Monday, October 17, 2011

Saksatchewan, land ripe for entrepreneurship, but unfortunately backwards in technology...

A recent piece in the National Post has Saskatchewan and Alberta claiming Canada's top 9 for entrepreneurial cities, but unfortunately this pretty graph doesn't give the whole story, at least not for Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan is, it's true, experiencing unprecedented growth, and is one of the only Canadian provinces that hasn't had an increase in unemployment. However, from a technological and ecological standpoint, Saskatchewan is really quite behind the times. There are a few indicators of this, so let's take them one-by-one.

SaskTel's monopoly makes external companies establishing a telephonic presence in Saskatchewan difficult.

What do I mean by that? Well, it seems that SaskTel is reluctant/refusing to give out Saskatchewan (306) area code numbers to anyone who doesn't have a firm Saskatchewan presence. This makes it very difficult to get any kind of VoIP service, barring the one "Open" VoIP provider operating within Saskatchewan itself and which SaskTel has a majority holding, and Access Communication's "Closed" VoIP service for access customers only. While they've not explicitly stated so, I believe this may be the stumbling block that has kept such innovative services as Google's "Google Voice" service out of Canada, despite the fact that Canada and the US share a phone system. If you look at any VoIP provider out there, it's impossible to get a large provider to give you a 306 number, because they just can't get them.

Business internet connectivity is woefully lacking.

With any other city (Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal), there are multiple providers and multiple connection lines running throughout. It's a simple(r) matter to get a high-bandwidth high-speed line (or several) running into an office, and it's dead easy to find a whole slew of Co-Location providers for hosting all manner of services. In Saskatchewan, you have 2 options, SaskTel and Access, and neither is what you'd call "Big". All internet-related and co-lo services go out-of-province. Establishing a cloud-based service here is difficult, at best.

Home internet connectivity is poor, and the good stuff is held back by the equipment provided.

There are 2 choices of home internet provider. Access, who's service tops out at 5Mb/1Mb, and who incorporates a limit on their supposedly "Unlimited" high-speed internet. SaskTel has recently introduced it's (fantastic) 25Mb/2Mb VDSL package, which is totally unlimited in every way, but is held up by one major hiccup. The 2Wire gateways all share the same software, and that software has something of a fatal flaw – If there are more than 1,000 connections active, the gateway will start randomly dropping connections to get back under the 1,000 connection ceiling. Watching a movie on Netflix and someone decides to open WoW? There goes your streaming movie. Trying to have a conversation on Windows Live Messenger? Watch the connection bounce up and down. SaskTel do acknowledge this is a problem, and if you want to pay out of your own pocket, they can replace their ADSL gateways with a Westell modem providing basic connectivity only, and you bring your own router. The problem is that top tier package (The VDSL 25/2 one) won't work with the Westell modems. So it's 2Wire or nothing. Meanwhile in the US, with similar infrastructure, providers are offing 100MB packages for similar prices as we are paying for our 5Mb ones, and in Europe, Gigabit connections are coming in thick and fast, for incredibly reasonable rates.

SaskPower's short-sighted attitude to providing power services holds back green energy solutions.

Pretty much everywhere else in the world, power companies support green solutions. Time-of-use charging to even power loads and use excess capacity during off-peak hours, for instance, and buying back excess power from customers who have invested in green solutions like photo-voltaic cells and wind turbines. In fact, in the UK, you can "Rent your roof" to 3rd party companies, they will fit and maintain for 25 years (for free) the PV array and equipment, and take the buy-back profits from the power supplier, which you reap the benefit of considerably cheaper power bills.

Saskatchewan is perfect for wind generation – huge open flat prairie makes for long days and nights of strong, consistent winds. And on those rare days it isn't blowing to beat the band, it's hot and sunny all day long, with the "Living Skies" bathing the province in free sunlight. But without a buy-back option from the power provider, the investment in turbines and photo-voltaics is extremely heavy – you have to have enough to power your house & lands, and enough capacity to store during the leaner times, living entirely "off-grid", or you have to "throw away" the excess capacity you have during abundant times (Which SaskPower will gladly take off your hands for nothing) and eat the cost during lean times. With buy-back you make money during your abundant times, providing power back to the grid and your neighbours and offsetting the cost of the installation, and you're able to fall back on the grid when your system doesn't make quite enough.

As it stands, there are a few minor wind generating stations in Saskatchewan, though no solar stations that I am aware of. And this is a real shame. With all the open space, abundant sunlight and ever-present wind, Saskatchewan could become the power-generating capital of Canada, which would open huge employment opportunities across the province.

Agriculture has a firm hold on the economy and governmental attention, and almost nothing's going to change that.

Yes, farming and farming-related industries are big here. Huge, in fact. Indeed, I'd estimate that 55-70% of the jobs in Saskatchewan are in farming, the next 10-15% of the jobs are in service industries related to farming, 5-10% are mining and oil, and the rest are retail. There is no real technological center for Saskatchewan, and it seems that the Saskatchewan government isn't interested in any way in fostering any kind of high-tech infrastructure. Instead, they seem keen on squeezing every last dollar out of the farming industry, and draining the province dry of it's planet-killing hydrocarbons. While agriculture is a steady economic engine, and oil is a good short-term high profit business, neither really advances the province in any way, and neither is particularly attractive for outside investment or the growth of the province as a whole. As a child in Saskatchewan it seems there are only four realistic career options: Farming, Construction, Retail or Nursing. If you have the right blend of ethnicity and/or (dis)ability you may be able to meet quotas for RCMP recruitment. But any modern jobs are simply out of reach, or not worth pursuing as there's virtually no market for them.

In conclusion.

Wow, did this ever turn out to be WAY longer than I thought it would. Anyway, in conclusion, from a purely numerical standpoint, Saskatchewan looks like a great place to set up a new business. But when you look at the details, it becomes apparent that Saskatchewan is being held back, dragging it's feet on entering the modern era, and thus is destined to be left way behind. Modern businesses are in short supply, and very low demand, and what would be common services and industries anywhere else are demoted to niche markets. With a governmental and economic tendency towards stagnation and social conservatism, Saskatchewan is in serious danger of becoming even more of "the big empty space between Edmonton and Montreal". Perhaps it was a sign when the passenger trains stopped coming here all those years ago. I'm reminded of the Simpsons movie, when Springfield gets covered in a dome to protect the rest of the US from it's hideous environmental record – "[GPS announcer] Coming up on your right... Nothing...".

I'm not sure if Darren's going to read this (It's him to whom this will be tweeted first, as it was he that let me know about the above-mentioned chart), but I'll put it out there anyway. Do feel free to comment and correct anything in here that's wrong. It's written from my personal experience living here in Regina for the past 7 years after moving over from England, so it may not be entirely accurate, it is merely the impression I have received, and something that needs to be changed post-haste.