Is Bad Internet Killing Your Canadian Business?
Storm Internet founder Birket Foster on rural connectivity, smart farm tech, and the cybersecurity basics every Canadian SMB needs right now.
Host: Bernie Franzgrote
Storm Internet founder Birket Foster on rural connectivity, smart farm tech, cybersecurity basics, and the digital divide.
GROWTH CATEGORY: Cybersecurity & IT
Brought to you by @Hive, Sterling Grace Technologies, and Canada Growth Network.
If your business depends on the internet — and it does — bad connectivity isn't a minor inconvenience. It's a ceiling on everything you're trying to build.
Birket Foster saw that ceiling in rural Ontario and decided to remove it. He built Storm Internet from the ground up — 262 wireless towers, 150-plus smart farms, and a coverage footprint that reaches places the big telecoms walked away from. In this episode, he breaks down what reliable rural internet actually looks like, what it makes possible, and what every Canadian business owner needs to know about protecting the network they depend on.
Watch the full conversation here:
ANSWER CAPSULE
Bad internet is one of the most overlooked constraints on rural Canadian business growth. Birket Foster, founder of Storm Internet, has spent decades building wireless infrastructure across Ontario to close that gap. This episode covers practical cybersecurity habits, smart farm technology, and what reliable connectivity actually enables — from automated dairy operations to live commodity trading.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Rural entrepreneurs · Farm operators · Home-based business owners · Solopreneurs outside major cities · IT advisors working with Canadian SMBs · Anyone advising rural businesses on infrastructure and technology
Key Lessons
1. The internet is your business operating system — treat it that way.
Birket made this plain early in the conversation. Every business needs internet. Every household needs internet. But what most people underestimate is the integration work — how you connect your tools, your devices, and your people to that pipe once it exists. Storm doesn't just deliver connectivity. They assess the property, recommend hardware, build private networks, and tune access points for the specific environments they're working in — including metal-roof barns where Wi-Fi signals go to die. If your internet is unreliable, everything that runs on top of it is unreliable too. That's not a tech problem. That's a business problem.
2. Cybersecurity on a rural network starts with the basics — and most people skip them.
Default passwords are the entry point Birket sees most often. If your device shipped with a password, someone can look it up online in thirty seconds. Change it. Beyond that: run a firewall, set up a proper login process for anyone accessing your devices remotely, and audit how many devices are actually on your network. A ten-year-old router was built for roughly a dozen simultaneous devices. If you've got a smartwatch, a tablet, two laptops, a smart TV, a Ring camera, a Nest, and a few more — you may have already gone over the limit. The router is quietly failing everyone on it, and no one knows why things feel slow.
3. AI is already watching your network — the question is whether it's on your side.
Storm uses AI to detect anomalies in real time. When a PC starts sending four hundred emails an hour, the system flags it before it becomes a crisis. That protects the business that owns the PC — and the reputation of every other user on the network. Birket framed it simply: spam is a waste of bandwidth, and a compromised machine is a liability. The same AI capability that protects Storm's infrastructure is the kind of early warning system most rural SMBs don't think about until something breaks badly.
Practical Steps
1. Audit your devices and your router.
Count every device currently connecting to your network — phones, tablets, laptops, TVs, smart home devices, cameras, and wearables. If you're over twenty and your router is more than five years old, it's time for an upgrade. A current-generation router handles simultaneous connections far better and gives you actual visibility into what's on your network.
2. Change your default passwords today.
Every connected device — router, cameras, smart devices, milking systems, grain sensors — ships with a default password that is publicly searchable. Change them. Store them somewhere secure. Share them only with the people who need access. This is the single fastest cybersecurity improvement most rural businesses can make.
— Sterling Grace Technologies helps Canadian SMBs build this kind of baseline protection — cybersecurity, IT support, and business continuity from people who know the Canadian compliance landscape. —
3. Run a cable to your TV.
This one is specific and immediately useful. Most TVs default to the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi band and absorb a significant chunk of available bandwidth. If you can drop a cable from your router to your TV, you free up that bandwidth for every other device in the building. It's a five-minute fix that changes the performance of your whole network.
About the Guest
Birket Foster is the founder of Storm Internet — an Ontario-based ISP serving rural families, farms, and home-based businesses across 262 wireless towers and a growing fiber footprint. Connect: LinkedIn · Storm on Instagram · Storm on YouTube · Storm on Facebook
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Partners on this episode
@Hive — Real-world business networking, in person and online. Starter membership $99 CAD/year.
Sterling Grace Technologies — Cybersecurity, IT support, and business continuity for Canadian SMBs.
Canada Growth Network — Business community plus full CRM and automation suite. $47 CAD/month.
FAQ
Q: Does Storm Internet only serve the Ottawa Valley area?
Storm's wireless network covers a large footprint in eastern Ontario — but through wholesale agreements with Bell, Rogers, and Cogeco, Storm can deliver DSL, fiber-to-premises, and cable internet to customers well beyond the immediate Ottawa area. If you're in Ontario and need service, storm.ca is the place to start.
Q: What internet speeds do I actually need to run a small business from home?
Birket recommends a minimum of 10 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up for a single Zoom or Teams call. If multiple people in your household are on calls simultaneously, multiply that per person. Storm's new fiber-powered wireless offering delivers up to 300 Mbps down and 50 Mbps up — enough for ten simultaneous video calls.
Q: What's the first cybersecurity step a rural business should take?
Change every default password on every device connected to your network. It takes twenty minutes and closes the most common entry point Birket's team sees. After that: add a firewall, audit your device count, and make sure anyone accessing your network remotely goes through a proper login process — not a shared default.
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