How are Internet Service Providers responding to the COVID-19 crisis?

ISPs are playing a key role as millions of people stay at home

People across Canada have been asked to stay at home and stop interacting with people outside of their household. Schools and workplaces are now scrambling to shift their operations online.

But, for many people in Canada, this is not as easy as it may sound. People in rural, remote and low income communities often don't have or can't afford access to high speed broadband Internet, leaving them with little access to employment or education opportunities at the best of times. the current crisis is now threatening their access to critical health information and basic connection to their community. The problem will only worsen as more people are laid off and not able to pay all their bills in the coming months.

This is why it's important that ISPs step up in this time of crisis and commit to:

Ending all broadband data caps to ensure everyone has the Internet access they need; Stop disconnecting people who are unable to pay their bills due to the financial impact of the pandemic; Take additional steps to ensure everyone has some access to the Internet by offering free access to their WiFi hotspots and creating public access points for people to access their networks.

To help you track how ISPs in your community are responding to the crisis, we’ve put together a summary table of actions ISPs have taken to date. You can help pressure these ISPs to take further steps by publicly asking them for further commitments over Twitter.

Table updated March 26. If the table needs updating, please let us know over email - [email protected]