Rural broadband costs to become clearer early next year: ISED

OTTAWA — Despite already surpassing their target to connect some rural and remote communities with broadband internet, officials from Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Canada told a House of Commons committee Thursday that initial estimates to connect some parts of the country were short of what they anticipated. “What we're seeing is that the North probably costs more than what we thought,” Susan Hart, director general of spectrum, information technologies and telecommunications in ISED’s Connecting Canadians branch told the industry, science and technology committee. The federal government last year announced the Connect to Innovate rural broadband program, which is slated to bring high-speed internet backbone infrastructure to 300 communities and cost $500 million through to 2021. On Thursday, ISED confirmed that it expects to exceed that goal. It pointed to a pledge of $290 million for up to 100,000 households in 360 Quebec communities, with a portion coming from the fund. Witnesses from ISED confirmed Thursday that there could be as many as 3,000 communities of about 400 people or less each that will still need support after all the Connect to Innovate projects are announced. Liberal MP Frank Baylis pressed the witnesses on what those future costs of connecting the rest of rural and remote Canada might be. Hart acknowledged that they could be lower than expected, but a more accurate estimate will be coming in the new year. “I think we'll definitely have a ballpark by January,” Hart said, admitting that ISED has not done a “detailed costing.” She added, however, that connecting parts of the south might not be as expensive as they thought. Originally, the effort to connect every rural Canadian was estimated to be around $5 billion, with $2 billion estimated for the North alone, Hart said. But estimates about what it would really cost to connect the rest of the country only became clearer after ISED picked the first Connect to Innovate projects. In May, it went through nearly 900 applications asking for a total of $4.4 billion in Connect to Innovate funding. Hart said those estimates will become more clear when all projects are selected. The committee also heard more about the $750-million broadband fund, announced with the CRTC’s decision last year to make broadband internet a basic service. “So far, we have received nearly 90 submissions from a broad range of interested parties,” Christopher Seidl, the CRTC’s executive director of telecommunications, said in his opening statements. The broadband fund is meant to “complement” the efforts of Connect to Innovate, and Seidl said he expects those funds could be distributed in 2019 with a decision on the funding regime in 2018. The Connect to Innovate fund has already announced multiple projects in Nunavut, North Ontario, and Quebec. Hart said more projects are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. — With reporting by Bryson Masse at bmasse@thewirereport.ca and editing by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca

Rural broadband costs to become clearer early next year: ISED

News | November 23, 2017

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Rural broadband costs to become clearer early next year: ISED

News | November 23, 2017

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