Telephones in Canada
Local telephone service in high-cost rural and remote areas is subsidized through a revenue based contribution regime. All telecommunications service providers, including cellular companies, contribute to this fund.
9-1-1 service is provided by municipalies in conjunction with the phone companies. The costs incurred by municipalities and telephone companies are recovered from all telecommunications services users.
WIRELESS
Canada has a relatively small population across a vast land mass - and perhaps because of that - is a world leader in communications networks and technology.
Canada's wireless carriers offer coverage to more than 98 per cent of Canadians. Two-thirds of Canadian households have access to a wireless phone, and Canadians send more than 5.7 million text messages per day, 47 per cent of all phone connections in Canada are wireless.
WIRELESS NUMBER PROTABILITY
The CRTC requires all Canadian wireless telephone companies to start implementing wireless number portability (WNP) in most of Canada. This means that customers will be able to switch to any service provider and keep their phone number.
Today, half of Canadians own a wireless phone. More than 25,000 Canadians work in or for the industry. The industry generates more than $9 billion in revenues each year.
VoIP, VOICE OVER INTERNET PROTOCOL
Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network.
Incoming phone calls can be automatically routed to your VoIP phone, regardless of where you are connected to the network. Take your VoIP phone with you on a trip, and wherever you connect to the Internet, you can receive incoming calls.
There are still some drawbacks to VoIP. Conventional telephones are connected directly to telephone company phone lines, which in the event of a power failure are kept functioning by back-up generators. VoIP hardware uses broadband modems powered by household electricity, and unless you have use of an uninterruptible power supply or generator your VoIP phone service will be unavailable during power outages.
The nature of IP makes it difficult to geographically locate network users. Emergency calls, therefore, cannot easily be routed to a nearby call center, and are impossible on some VoIP systems. Moreover, in the event that the caller is unable to give an address, emergency services may be unable to locate them in any other way.
The big advantage of VoIP is the low cost of long distance calling. With a web cam, the internet and a FREE program like “Skype” you can talk face to face with anyone in the world anytime for the cost of a local call.
The 411 Telephone Directory is where you can look up phone numbers, addresses and postal codes. You can also do reverse number look-ups.
My Telephone Experience
When I moved from Toronto to the farm in the late 70’s we had a “party” line, something I knew nothing about. This is when more than 2 people share a phone line. I think we had 4 or 5 people on the line.
The phone would have a distinct ring for each family, but if you don’t know anything about that, all you hear is the phone ringing, so you pick it up. Only to hear that someone wants to talk to Larry. Well, there is no Larry here. And the phone rings again, same thing. Until finally someone tells you that Larry is one of the neighbors and he is part of your phone’s party line. That is when I found out we had two long rings, and Larry had a long and a short ring.
The cables were all above ground and when the weather was really bad, the connection would be bad also. During storms the line went dead and one of the neighbors would fix the line after every storm. After a few years this changed and we were able to put in a private line.
Our present phone company is a private company and the service they provide is excellent. We have all fiberglass cables and high speed internet.
