often are reluctant to deliver services, and provide a significant service alternative in an industry that struggles to offer competition.

Taylor, G., Remote Rural Broadband Systems in Canada, Telecommunications Policy (2017),
http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2018.02.001