Today we are hosting a Social Media Town Hall on the state of Canada’s Internet. Join us!

A Q&A About the Future of Canada’s Internet Today we have assembled an all-star cast of Canadian Internet experts and innovators (see below) to answer your questions about Canada’s Internet! A new tool has just launched to take the pulse of Canada’s Internet and we want to talk about the future of the net. Our Town Hall starts at 1PM ET / 10AM PST, but feel free to start asking questions now! Today, you can ask us anything…

• In the comments section below – Leave your question in the comments section and we’ll make sure one of our experts responds.

• On Facebook– Drop your questions into this thread. We’ll have lots of questions coming from a diverse range of Internet users and community members, so add yours to the pile!

• Via Twitter– We’ve posted a few of our own thoughts here, here, and here, and want to know if you have questions about them. Or, you can pose your own question and Tweet at us using the hashtag #CanadasNet

• On reddit– The discussion is live on /r/Canada and we’re encouraging redditors and others to ask the tough questions that only our experts can answer.

• Via Google Plus– We’ve got a post here to prompt your questions and facilitate discussion. We hope you’ll join us!

Assessing the Health of Canada’s Internet

The core subject is measuring Internet speed and performance of individual households to help them understand that the speed they get is impacted by more than just the route to their nearest ISP test node. In doing so, we hope to help educate people about how the Internet works.

And it isn’t just about households. Even network administrators with detailed schematics of their  networks still draw the Internet like a cloud. We want to help educate everyone about the importance of local peering and transit and it starts with a simple speed test. Representatives from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) will be on hand to discuss some of the technical details like:

• How do speed tests work?

• How do they compare?  

• How does data travel on the Internet in Canada

Learn more about CIRA’s open source Internet Performance Tool at http://www.cira.ca/performance, and ask your questions in the platforms listed above!

Our Experts

This panel of experts will be on hand to discuss the “so what” of speed tests and delve much deeper into what the information means for access, policy, standards adoption, and the future of the Internet.  

Our team of experts includes…

• Jacques Latour, Chief Technology Officer of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA)

• Catherine Middleton, Canada Research Chair in Communication Technologies in the Information Society at Ryerson University.

• Elliot Noss, online innovator and CEO of Tucows and Ting

• Peter Nowak, prolific technology journalist

• Josh Tabish, from grassroots Internet freedom group OpenMedia

• Tamara Shepherd, London School of Economics (available later in the day)

• Tamir Israel, legal expert on privacy and digital policy at The Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic

• Fenwick McKelvey, open Internet expert and Assistant Professor Concordia University

• Oana Spinu, Nunavut Broadband Development Corporation

• Rob Williamson, Marketing Manager, Canadian Internet Registration Authority

• Don Slaunwhite, Product Manager, Canadian Internet Registration Authority

Do you have a question about CIRA’s Internet Performance Test and what it can mean for Canada? Want to learn more about the future of the Internet in Canada or abroad? Wondering who is benefiting the most from the latest network upgrades or how researchers and policy makers are trying to build a better Canadian Internet? We want to hear from you!

We’re here all day on all the platforms listed above (10am – 6pm Pacific Time / 1pm - 9pm Eastern Time)! Join us here and let us know your thoughts on what is surely one of the most exciting topics of our time: the open Internet.