Lack of Free Wi-Fi Sign We Are Not Yet Prepared for the Necessary Economic Transition

The lack of free wi-fi internet access in NB communities is as strong an indicator as any that we are not yet prepared for the necessary shift that we are experiencing from the Industrial Age to the Internet Age. As Draves and Coates point out in their fantastic book Nine Shift with much insight and evidence, in 2007 North America is just about to hit the tipping point when we will no longer hold onto our Industrial Age economy, culture, mentality, and values and will embrace, out of desire and necessity, the Internet Age and the influences it will have on us all.

Access to the internet is as essential for the growth and development of our economy and culture as roads and gas stations were in the early 1900s when the automobile transformed our economy, education and life from a Farming Age to the Industrial Age. Any barrier to the most advanced access to the internet in our province should, and eventually will, be seen as offensive and archaic and it is time that we all start calling shame on those who wish to build a business case, not on value added products and services, but on the basic access to what is and will be the lifeblood of our modern society.

After spending a hot afternoon in Moncton looking for access to the internet, I am reluctantly writing this column from a connection I paid for with my credit card at a coffee shop in Dieppe. The municipal service being tested in the city would not work for me through either my Linux or Windows OS and there are frighteningly few establishments promoting wi-fi access in a city that doesn't appear to care much to use it.

Fredericton deserves a great deal of applause and credit for leading the continent in providing wi-fi access in key areas of the city. However, there is still little evidence that the citizens and businesses of that city have been engaged and encouraged to use the service and allow for the service to be a catalyst for the necessary cultural shift.

In Saint John, the wi-fi service has been successful in engaging the population as evidenced by a UNB survey that found that 73% of businesses provide the service because their customers asked for it. But the growth of the network has not yet reached a tipping point and the business establishment shows signs that it does not appreciate how powerful this service could be in shifting our culture based on its lack of enthusiasm and reluctance to embrace this low cost, low maintenance value-add service.

This is an exciting time for optimists and those able to cope with change, and an understandable disruption and source of fear for those who are not. But it will happen nonetheless and New Brunswickers need to decide if we want to be on the front end or the back end of the curve.

As Charles Darwin stated in a previous century, it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change. Leaders in NB should not be obsessing with the latest fad to import, which wi-fi may be accused of being, but with efforts to sell the new world of constant change, lifelong education, and optimism in the possibilities we have in this great and beautiful province and region. We are small enough to change quickly and we should have confidence in ourselves based on our recent history that we can lead this nation in embracing the Internet Age rather than following our wealthier provincial cousins as we are inclined to do.

As quoted by Draves and Coates, “I’m not a futurist. I only describe the present to the 98% of the people who are not there yet." Let us be there now.