One of the first companies to provide internet services in Vancouver was Shaw Communications. It gained popularity through its initial cable television connection offerings and subsequent expansion into internet services. Another crucial step was the creation of the Internet Society of British Columbia (ISOC-BC) in 1991, which was instrumental in fostering the internet’s growth across the province. Read more on vancouver-future.
Since then, Vancouver has become one of the main centres for internet development in Canada. The city has actively adopted new technologies and supported tech startups.
The World Wide Web: Global and Canadian Context
On August 6, 1991, the world was introduced to the World Wide Web (WWW)—the Internet that resulted from years of research. Its creator is the world-renowned Tim Berners-Lee, who was working at CERN—the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Today, the Internet is an inseparable part of our daily lives, and Canada ranks 21st globally in terms of usage. As of July 2016, the number of users in the country stood at 31.77 million, representing 89.8% of the total population. Furthermore, according to the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), Canada saw an unprecedented surge in the number of internet users in early 2013. Canadians spent an average of about 45 hours per month watching videos online. But where did it all begin?
The history of the Internet in Canada actually dates back to the 1980s. That’s when universities created the NetNorth network. It allowed main computers to exchange data at relatively slow speeds. Moreover, the network was the Canadian analogue of the American BitNet. In 1989, the group managing NetNorth took an important step toward the modern Internet by switching to the TCP/IP protocol—the open data transmission standard developed in the US by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).
In 1986, the National Research Council of Canada supported the transition to the TCP/IP network standard and agreed to fund the creation of a new national network. A planning committee was formed and announced a competition to develop this protocol—the foundation of the modern Internet. The University of Toronto won this competition with support from IBM Canada and Insinc (Integrated Network Services), a company specializing in data transmission services. In 1990, the new network was named CA*net or CAnet. Just three years later, it was renamed CANARIE (Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry, and Education) following a series of meetings involving Industry Canada, private sector representatives, CAnet, and the research community.
Initially, data transfer speeds in this network were 56 Kbit/s (kilobits per second), but over time, that grew to 100 Gbit/s (gigabits per second)—more than 2 million times faster. In the early years, CAnet was mainly used for file transfer and email. However, in 1991, with the emergence of the World Wide Web and the Netscape browser, everything changed. The rapid development of these technologies led to CAnet traffic doubling every six months. This, of course, brought new challenges for network administrators.
The Internet Revolution in Vancouver
The arrival of the Internet in Vancouver is a story of rapid and unpredictable development. From 1983 to 2019, bandwidth usage grew by an average of 50% every year. The first attempts at streaming video in the 90s were far from perfect: pixelated images and special software were required. But by 1999, the Canadian site iCraveTV was streaming low-quality television channels—albeit illegally. By 2019, everything had changed: most Vancouverites had subscriptions to services like Netflix, and video accounted for over 60% of internet traffic. Overall, Vancouver is actively developing its digital space. For example, the number of .ca domains exceeded 3 million in December 2020.
A separate chapter in history belongs to Vancouver in the nineties. Locals remember the vibrant BBS (Bulletin Board System) culture. Direct.ca became one of the first Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in British Columbia. Popular BBSs at the time included Deep Cove and Dial-a-file—places where you could download shareware programs and games. It was on one of these BBSs that Vancouverites first encountered an early version of Linux. This era was the start of the digital revolution that changed everything.
A Few Interesting Facts
- Most city residents first learned about the Internet from The Province newspaper. It’s even known that the article was about pedophiles (yes, even back in 1993).
- Burnaby libraries launched their own BBS, and through it, you could access the library catalogue directly from home. At the time, that seemed truly futuristic!
- In the 1990s, Vancouver had a thriving Bulletin Board System (BBS) culture. These systems allowed users to exchange messages, files, and play online games. Popular BBSs were Deep Cove and Dial-a-file, where users could download shareware programs and games.
- The University of British Columbia (UBC) played an important role in popularizing the Internet. Tours of the UBC Computer Science department allowed students and schoolchildren to get acquainted with new technologies and see the Internet in action.