Expanding high-speed internet services to all of Canada’s remote and rural regions would cost approximately $7-billion over 10 years and is currently impractical, according to a number of telecom providers testifying at a CRTC hearing this week.

Such a move to completely “bridge the digital divide” in Canada cannot be achieved by market forces alone, and if mandated by government, “the cost will be borne by consumers and businesses,” according to Kelvin Shepherd, the president of Winnipeg-based telecom carrier, MTS AllStream.

Telus Corp.’s senior vice president for regulatory and government affairs, Michael Hennessy, confirmed MTS AllStream’s estimates, noting that the cost of extending broadband infrastructure to every home in the country is simply too high. Instead, he predicted that new technologies such as wireless broadband would ultimately have to close the gap.

Canada’s cable leader, Rogers Communications, has agreed to pay $425 million for Atria Networks LP, an Ontario-based fiber-optic telecom operator.

Rogers expects the acquisition to strengthen its enterprise broadband business, allowing it to provide high-speed data access to businesses throughout Ontario.

Atria, which has been owned by the private equity firm Birch Hill for the past four years, already serves upwards of 1,100 customers, including small to mid-sized businesses, corporations, public sector firms, and carrier partners. It has 130 employees.

European countries need to make high-speed internet access a higher priority in order to remain competitive on the global stage, according to the European Union’s digital commissioner, Neelie Kroes.

Kroes said that local and national authorities were becoming complacent about the need to expand broadband networks, noting that Europe “cannot sit by and allow our businesses to continue to compete against Asian businesses with Internet 100 times faster than our own.”

Kroes went on to say that governments should take steps to encourage investment in digital networking, while freeing up radio spectrum for high-speed mobile broadband networks. She also recommended that future public works projects and stimulus spending be directed towards establishing new fibre-optic networks.

At the end of 2009, 94% of Europeans had access to some kind of broadband internet access, but a significant “digital divide” continues to exist between urban centres and rural areas, where only 80% can access high-speed services.

Canada’s incumbent telephone and cable operators must allow smaller ISPs to piggy-back on their fiber-optic broadband networks, but can charge these rivals a 10% mark-up for doing so, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled today.

“Requiring these companies to provide access to their networks will lead to more opportunities for competition in retail Internet services and better serve consumers,” explained CRTC Chairman, Konrad von Finckenstein, in a written decision.

The 10% mark-up is intended to provide big carriers with an incentive to continue expanding their networks, a capital-intensive activity which consumes much of their profit. But Bell Canada’s senior vice president for regulatory and government affairs, Mirko Bibic, doubts that it will be enough to sustain innovation.

“If you are going to invest a billion (dollars) plus … you have to make sure that investment generates sufficient returns to make it worthwhile,” Bibic explained. “I suspect the 10 percent will not make it much more worthwhile.”

Taiwanese computer maker, Acer, has teamed up with Indian wireless carrier, Reliance Communications, to launch a new mobile broadband-enabled netbook computer.

The Acer Aspire 532h features a built-in EV-DO Rev A modem, allowing it to access the internet wirelessly at speeds of up to 3.1-Mbps, from approximately 66 Indian cities. In other areas, the netbook will be able to access Relaince’s CDMA network, allowing for a 156-kbps wireless connection.

In terms of specs, the new Acer Aspire is fairly basic with an Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 160GB of hard drive space. It runs on Windows XP, and older version of Microsoft’s operating system.

The Acer Aspire is now available through Reliance for approximately 20,000 Indian Rupees (US$428).