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According to the latest OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development) broadband statistics, Canadians are among the world's leaders in the use of broadband. We define broadband as high-speed, always on, Internet connectivity, with a minimum of 1.5 Mbps of data transfer permitting the transfer of large files, especially video files. Around 22.4% of all regular home Internet use households had a high-speed Internet connection in June 2006 (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development [OECD], 2006). This proportion increased from East to West, with 61% of regular home Internet-use households connecting using broadband in British Columbia on the West coast, compared to 39% in the Atlantic Provinces at the East coast. The Information and Cultural Industries continued to be leaders in broadband penetration (86%). Analysis by enterprise size revealed that broadband use was higher among large firms (Veenhof, Neogi, & Van Tol, 2003). However, the gradient of broadband penetration in Canada is low especially with respect to that of the USA. In fact, according to the April 2006 Bandwidth report ("US Broadband", 2006), over the past year, the broadband gap between Canada and the US has narrowed from 20 percentage points to 6.6 percentage points. Since last March, US broadband penetration rose 12.4 percentage points while Canadian broadband penetration was flat. Canada is still ahead, but the gap is closing. In the world, Denmark is still in the lead when comparing the ratio of broadband subscribers to inhabitants. Out of every hundred Danes, 29 have a broadband connection. That compares to 19 in the USA and 22 in Canada (Fransman, 2006; OECD, 2006). It is obvious that the Internet, in general, and broadband technology, in particular, is affecting Canadian social life. As stated by Public Works and Government Services Canada, adult Canadians are spending time online. According to the Canada Demographic Profile Report published in October 2004, the 14.5 million Canadian Internet users over the age of 18 each spend an average of 37 hours online per month (Comscore Media Metrix, 2004; Zamaria, Caron, & Fletcher, 2005). In the present work, we attempt to identify some social impacts of broadband use in a rural zone of the Acadian Peninsula, namely the town of Shippagan and its parish. The following are definitions of the key concepts in our study. Broadband provides access to on-line information and services that are essential for governments, businesses, and the public to operate effectively in the information age. The main technical principles behind the major fixed line broadband technologies are as follows: ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line), VDSL (Very High Rate Digital Subscriber Line, also known as Fiber to the Node or Curb--FttN/FttC), Fiber to the Premises or the Home (FttP/FttH), Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) Cable and Broadband over Power lines (BPL) (Corning Inc., 2005). We define community as a cluster of communities (municipal and non-incorporated) which have a common economic (and to a certain extent, social and cultural as well) affiliation with each other. The Census Consolidated Subdivision geography used by Statistics Canada was employed for identifying these communities across the province (Statistics Canada, 2006). Rural New Brunswick is defined as the geography of the province covered by the 12 rural Enterprise Agencies (see Figure 1). There are 15 such agencies, but three of them serve the Fredericton, Moncton, and Saint John urban centres. The Province of New Brunswick uses this urban-rural delineation to organize a variety of its public service and program delivery activities. We are concerned with the Shippagan area (the rural zone filled in gray in Figure 1). The term transformation is used to refer to a system-wide change in behaviours, practices, processes, and relationships. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Purpose and Context of the Study In 1997 it was estimated that New Brunswick matched the national average for Internet adopters, but it has since slipped considerably over the past 8 years (New Brunswick Universities Broadband Research Consortium [NBUBRC], 2006; Selouani, Hamam, & Benahmed, 2007). …

Social Impact of Broadband Internet: A Case Study in the Shippagan Area, a Rural Zone in Atlantic Canada