Hamilton and CIRA join forces to measure Internet performance across the city

Results will help drive policies and programs to ensure all residents can access the broadband economy

HAMILTON, ON, Feb. 22, 2017 /CNW/ - The City of Hamilton has partnered with the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) to launch an Internet performance test for the city. Residents can use the test to better understand the speed and quality of their Internet connections. The test is crowd-sourced, meaning that it produces better data with widespread participation.  The municipal government and local Internet leaders can, in turn, use the data collected city-wide to create a comprehensive profile of broadband access within Hamilton's boundaries and move to address any areas of inequality.

The City of Hamilton encourages all residents and businesses to test their connections at https://performance.cira.ca/Hamilton.

Key facts

• As Hamilton prepares for the digital future, the municipal government is focused on ensuring "digital equity" - equal access and opportunity to digital tools, resources, and services to increase digital knowledge, awareness, and skills.
• The Internet performance test will provide the Mayor's Intelligent Community Task Force with data it needs to promote its objectives, which include:
  • Examining and assessing Hamilton's IT infrastructure
  • Developing a city-wide digital strategy, supported by an action plan
  • Improving Hamilton's strengths and assets as they pertain to ICF indicators
• Individuals and businesses can use the IPT to learn the quality of their own connection (including speed, performance, and adherence to standards) and use that information to help determine if they have the connectivity they need.
• By measuring connectivity across the city, CIRA's testing methodology helps map areas with strong connectivity and those where a digital divide may be developing.
• Hamilton's test is built on CIRA's Internet performance test infrastructure. CIRA's City-Internet performance test program allows local municipalities to quickly leverage CIRA's testing infrastructure to deploy a test using the standard global M-Labs protocol.

Executive quotes

"As we make the transition from an industrial to a more digital-based economy we want to ensure that all of our citizens have the skills and tools to more fully participate. The Mayor's Intelligent Community Task Force is working to achieve those goals. We hope the data from this testing will mobilize even more community leaders, non-profit, public and private organizations to join us in working towards making Hamilton a digital leader recognized around the world." - Mayor Fred Eisenberger

"The City of Hamilton fully understands the importance of broadband infrastructure to its sustained economic well-being. Hamilton was recognized as one of the Smart21 Communities by The Intelligent Community Forum in 2016, and has stated the goal of achieving a top seven ranking by 2020. The Internet performance test will give The City of Hamilton data to help it attain its goals by identifying how prepared the city's broadband infrastructure is – as well as how healthy its residents' individual Internet connections are – to thrive in a digital economy." - Dave Chiswell, VP of product development at CIRA

Additional resources

Test your Internet connection today at http://performance.cira.ca/hamilton.

For more information on CIRA's work to help Canadian municipalities address their needs to Internet measurement, visit http://performance.cira.ca.

About the Canadian Internet Registration Authority

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) manages the .CA top-level domain on behalf of all Canadians. CIRA also develops technologies and services that help support its goal of building a better online Canada. The CIRA team operates one of the fastest-growing country code top-level domains (ccTLD), a high-performance global domain name search (DNS) network, and one of the world's most advanced back-end registry solutions.

SOURCE Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA)

Ryan Saxby Hill, Communications Manager, CIRA, [email protected], 613-237-5335 ext 285 (office), 613-316-2397 (mobile), @saxby