Good morning. Across Canada, thousands of kilometres of major roads do not have reliable cellphone service. More on that below, plus news on Israel’s latest attacks on Gaza. But first:

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The Globe and Mail has been investigating how many of Canada’s major roads and highways are studded with cellular dead zones. We explored why this problem persists, and what is being done about it. What we found was a complex web of hurdles, and numerous Canadians affected by dead zones both in times of crisis and in their daily lives.

Hi, I’m Irene Galea, The Globe and Mail’s telecommunications reporter.

Covering this beat for the Report on Business is about more than just parsing corporate balance sheets and following regulatory hearings. It means understanding the invisible infrastructure on which nearly every element of the Canadian economy and our daily lives depend.

It also means knowing the limitations of those networks. While the majority of our most-populated areas are well-connected, anyone who has travelled outside of major Canadian cities knows that cellphone service in some rural areas can be unreliable, or even non-existent.

This past May, investigative reporter Jill Mahoney and I met in a newsroom office with our editors to discuss a statistic that she had discovered in a federal report: of all the major roads in Canada, 13.4 per cent, spanning roughly 15,000 kilometres, still lack cellphone service.

We felt this number alone was striking. But it was even more surprising when we considered that this only included regional and national highways and the Trans-Canada highway, and did not include dead zones on the vast quantity of secondary and minor roads covering our country.

Over the months that followed, Jill and I undertook an investigation of this issue, and spoke with Canadians from across the country – truck drivers, parents, government officials, business leaders and industry experts – to understand why this problem persists, and what is being done about it.

Meanwhile, The Globe’s visuals team mapped these dead zones to help pinpoint the problem, and travelled the country photographing the people and places affected by this issue.

What we discovered is that the consequences for Canadians - whether in moments of crisis or on a regular basis - of dead zones on major roads are tangible. Lost tourists, drivers stranded, evacuees who miss crucial emergency alerts, and those who can’t connect if they feel unsafe while on the move.

As for the cause, our reporting uncovered a complex web of challenges that centre around the biggest barrier: cost. But that’s not the only hurdle. Technical and geographical considerations, regulatory and funding delays, and a mismatch of priorities between the public and private sector have led to long stretches of road with no terrestrial-based coverage.

What’s more, we found that the service gaps reported by the federal government understate the scale of the issue, and that the percentage of unconnected major roads has barely changed since 2017.

But there’s reason to be hopeful. Promising technology is emerging that could help fill these gaps. Direct-to-device satellite technology, which does not rely on cellular towers, is a new frontier of investment for telecom companies looking for market share.

It could eventually help to close coverage gaps. But questions still surround the nascent technology, which Ottawa says has not yet supplanted the need to invest in traditional infrastructure, and which experts say lacks adequate redundancy.

Until then, we hope that this story will shed light on the persistent issue of cellphone dead zones, and raise fundamental questions about how we can ensure that the inhabitants of our vast country can remain safely connected.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have been some of the deadliest since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect in October. The Gaza attacks coincided with a barrage of Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon on what the Israeli military said were Hezbollah sites. Meanwhile, Israel plans to