Broadband Commission report espouses social benefits of connectivity, recommends fibre

Canadian experts say a new UN report this week that espouses the economic and social impacts of broadband, covering issues from e-health to regulatory policy, makes useful data available to policy makers. The international Broadband Commission for Digital Development—created last year by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)—released the report Monday, and called broadband “a pre-requisite for advances” and encouraged widespread infrastructure investment. The report is a follow-up to the commission’s first report, released last October, which called for the creation of a multi-stakeholder think tank for broadband. Entitled “Broadband: A Platform for Progress,” the report references hundreds of studies to highlight the positive economic, educational, health and democratic benefits derived from broadband adoption and offered policy recommendations on infrastructure and regulation. In separate interviews, Catherine Middleton, the Canada research chair in communication technologies in the information society at Ryerson University, and David Ellis, a technology consultant and instructor at York University’s department of communication studies, said the report was useful and comprehensive, gathering relevant data. “From that perspective alone, it’s a very valuable document for anybody looking to understand the value of both investing in broadband infrastructure and encouraging more people to use broadband,” Middleton said. “I think it’s a good reference document as Canada roles out its own digital strategy.” The report calls for the creation of “a level playing field for users, content providers and network developers alike” through policy frameworks that prevent unequal broadband access, which would lead to “new knowledge divides between developed and developing countries, and between privileged and disadvantaged populations.” The report said regulators play a “critical role” in reducing the digital divide. It also waded into global debates on contentious regulatory issues such as net neutrality, voice-over-IP (VoIP) services, traffic management, infrastructure sharing and spectrum allocation. The report said net neutrality, once a North American debate about managing bandwidth fairly, has now become a global policy issue. “Net neutrality regulation is seen by some countries and policy experts as a viable approach to encourage ISPs to invest in broadband infrastructure, while taking account of the principle of inclusiveness and of social priorities,” the report said. As rising traffic volumes place stress on networks, the report noted that some countries like Canada are requiring ISPs to disclose traffic management practices. “The debate over what (if any) additional regulation to introduce in this area is highly contentious. Some observers view it as a referendum on the open nature of the Internet itself,” the report said. The CRTC adopted its policy for ISP traffic management practices in October 2009, giving the commission powers to review ISP practices “based on concerns arising primarily through complaints by consumers.” In a section on VoIP, the report said regulators’ ability to “regulate effectively in this area has major implications for investment, innovation and a country’s long-term competitiveness.” It called on regulators to define VoIP as either a service, a technology or an application before targeting anti-competitive practices. The report said developed countries should share infrastructure as they move to fibre deployments, and reduce environmental impacts from building multiple towers. “Deploying mobile base stations or fibre backbone networks to reach rural areas may be uneconomical if each company builds its own infrastructure,” it said. “Likewise, laying fibre to every home, building or street cabinet may be unattainable if operators act alone. Companies can, however, share some infrastructure but, at the same time, compete in providing services.” Middleton said the report’s recommendations on conduit sharing, open access and local loop unbundling are useful in Canada, but treating broadband as infrastructure that delivers a variety of services through multiple service providers could be emphasized more strongly. “It’s not a system. It’s not a piece of technology that is exclusive to a particular provider. This is the way we’re thinking about it now—somebody builds a network, it’s their network,” she said. The report said “modern communication infrastructure” should build fibre links between all urban centres, as well as major government, commercial, health and educations centres; connect hubs to homes and businesses through fibre or wireless for greenfield developments, and use deep fibre to copper, coaxial cable or wireless tails for brownfield developments; and cover nearly all of a nation’s population and major roads with broadband wireless. Middleton said Canada should adopt the report’s recommendation for a roadmap to higher speeds as the country transitions from copper networks. “The real question is how do we migrate from copper to fibre on the telco side of things, and I think this is a suggestion that we need a roadmap to move to higher speeds addressing that issue,” she said. The report also touches on the value of spectrum as a crucial means of extending broadband networks where laying wireline infrastructure is not economically feasible. It noted that operators in developed countries are asking regulators to allocate more spectrum for new broadband 4G networks. “In many countries, there is no longer any ‘low-hanging fruit’ in terms of spectrum that can easily be re-allocated for 4G,” the report said. “Difficult decisions remain as to whether and which older industries—and which government services and operations—may have to be relocated or forced to share spectrum in order to make way for the huge bandwidth that 4G seems to require.” Mobile content could be worth more than $1 trillion US worldwide by 2015, it said, with voice comprising only 10 per cent of the market. The Broadband Commission said market liberalization is the best means to encourage investment and that authorizing new operators “will yield greater benefits than incentives or obligation-driven approaches targeted at only a monopoly or a duopoly.” Relaxing foreign ownership restrictions supports new entrants, particularly in developing countries, the report said. “Increasingly, governments and regulators seek to attract foreign ownership, rather than restrict it on the premise of national security, cultural protection and domestic economic development,” it said. Ellis said such international reports tend to reflect “entrenched interests,” especially those from the ITU, which represents hundreds of private sector entities. “The Commission's original concerns—such as financing models and return on investment for broadband—are undoubtedly important for long-term success. But such concerns usually indicate a priority on business development rather than consumer welfare,” he said by email. “The last thing we need in Ottawa's approach to broadband right now is more emphasis on business needs and less on consumer needs.” Ottawa technology consultant Bill St. Arnaud said the report fails to address roaming charges, which he considers “the biggest impediment to the adoption” of services. “So they talk about broadband deployment and opening up spectrum, and that’s great, but one of the single biggest barriers right now is these roaming charges,” he said. “It’s a huge cash cow. And it could be resolved by the snap of the fingers. Just bang some heads together and say, ‘You can’t do this.’ But regulators seem to be just turning a blind eye to it.” The report contains a long section on the benefits of broadband for e-health, which has the ability to lower health-care costs and improve services. It estimates that the adoption of e-health initatives could cut health care costs by 10 to 20 per cent and give citizens a more proactive role in their health. The report cited a study that said about 7.2 million North Americans and Western Europeans will use home health monitoring solutions next year, up from 500,000 in 2008. “The alternative to not embracing e-health is to accept a significantly inferior healthcare service in the future,” it said. Middleton said Canada should consider broadband as fundamental to health, education and government services. “That hasn’t been ignored in Canada but I think it’s also not central to our discussion and I think it is something that should form a piece of our digital strategy,” she said. The Australian government's national digital strategy, released in late May, emphasized the social importance of broadband connectivity. The Broadband Commission report also examined universal service obligations, saying the Internet has shifted quickly from an area outside of policy and regulation to one considered as “an essential tool for social and economic welfare.” As of 2009, at least 30 countries had mandated broadband access, with Finland being the first to declare it a legal right, entitling everyone to a 1 Mbps connection. mburgess@thewirereport.ca

Broadband Commission report espouses social benefits of connectivity, recommends fibre

News | June 8, 2011

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