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Art
Price
Chairman
and CEO
Axia Netmedia Corporation
Leveling
the playing field and bridging the Digital Divide
The
Alberta SuperNet, allows government educators and health care-givers
to share and deliver information and services farther, faster and
more economically than ever before. Even more importantly, SuperNet
gives rural subscribers – long denied high-capacity access because
of the technical and financial challenges of long-distance connectivity
– access to reasonably priced services, by allowing Internet providers
and private businesses to use SuperNet to reach these more distant
markets.
Axia's
role as an independent, third-party operator of the SuperNet has been
specifically structured to ensure fair and open access to all communities
and to all service providers. Key to Axia’s ability to play this pivotal
role is that it is not a traditional telecom corporation.
Axia and the Government of Alberta have created competition
where the size of the market would not otherwise support competition.
Axia has enabled the customer to be the decision-maker.
Access
to a high-speed broadband IP network is an important competitive tool
in today's economy, much in the same way as roads, railway lines and
canals were a century ago. Axia deliberately created the SuperNet
business model to provide this competitive tool, at equal rates, to
everyone in the province ... and the true strength of this approach
is that it can be applied to almost any jurisdiction, worldwide, that
is looking for ways to bridge the Digital Divide between those who
have high-speed connectivity options and those who do not.
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