Birket Foster of Storm Internet reveals how rural businesses and farms are finally getting the fast, reliable connectivity they need to compete — and what's at stake if they don't.
GROWTH PILLAR: Cybersecurity & IT
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners / Rural entrepreneurs / Municipal leaders / Farmers going digital / Solopreneurs working remotely
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: How to think about upload speed, network failover, smart farming connectivity, and why your ISP choice shapes your business ceiling.
Internet isn't optional anymore. It's the sixth utility. And for rural Canada, the gap between connected and disconnected is the gap between growing and falling behind.
Birket Foster knows this better than most. As the driving force behind Storm Internet, he's built a network of 262 towers covering 8,000 square kilometres of Eastern Ontario — bringing fiber-speed wireless to the farms, small towns, and businesses that Bell and Rogers won't touch. He's been solving connectivity problems since the late seventies, and he's not slowing down.
In this episode of Knack 4 Business, Birket breaks down how Storm evaluates and tests new technology before rolling it out, why upload speed matters far more than most people realize, how rural farms are using connectivity to automate herd management and grain monitoring, and why small ISPs are doing the infrastructure work that big telecom leaves behind.
Key topics covered:
Connect with Birket Foster:Storm Internet | Phone: 613-567-6585 Birket on LinkedIn Storm on YouTube Storm on Facebook Storm on Instagram Storm on LinkedIn
Hosts: Bernie Franzgrote | Wayne Pratt | Percy Barr
Supporters and partners mentioned:
Carl Richards — Podcast Solutions Made Simple | Fred Crouch — Property Wizard | Jovan Strika — @Hive | Melanie Webber
This episode is supported by:Canada Growth Network + GHL — Full CRM and membership community. $1 CAD first month, $47/month after. No contract. Web Indexer — Smart chatbot for the K4B site. Find episodes, book meetings. Property Wizard — Gentry Learning — Real estate investing podcast and platform.
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Visit Knack 4 Business: knack4business.com
Bernie (00:05)
So from the audience perspective, how can small towns and rural businesses finally get the kind of reliable high-speed internet that levels the playing field with major cities? And what does that mean for Canada's future economy? Well, that's exactly what our guest will be talking about, how he and his team are breaking through barriers of geography and infrastructure to where it's needed most. He'll share what it takes to modernize rural networks.
the unexpected lessons learned from leading innovation outside the city and how better access can transform communities, businesses and opportunities across Canada. Our guest today is Birket Foster from Storm Internet. He is a pioneering Canadian entrepreneur who's been bridging technology gaps since the late seventies from launching MBFoster.com out of Carleton University and building it into a global software powerhouse selling across 48 US states and 38 countries.
to forging partnerships with industry giants like Hewlett Packard. His work has consistently connected systems, people, and opportunities. When the limited rural internet threatened innovation, he didn't wait for a solution, he built one. As the braving force behind Storm Internet, Birkett led its privatization in 2003 and full acquisition in 2020, steering into a new era of modernized community-driven connectivity. When he's not leading teams or advising
on Tech Strategy, you'll find him casting for Musky or exploring distant worlds through science fiction. He's also returning guests from season three, episode 138, why Canadian entrepreneurs truly hold the key to economic growth.
Birket welcome back. It's a pleasure to have you back. And you know what? have a favorite quote or saying you want to share with us?
Birket (01:42)
Sure, if you're going to get something done, you sometimes have to do it yourself. And so the Storm team actually goes with, we're big enough to deliver and small enough to care.
Birket (01:47)
.
Bernie (01:53)
I like that, that's really important. You know, the caring part, but yet still have weight to deliver the services. So what does innovation look like when you're working with legacy systems and next gen at the same time? Cause I remember in my past career, someone was telling me, yup, that bank machine right there is running on Windows 95 or something of that elk. And we already into, you know, XP.
Little bit of latency there. How do you manage to get around stuff that you're like, that's old. That's unfortunate.
Birket (02:22)
Well, you know, there's a couple of different aspects to this. First of all, technology will always change. So you have to end up figuring out what the right technology at the right time is and what its lifespan will be for your solutions for your customers. It's really all about solving a problem for customers. then what you're doing is marrying technologies to make the solution possible for your customers.
And so that's a large part of what you have to do. And in the case of Storm, because we have 262 towers and many wireless customers, thousands of wireless customers, plus we have a stack that includes reselling DSL, cable and fibers, plus our own 50 kilometers of fiber up in the Clayton area, buried fiber there.
What we have to do is we have to take a look at all the pieces and you can't change them all at once. So part of this is to make sure that you understand how an integrated solution will deliver for the various different constituents that you have across the geographic area, which is about 8,000 square kilometers, which is a big area to hit. But that's why we have 262 towers.
Bernie (03:35)
It's a fair number.
Wayne (03:36)
So as a man that has to pronosticate, how do you know when a shift is more than a trend? How do you know when to book bank on something?
Birket (03:44)
Well, the largest thing is that you don't just jump. You actually go, we have a lab. We put the technology in the lab and check it out and make sure that we understand how it works. Once we understand how it works, we then will put it on the roof of the storm building and feed it to one of our local towers and check how it works in the real world, not just in the lab. And then we will look for some customers that could use this technology.
What you're trying to do is you're trying to figure out what does it take to deploy the technology? There's a 360 you look at around the technology. You're looking to find out what does it take to install it? What does it take to actually manage it once it's there? How do I update it in the field? Because I'm not sending somebody to climb a 200 foot tower every time I need to change the microcode. ⁓ How do I monitor it to know how it's performing?
Birket (04:33)
So
Birket (04:36)
And what are the limits for this? There's also the financial side. What does it actually take to invest in this technology to be able to deliver to the customers? Because that's part of the whole deal is you have to make a profit so you can invest and do more.
Bernie (04:54)
Infrastructure, that has a lot of capital money laid into that. are you building like, let's say towers, for example, or locations like high points, green builds, or are you leveraging existing platforms that are out there and you're just piggybacking on structures? Let's say if it's a cell tower ⁓ space, is that an opportunity that you find happening or?
you know, or do you find other routes like because you did also an in-ground cable, which is, you know, that's no mean feat, you know, that's
Birket (05:25)
Yeah, that was actually done because the vertical asset we wanted to use was actually the poles along the side of the road, but it was made ⁓ uneconomic for us. We used to actually drill and dig to put the technology in. In terms of the towers, we have a lot of our own where we ask, ⁓ we just say, hey, Wayne, would you put a tower up in your back 40?
Birket (05:37)
So, CHO-
Birket (05:50)
and ⁓ help serve your neighborhood, we'll throw in internet for you for a while. And most of the time people like the idea that they're helping their neighbors out. But the other thing is in some locations the High Point is already owned by a company like American Tower or SBA or even Rogers and Bell. And while it's not easy to get on those towers, it's necessary sometimes in order to be
present in a particular area, especially since high points are worth knowing about. Towers are not cheap. And so it's really important for people to understand that when you put a sector on a tower, it picks up on the signals from a segment of the population. Now, typically those sectors are 90 degree sectors.
We're working with a new technology that has 120 degree tech sectors. So if I need to do a 360 around a tower, I only need three instead of four sectors on the tower. So that makes a difference. Worth knowing that the infrastructure is going to have to be there for a while. Before you decide to pull the trigger, you've got to know what your current marketplace is in that area and what is expected to evolve.
Birket (06:51)
So.
Birket (07:01)
around there? Are they building new subdivisions? Is everybody leaving that area? Both of those could be other ends of the spectrum for whether or not you want to make the investment in the So you're making an investment to serve people and it's really important that you understand how long they need to be served, what kind of solution do they actually need. Because it turns out that if all you want is Netflix
you're probably able to get away with 5.1 or 3.1. So that's 5 megs down, megabits per second down, and 3 megabits per second down. So because the people from Netflix have actually optimized all of this. But if you're doing video conferencing like we are today, you need to make sure that what you're connected to will actually have enough oomph on the up.
Birket (07:40)
So it's.
Birket (07:51)
and as people move to the cloud, none of the cloud applications work unless they have an up that's decent. So video conferencing kind of pushed the envelope so that you could no longer be a 10-1 or a 21. You had to actually be a 25 or a 50-10 or one of those different numbers that allow you to have some up. And depending on how many people in the building,
are going to need to be doing simultaneous video conferencing, you may need, you know, 100-100. Who knows?
Bernie (08:22)
Are you considered an essential service once you're established and you're up and running? Are you identified that way?
Birket (08:28)
During the pandemic, certainly happened. We were actually definitely considered to be a key service. there were a number of different things that happened during the pandemic because people needed to work from home and learn from home. so the infrastructure that we built over 200 points of presence
got upped in order to be able to serve the customers better. So that's one of those things. And this infrastructure needs to solve that problem, whatever the problem was. It wasn't a problem before because you only watch Netflix on a Friday night. And then all of a sudden you're actually doing real work and working from home. And that made a big difference.
In fact, with the new round of technology that we're rolling out, I called one of our customers who's on a technology that the government has chosen to claw back. So we have a licensed frequency, but they're clawing it back at this point. And I called up one of our current customers and said, you know, here's what we're going to offer. We're going to offer you 300 down and 50 up.
and he said, boy, I wouldn't have to go into the office in order to be able to join a video conference anymore because a lot of places they have people across the country that join a video conference. Well, if you're supposed to have your camera on or be able to show some slides or share your screen on something, you need the up. so that's been a huge thing. I mean, I actually know somebody who, when we were putting in the Clayton fiber,
She told me that she used to go and rent a hotel room in Carton Place in order to be able to participate in those calls. And she didn't want to drive into town, but driving to Carton Place, which was pretty close, was the way she solved her problem and renting a hotel or motel room for a couple of hours in order to do the video conference.
Wayne (10:16)
We're going to have got a feet in the street question. Over 30 years ago, Bill Joy from Sun Microsystems said that the hard drive was dead. We're all going to be using thin computing. Maybe he believed you only deserved a computer if you were in the city, but why didn't that happen?
Birket (10:33)
because people want control of their assets and their content. That's number one. Number two is, you know, even the Chromebooks have come back to try and take advantage of that. You're getting the technology in place that allow you to be able to have a lot of things. And when he was talking about thin computing, was deployed differently at that point in time. Now we have a thing called the cloud.
which is really just somebody else's computer down on the other end of an internet. So it's really ⁓ one of those things where the technology has evolved. The trouble with it, of course, is when we do have an outage, you really feel it. What happens if you have 50 people in a building and you're running a cloud-based application and all of a sudden the internet
Birket (11:13)
⁓ So, you know
Birket (11:24)
shuts down, well, you've got 50 people that you might have to decide to go home. That's an issue. The question I have for people is, are you looking at the robustness of your network? Are you looking at the possibility of having a failover? Having something that when, if the primary goes down, there's a secondary. The good thing about wireless internet, which of course, Storm has a lot of customers on fibers, but they also have a lot on internet.
Birket (11:28)
for the day.
Good news about ⁓
Birket (11:49)
⁓ that is wireless. And the advantage of this is a backhoe cannot take out your wireless link.
Bernie (11:56)
It does if it hits the tower, but you're true. He's working it hard then.
Birket (12:00)
Okay, so
Birket (12:02)
The big pieces that people don't get yet is that now we are delivering wireless internet at fiber speeds. You do not need to have fiber to get the delivery. And the good news for people is that that delivery, high-speed delivery wirelessly, is less expensive to deliver than putting a fiber
either in the ground or hanging it on poles, which is a whole other topic. ⁓ So what's happening is we're actually able to deliver fiber speeds wirelessly. And that means that your failover could be wireless quite easily, and that would get you where you need to get. Now, the other part is if you ask any real estate agent,
Birket (12:27)
So
get to. ⁓ So that's one.
Birket (12:46)
they will tell you that the very first question people ask is, can I get good internet there? So whenever you're actually looking at a business or even a resident or a potential resident for an area, the question they're asking is, what's my internet there? And that's really very important for the economic development of an area or even for an area to continue to stay in the game. Because if it's not in the game,
It means that it would be because it doesn't have enough internet to make it worthwhile. It's the same as any of the other five utilities. So if you look at it, the number one utility is the sixth utility that arrived. We had hydro, we had telephone, we have natural gas, and you have water and sewer. And then your last one is...
Birket (13:28)
So we.
Birket (13:38)
internet and but the internet turns out to be the decision maker. Whether or not we go there depends on on whether or not we have internet there. Internet is delivering in the countryside as well as in the city but but our marquee product is wireless in the countryside and we've we take an address and we figure out how we can connect it. Well if it's in the urban areas of the countryside
Birket (13:47)
So store.
So.
Birket (14:04)
⁓ Perhaps there's already ⁓ infrastructure there to deliver fiber or cable and ⁓ deliver those. We just look at the address and figure out what's the best way to deliver the internet that somebody actually needs as opposed to internet that you don't need because I hear ads every now and then about three gigs. So that's three gigabytes per second. Nobody working from home needs that.
Birket (14:11)
So we'll
Birket (14:28)
Period, full stop, except the video editor. But the rest of the folks don't need that. It's kind of like telling somebody they need a 1200 horsepower for their daily commuter.
Birket (14:33)
So it's.
Bernie (14:40)
31 is one.
Wayne (14:41)
Bernie would use that.
Bernie (14:42)
Yeah, that's my that's probably my German love heavy lead foot coming in to kicking in. But no, I don't need that. I'm I know better.
Birket (14:49)
Yeah, well, you know, one has to realize that they can be fun to drive, but they're not really good for a daily commuter. Anyway, the big thing about this is to actually understand the speeds you need. And it's always about up and down and what problem are you solving, what applications you're going to run? Are you moving a lot of data when you do things? What's the time look like? We did banks printing up in
Birket (15:13)
So.
Birket (15:16)
in the Clayton area and they all of a sudden could send you the graphic that they were proposing they would stick on a bunch of posters for you. And they could do it in two seconds instead of five minutes. That makes a big difference to businesses that use heavy data when they're moving things around.
Birket (15:28)
So that's.
Wayne (15:35)
Now this is on Zoom, so Zoom is the world. When I hear Clayton area, I think of Northern New York. Where's Clayton in your world?
Birket (15:44)
It's over by Arne Prer.
Birket (15:45)
So, you know.
Birket (15:46)
with
Almont really actually closer to Almont. So Almont arm prior area you're going to yeah it's the Clayton area and ⁓ very nice area got a bunch of cottages got a bunch of year-round houses not a lot of industry but we chose to put fiber in so we made it we did an experiment in a place where we don't expect to get overbuilt by
Birket (15:53)
That's that.
Birket (16:09)
by Bell or Rogers, because they'll never make a dime, especially since all the customers out there really love us.
Birket (16:14)
So.
Wayne (16:14)
time for the listeners MBA class. Wi-Fi is free. We all hear that there's 2.4 on you can use 4 point whatever. But licensed frequencies, I think that is television. Tell me what licensed frequencies in telecommunications.
Birket (16:26)
You
Well, every frequency is a public good. And the people from ICED, which is Innovation, Science and Economic Development, formerly Industry Canada, they actually control that on behalf of Canadians. And they allow you to license certain frequencies to be able to do things. Now, some of them are licensed, so the public safety frequencies are licensed.
Birket (16:42)
.
Birket (16:53)
safety has a certain band in which they'll work off the fire truck or the ambulance and things like that. Please. Those kinds of things happen. But a licensed frequency is merely a frequency that is made available by having a license. Now, interestingly enough, the newest technology we have combines channels together and allows us to do it non-licensed.
Birket (17:17)
Even
though, so the...
Birket (17:18)
The
big high speed stuff that we're working on is delivering the fact that there's no licensed frequency in that picture. While licensed frequencies are important because people can't overrun, so we do a license links where we can push two gigs between two point to point and we own it from this end to that end. And that makes it easy for us to
Birket (17:22)
despite
So.
do some things.
to know that
Birket (17:47)
that we're the only people operating in that frequency in that specific geography. And ICED takes care of making sure that that is put together properly.
Bernie (17:57)
So it's all you can have at camp.
So what's the economic impact of a before and after? So an area, know, if they have Wi-Fi, it might be cellular and if that, then all of a sudden, boom, you've rolled in and you've, know, the area is lit up like a Christmas tree. What's been the impact, either the Clayton area or other areas?
Birket (18:18)
The real answer is you're able to run applications at higher speeds. You're able to move more data in a second. And it's not only for edutainment, the education and entertainment side of the world, it's also for business. And everybody at some point is going to be an employee and have to connect to something.
Birket (18:31)
world but it's
Birket (18:38)
And this gives them the option to be able to work from where they are rather than having to travel place of work. And of course, while that's a debate on whether return to the office is necessary, what we're also seeing is we're actually enabling people to be able to run businesses in the countryside. For instance, there's a group that does alpacas and they're able to sell over the internet.
Birket (18:44)
to a
So there's.
Birket (19:01)
and they get orders from around the world, which they wouldn't get if they weren't able to connect to the internet properly. It changes the nature of is business local or is business local and global? And so if you want to go global, you're going to have to do that. The second thing on this is on the social side. Every government agency has realized that there's an economic benefit to working across the internet.
Birket (19:19)
shows.
Birket (19:27)
to provide services. And if you don't have fast enough internet, you can't get to fill in that form. Or you can't watch the YouTube on how to fill in your taxes. if the wants to have the low cost infrastructure to deliver these services, they absolutely need to make sure that internet happens everywhere. digital divide is real.
Birket (19:37)
So if the guy
Birket (19:50)
In the countryside, people don't get the same services as they can in the city because the internet's not there. And let's make a distinction between internet and cellular and Wi-Fi. So Wi-Fi is inside your building, inside your restaurant, whereas connecting the building is different because once it's connected, now I can put access points across
Birket (20:12)
...
Birket (20:12)
you know, in the back room so people can use the barcoding and check out the inventory despite the metal shelves in the back room. It changes when people actually understand that Wi-Fi is local, the connection of the building is done. And then the other thing is, while you can do internet and many people do over their cell phones, one of the huge issues with that
Birket (20:20)
So there's a.
the law.
I'll you.
Excuse.
Birket (20:38)
is that the internet on a cell phone is not the same as the internet connecting a building. In fact, if you look at it and you have more than one person, how are you just hot spotting on the phone? What happens if Wayne decides to go to the grocery store? He's going to take his phone with him. Now, Bernie can't actually work. ⁓ you know, Wayne took away the hot spot.
Birket (20:58)
because
So.
Birket (21:02)
People have to realize that while it's convenience for a party of one, it's not a convenience for a party of 50. And so there's the connecting the building, there's connecting individuals, and there's also doing Wi-Fi throughout to deliver the The people can connect to the internet from within the building. And wired is probably in many cases the right thing to do.
Birket (21:16)
the building. The Wi-Fi is so
Wayne (21:28)
As a professor and as an employer, you're called to be a leader, but you also, to stay fresh, have to be a learner. What are your routines to make sure you're up to date with what you're saying?
Birket (21:42)
Well, there's a lot of different pieces to this. ⁓ One of them is that there are many conferences, and you get a chance to go and see those conferences and understand what's going on in terms of new groundbreaking technologies. And just because there's a groundbreaking technology doesn't mean that it's appropriate for what you're trying to do. It's just cool, but not necessarily commercially viable.
Birket (21:45)
puzzle.
So some stuff.
So you have to
Birket (22:08)
⁓
take a look at that. And you basically take a part of technology and look at it from what would it take to market it, what would it take to sell it, what would it take to install it, what would it take to support it, what would it take to update it in the field, what's the life cycle on this, and most importantly, what problem is it solving for our customers or potential customers? What do they look like? What's the niche?
if I had to draw an avatar, what would that avatar have for characteristics? it is classic, let's go solve a problem, but you actually have to understand
Birket (22:39)
Is.
the pieces behind that.
Bernie (22:45)
Are you finding that your relationship with government is strong and you're getting the support you need or are they in the forefront or are they catching up or is it you're just running side by side to deliver the services? I'm thinking like, from an infrastructure perspective, if an area has a depressed economic outlook and this would help alleviate that.
You find that you have a lot of proactive elements to it. And that could be federal, provincial, or municipal, right?
Birket (23:17)
At the end, they should do a lot more for the the municipals. That's just an opinion from a guy. The municipal is where everything delivers. know, is. If provincial programs and federal programs aside, you are trying to work within a municipality somehow, and the municipality has control on when you can build a tower.
where you can dig. So there's a thing called an MAA, which is a municipal access agreement, which says in the right of way along the side of the road, which you guys probably know is about the of the road, who can put stuff in there and how is it managed? Kinds of things are part of the picture. The access is the one that we have to work with the most. The good news is that we've been proactive at storms.
Birket (23:46)
six foot off the side.
those
So the multiple is the first.
Birket (24:02)
and have had meetings with ICED and the CRTC, as well as at the municipal level. So I often go in and do a council meeting to say, here's what we've done for you lately, because they don't really know that Storm exists. They know Bell does, they know Rogers does. There's 200 smaller ISPs across Canada that complete the picture because Bell and Rogers own probably about
Birket (24:19)
But look.
Birket (24:27)
84 percent, the other 16 split between 200 of us. And so it's really important if you don't want the small guys to disappear because they are the ones actually doing it in smaller places, you need to absolutely make sure that they can survive and that things are there. And I make that point routinely to the federal government for sure.
Birket (24:35)
the
Birket (24:52)
I haven't had a lot with the provincial a little bit here and there. We're working on a couple of files with the province. But municipal is where the action really is. And part of it is to understand what's happening in that area. We might be able to build infrastructure to be able to help the economic development, whether it's ⁓ new projects for subdivisions or whether it's an industrial park.
Birket (24:58)
...
So do we.
Wayne (25:17)
and I want to put you at risk a bit. People don't realize that quotes are about a time and a place, like you only need five computers in the world. Why does my refrigerator need an internet connection? I can't imagine that. That strikes me as the ultimate of silly.
Birket (25:35)
So.
Birket (25:35)
we're going through an era where everybody wants everything to be connected. They think that it will help. And it might. In fact, I turned down the Wi-Fi option for my dishwasher when I went to buy a new dishwasher. It turns out that they had a legitimate, potentially, reason for doing it, which was that they could do predictive support for you.
So they could predict that there was an issue with your dishwasher and they needed to send a repair guy over to help you out. The real reason was because if you bought your dishwasher through them, they made a percentage off doing that.
Birket (26:03)
soap.
You know, those of you who go to Costco and.
Birket (26:10)
by
the 140 tabs and it's done, don't ever need to have the dishwasher decide that it needs to order again. But they know how many times it ran. They're picking up data. I mean, in the world, the real world is all about the data. And what's that worth? There's going to be data for everything. And the question is, who should have access to it?
Birket (26:26)
You know, so, so.
Birket (26:33)
Would it help you understanding what your budget needs to be? it give you some data that would be useful rather than just the dishwasher deciding to count the number of times you run it and what settings you run it on? And is there anything that seems to be doing something else? And that's going to apply across the board. I'm not sure about your refrigerator, but the idea was that you could combine the refrigerator with
Birket (26:40)
to you.
Birket (26:58)
your shopping list and then it could automate the process of putting a shopping list on your phone when you get to go to the store or perhaps pre-ordering it for you. So the store would actually ship it to you and then you wouldn't even have to go out anymore.
Birket (27:07)
start this
So who knows if he...
Birket (27:14)
I mean, some people love shopping and getting out there and checking the bananas and trying to find new items that might show up in the shelf. If you only know what you know, you're not necessarily going to pick a new object because you don't know about it yet, right? I think people need to think about that too, you know, in the end.
Birket (27:20)
trying
sterilely.
So that's.
But it is about data.
Wayne (27:37)
Birket you've been at this for a while and some things have been challenging and maybe some things have been boring. What has challenged you the most in your journey?
Birket (27:45)
Well, the largest challenge is making sure that you anticipate what's going to be needed as things roll out. Since we're working on this project right now, that we're 55 customers in on the project. And what we're doing is we're delivering either 300 down and 50 up or 100 down and 30 up.
Birket (27:54)
So, for instance,
Birket (28:12)
speeds and those are very high speeds. Gamers will be happy and ⁓ multiple people in your family would be able to use it. There's not a lot of businesses involved. We've done a couple of businesses using this new technology but it's just the demographics of that area are that people work from home and there's not really any factories. There's a few stores.
Birket (28:34)
story.
Birket (28:35)
but it's more of a residential area than an industrial area. think that what happens is when we bring this kind of technology to the rural area, it becomes possible for a small business to grow up and become a manufacturer. If you look at it in Canada, the stats show that
Birket (28:56)
Go.
Birket (28:57)
most of the jobs in Canada are created by the small and medium businesses. In fact, you've got 63 % represented by the under 100. And if you think about it, all the small stores and things like that, definitely under 100. And then the 101 to 499 is about 21%, leaving you with only 16 % in the 500 plus people.
Birket (29:22)
So the
Birket (29:23)
businesses ⁓ employ 500 and more people are only really 16 percent of all of the jobs in Canada provided by them. More policies need to be put in place to allow small and medium businesses to thrive and grow because you really do want them to grow to the 500 plus club if possible. And as we look at exporting
Birket (29:25)
Where they.
So.
Birket (29:48)
⁓ It's going to be really interesting to see how Canada can diversify its exports to meet many other countries rather than just shipping straight to the States for a lot.
Bernie (30:00)
When you're assembling a project, and I almost liken this to building an overpass, you know, over a major highway or even putting a highway infrastructure in. You know, I've remember talking to an accountant and says, yep, when they amortize the bridge out, you know, it's a 50 year outlook, but you know, there's an impact. Are you finding that people are knocking on your door saying, listen, we want to grow or are you finding that high?
build it and they will come scenario, which is it? it a mix or is it the government, a government agency, municipal or regional or countywide that is going, hey, if we have this, we know something more is gonna happen. We see other, we're getting other feedback from our space that there are opportunities, we just can't maximize them. How do you, how do you get the buy-in for big projects?
Birket (30:53)
Well, occasionally we do get a subset. As help because it means that we can do a project that would have had a longer return on investment. However, really the municipalities are only just starting to realize how important Internet is to the location of people and jobs. And at the end of the day,
Birket (30:55)
So that does
Birket (31:13)
You need jobs because people need to be able to eat. It's important that we think of it as part of the planning. It's not a default that you're going to have stuff in an area that provides high-speed internet. And in fact, many of the municipalities don't even really look at the
Birket (31:16)
So about this.
Birket (31:39)
the effect of the small companies. And they really need the small companies because we're the ones that took the risk to decide that we would go and do things down that rural road. Because basically the larger players don't really want to deliver unless there's 5,000 people in a truck. There's a lot of places that don't have 5,000 people.
Birket (31:58)
chunk.
Bernie (32:03)
But is it a number of end users or is it the economic impact? I if I kind of back it up, if I have 5,000 residential, I get that. But if I have maybe 50 industrial, right, and manufacturing or even a farm, you know, a large farm, it generates, it generates revenue, generates traffic, right? So yes.
Birket (32:23)
It generates sales tax dollars. You know, there's a lot of different things. So actually we're 150 plus smart farms in and actually we're getting to our first smart farms that are going to use this new technology to be able to connect themselves. We were talking with about 10 up in the Almond area right now. And I totally expect that having the higher speed infrastructure will help them with
their integration into the internet world of their farm. Depending on what kind of farm business they are, we could be just doing herd management. We could be ⁓ managing the grain silos to make sure that they bring the moisture content down to a certain thing. Or it could be dairy where nobody wants to get up at four o'clock in the morning and feed the cows anymore. So we automate the...
the feeding process and the milking process. And that's all done by integrating in the feeder, the milker. We probably throw cameras into the corner where the birthing pen is. We probably add a wifi in the shop so that people can watch YouTubes while they're figuring out how to fix the tractor. Those kinds of things are real on a farm. People actually need to get that kind of thing. ⁓
Birket (33:35)
I think
Birket (33:37)
you're going to end up with a need for people to do many things that are going to be connected. so like with the internet connecting at a dairy farm, they automatically know when it's time for the local milk pickup guy to come by and dump the tank.
Birket (33:39)
with the
Birket (33:57)
They know they can reorder feed from there. It's there and the farmer can go and pick it up or maybe it gets delivered. If you look at the work flows in a business, you can figure out where the advantage might be of having data go to a partner, which normally Fred would call up and say, hey Bill, I'm going to need four tons of this next week. Now it could be done.
Birket (34:01)
So at least
that goes to
you know, it's like...
Birket (34:23)
and if it's put together properly, that whole process can be automated, taking some of the cost and thinking out because it will be done automatically.
Bernie (34:35)
Ever advertise that like, I want to drive past farmers fields, right? And you'll see the, the, the farmers bought a certain type of seat, could be corn, whatever. You see a little sign on the, on the fence post almost every second or third post for a while. You know, that brand of corn and it's kind of a promo. Do you do that level of marketing in the field where, you know, this is powered by Storm internet?
Birket (34:59)
We actually have, we started with signs about cameras because you have to warn people that you're putting cameras in. Behave properly.
Birket (35:02)
Thanks
so that they be... ⁓
So that's one of the things that...
Birket (35:11)
that we've had for a while, is there are cameras present brought to you by Storm or something like that.
Birket (35:16)
So ⁓ we do have those things.
Birket (35:18)
sign. ⁓
And lately with this new project, we've been putting ⁓ at the houses that we've been installing that say, somebody here just got 300 meg internet. And what's happening is people are calling up and saying, I want one too. We're seeing that happen, which is good. I'm due to go and speak at Mississippi Mills Council in the next couple of weeks.
Birket (35:23)
those signs that the house.
So.
Birket (35:43)
in order to update the council on what we're exactly doing. Part of it is because we know that there's going to be areas that don't have good internet right now, that the councillors hear from their constituents, gee, can I get internet, please? And the answer is yes, but we have to know that you have a problem there. And we have to also cost, we have to know that we can actually make a return on it. What kind of internet do they need?
how much of it, what is it a business, is it a residence? All of those kinds of things need to go into it to understand what is it we could actually deliver on this. And a large part of what we've been doing in the rural area as well is we had a project called Resilience. We were looking at ⁓ adding in UPSs and generators.
We've got quite a few of them already, but we actually did a study to figure out where else we could do things. A lot of times when the power goes out, we've got 20 hours of power to run our internet. The internet, a lot of places, it's 120 watts, which is like a light bulb. We have 120 watts on the tower, and so I can power that with a couple of batteries, and it'll last for a long time.
Birket (36:47)
So.
Birket (36:56)
But you have to think about it. ⁓ Pieces in the infrastructure that can actually survive the things. Most of the outages that we suffer are because a power outage where, you know, perhaps it was a tree branch fell on a hydro line and took it out. And surprisingly enough, inside the city of Ottawa,
Birket (36:57)
So you put those.
so that,
we had as power. ⁓
Birket (37:21)
which is 80 % rural as we know, inside the city of Ottawa, they have 300 accidents with poles. It could be that an automobile rammed into a pole and knocked it over, or it could be that a snowplow clipped one, but there's 300 incidents on an average year. That's maybe not so much with the new automatic cars. But right for now,
Birket (37:29)
that
So, you
but we'll see.
Birket (37:45)
That's a factor. It's nothing we can do about the fact that somebody lost control of their car. Don't text and drive. See if you can't figure out how to make sure that people could be resilient enough to survive when you have an outage like that.
Wayne (38:02)
the polls. I think they're jumping out at us.
Birket (38:04)
⁓
that's it. Okay. Yeah. Well, even in North Dundas, the folks in North Dundas have been using the internet to monitor temperature, moisture and so on so they know when to send the snow ⁓ or when to go sand stuff or salt it so that you don't get a nice build up on certain roads.
Birket (38:08)
So
plows out.
So.
So they
Birket (38:27)
They
actually are using that, that's part of their defense against somebody who slips into the ditch because they're going too fast and slid. And they're using that as a defense to prove that they did send out the ⁓ sanding truck. That's interesting, even in small municipalities.
Birket (38:40)
the
Wayne (38:44)
So Birket I live on a bass lake and I understand you're more of a muskie man. So if AI could help muskies talk, what would they be telling entrepreneurs chasing their next catch?
Birket (38:56)
Well, first of all, bass are nice musky bites. And the musky snack, you got to know is that they literally take the bait balls and eat them. Right about now, they're getting ready to ⁓ hibernate for the winter. So that's just something you might want to think about. We actually eat bait balls on the fish finder when we go looking in the fall and musky seasons until
Birket (38:59)
So that's.
See.
Birket (39:19)
about mid-December, just in case you're interested. Yeah, if you were actually, don't forget, muskies are catch, release. Just because we're chasing one doesn't mean we're going to catch it. That's why we call it fishing, not catching. So an entrepreneur needs to understand, is that just bait?
Birket (39:23)
So.
So, so.
So that's another piece of the puzzle to think about.
Birket (39:44)
Or is that something I can actually eat?
Birket (39:46)
So that's what the.
Birket (39:47)
That's what people need to know. Just because it's a shiny object doesn't mean you should chase it. You need to actually figure out how that could impact things. What is it that you as an entrepreneur are thinking about? Is it just a snack for today? Or is it if I actually go and work with it, we could have some fun.
and have snacks for the rest of the year. know, those are the kinds of things people need to think about as an entrepreneur. really is. I mean, the apex predator in the Ottawa River is the muskie. It's smaller than a sturgeon, but it's still the apex predator, which you have to actually think about it and say, what does the muskie get?
Birket (40:10)
So although.
So you
Birket (40:29)
by being the apex predator? Well, it gets the right to do whatever it wants.
Birket
Wayne (40:34)
You're in Eastern Ontario, You also have a perfect client. Who could this perfect client be? Where would he be and how would he get a hold of you?
Birket (40:42)
Well, you know, the perfect client would be somebody who needs internet and would like great support. That would be our perfect client. Right off the bat, the kind of things that we would look for.
Birket (40:50)
So that's.
Birket (40:55)
The thing about clients is everybody has a unique problem they're trying to solve. So a perfect client will be one that can articulate what problem am I trying to solve and what does it look like three years from now? So that we can actually aim at providing a long-term solution to make sure they get what they want. And that's really a large part of what Storm does. It tries to put an infrastructure into an area that will provide internet
for a group of people. We have fabulous team members that know how to design networks, that know how to install equipment, that know how to support equipment and diagnose things when something goes bump in the night. We have folks that know how the back hall works, how 151 Front Street in Toronto plays, because that's where the internet in Ontario goes to meet the world.
And so we have all those pieces that need, it's not just one thing. You know, you have your customer support people and I can't say enough about our customer support people. They are fabulous. They really do care and they will take care of you. And you know, they know where Carleton Place is. They know where Chesterville is. You know, it's not somebody from overseas. It's people who actually live and work in the community. So that's important.
Wayne (42:11)
But geographic reach, who isn't a client? Do you want someone in Cincinnati?
Birket (42:16)
You know, we have a couple of larger customers who want us to give them a private network. And because we have partners that we can acquire internet from, we can build a network that goes in more than one place. So for instance, we have a customer in Ottawa who also has a plant in Winnipeg, and we've done a private network.
⁓ between the two. There's no reason why we couldn't do something into the US or even into Europe if somebody wanted a private network. It's really about being able to deliver not only the internet, but also the required support and uptime that's required for the particular application that's going to be there. And it's not just the internet, it's about how does it all integrate.
We have a tire group where they're buying up smaller customers and they want to put a common infrastructure in every place. We've got a parts place where they've got 24 parts stores and they're now all local to each other so that they can actually go look up and see if the Cornwall group has a particular part number in stock. All those kinds of things, it's changing the way people can do business.
because they have the data available across multiple locations. That's the kind of thing that people can actually take advantage of. So people have to define the problem broadly enough and have it over a number of years to understand, have the plan for over a number of years to understand how we could do that.
Birket (43:33)
So that.
Wayne (43:48)
and they best reach you how?
Birket (43:50)
Yeah, well.
Wayne (43:51)
⁓
Birket (43:51)
Yeah, they best reach us via the internet.
Wayne (43:55)
Not helpful! Not helpful!
Birket (43:57)
Okay. Yeah, we work with storm.ca. It's a Canadian website because we're a Canadian company. We definitely have a lot of customers in the rural areas and they do meet us at certain events. We do have our phone number is 613
Birket (43:58)
So
Birket (44:17)
567-6585. And that will allow them to get hold of us. If you look at our website, you'll see that we have residential as well as commercial, and we're happy to help things happen.
You tell us what you want, try and deliver.
Bernie (44:31)
I actually like that because it's not just necessarily the internet. There might be something more the next couple of next layers into that. ⁓
Birket (44:37)
Yeah,
we're already starting. Our team is looking at right now what else could we deliver? For instance, we've been doing cameras and access points, otherwise known as Wi-Fi, for years. We got our first set of questions about could we provide doorbell cameras? Could we provide some of the other internet connected things for a smart home? What we're going to look at is what is a smart home?
Birket (44:43)
So.
So part
Birket (45:00)
What does that define in us? How could we help? Defining, you know, and it doesn't, it could be urban or rural, it doesn't really matter. A smart home is gonna be a smart home. And there's gonna be new functions that could happen.
Birket (45:03)
So.
Bernie (45:13)
to say thank you to Birket Foster, my co-host, Wayne Pratt, and you, the Knack 4 Business listeners. Listen, if at the end of the day you're going, you know, I'm living out in the countryside or in an area that doesn't necessarily have a local ISP, Internet Service Provider, right up the doorstep, reach out to Burkitt. And if you're not in the Ottawa Valley, you know, still reach out to Burkitt and his team because they can help you in your location. They might have a solution that's
perfectly well vetted
true.
Birket (47:47)
surf.