Alberta SuperNet is a

municipal broadband Municipal broadband is broadband Internet access owned by public entities. Services are often provided either fully or partially by local governments to residents within certain areas or jurisdictions. Common connection technologies include unlice ...

network in the Canadian province of

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. The network links Alberta's public institutions, as well as rural communities and

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

in the province. SuperNet was constructed as a public-private partnership between the government of Alberta, Bell West, and

Axia NetMedia Axia NetMedia designs and operates the wholesale component of several "Open Access" fibre based internet and data networks. Axia operates the Alberta SuperNet and is half owner of Covage networks, developing high speed networks in France. It as al ...

Structure

The Alberta SuperNet began construction in 2001. It consists of two components: a base area network which serves 27 urban communities, and an "extended area" network which connects rural and First Nations areas to the SuperNet. The network provides

layer 3 In the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking, the network layer is layer 3. The network layer is responsible for packet forwarding including routing through intermediate routers. Functions The network layer provides the means of transfe ...

connectivity. Parts of the network, especially in

Northern Alberta Northern Alberta is a geographic region located in the Canadian province of Alberta. An informally defined cultural region, the boundaries of Northern Alberta are not fixed. Under some schemes, the region encompasses everything north of the cent ...

, utilize wireless links instead of fibre. Linking

Fort Chipewyan Fort Chipewyan , commonly referred to as Fort Chip, is a hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada, within the Regional Municipality (RM) of Wood Buffalo. It is located on the western tip of Lake Athabasca, adjacent to Wood Buffalo National Park, approx ...

was especially difficult, due to its terrain and the protected

Wood Buffalo National Park Wood Buffalo National Park is the largest National Parks of Canada, national park of Canada at . It is located in northeastern Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories. Larger in area than Switzerland, it is the second-largest national park ...

—necessitating a 120 km wireless link from the Birch Mountains. The network consists of over 13,000 kilometers of trenched

fibre optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

lines and wireless links, serving 429 communities. Axia NetMedia was contracted to sell wholesale access to the network. On June 29, 2018, Service Alberta announced that it had declined to renew its contract with Axia NetMedia, and that it had reached a multi-year deal with Bell Canada to assume operations of SuperNet. Bell Canada subsequently announced the following Monday that it had also agreed to acquire Axia SuperNet Ltd., the local Axia subsidiary.

Reception

Since Alberta SuperNet was not intended to serve as a last mile network, its success in bridging the rural-urban

digital divide The digital divide is the unequal access to digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide creates a division and inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age in ...

depends on private

ISPs An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

to connect rural homes and businesses to SuperNet. In many rural communities these services have been slow to develop due to the lack of a clear business case or economic incentive, resulting in criticism of this aspect of the SuperNet model. In 2005, the

Association of Canadian Engineering Companies The Association of Consulting Engineering Companies (also known as ACEC - Canada, and formerly the Association of Canadian Engineering Companies) is an association of 600 independent engineering consultant, consultancies across Canada.Canadian Cons ...

gave the Award of Excellence to Morrison Hershfield for

project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...

of the Alberta SuperNet.

References

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External links

Government of Alberta news release, July 24, 2001
Wide area networks Communications in Alberta