CRTC consulting on barriers to internet access in remote areas

The CRTC is asking all telecoms about what barriers exist that would hinder their ability to deliver the basic service objective for internet access established three years ago. A consultation document, posted Tuesday, asks the telecoms to “identify potential barriers and/or regulatory solutions to building new facilities or interconnecting to existing facilities in order to extend broadband-capable networks more efficiently into underserved areas in Canada.” The deadline for submissions is January 24. The consultation will zero-in on barriers to wholesale access to transport services and support structures, the document said. The CRTC is currently deliberating on final rates for a new wholesale regime that will unbundle transport and last mile services in exchange for access to fibre. The notice comes after the regulator opened up its second call for applications from its $750-million Broadband Fund, money from which is to be used to connect those hard-to-reach areas. The CRTC said Tuesday that this notice and the call for applications are independent of each other. In an email on Wednesday, CRTC spokeswoman Patricia Valladao said "such a review would complement the Broadband Fund, as it would seek to facilitate infrastructure builds through regulatory measures that could reduce or even eliminate the need for additional funding." The regulator identified only 40.8 per cent of households in rural areas and 31.3 per cent of those on Indigenous reserves get that basic service of 50 Mbps download, with an option for unlimited monthly data. In contrast, 85.7 per cent of Canadian households have that kind of access. In fact, government projections show that 32 per cent of Indigenous households were projected to be below 5 Mbps by March of this year. Historically, the telecoms have argued that connecting sparsely populated regions is not economically viable because of the discrepancy between the cost of building and the return from subscribers. One solution is for the government to pitch in. As such, the federal government’s most recent budget pledged to close the basic services gap, promising to provide all of Canada access to the 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload objective by 2030 as part of its $1.7-billion Universal Broadband Fund. Despite this, some experts have said the money being pledged is still not enough. Another part of the solution, as put forth by the president of the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) last month, is to get more cooperation between municipal governments and internet service providers.

CRTC consulting on barriers to internet access in remote areas

Brief | December 11, 2019

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CRTC consulting on barriers to internet access in remote areas

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