For ‘acceptable’ internet, look beyond speed, House study told

As the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology gears up for a study of rural broadband, a number of participants are pointing out that the speeds set under the CRTC’s basic service standards can’t be the only metric to consider, at the same time as the regulator works on defining quality of service. In a December 2016 decision, the CRTC set out basic service requirements that include a minimum of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload speeds and LTE coverage, and announced a new $750 million fund. That same month, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada announced its $500 million Connect to Innovate program with the goal to augment Canadians’ access to fixed broadband in remote areas. “If you're promised 50 megabits per second then you should get that at all hours of the day,” Alyssa Moore, policy advisor for Cybera, an Alberta-based not-for-profit technology accelerator, said in the group’s brief to the committee. “When you have networks that are highly oversubscribed, you're just absolutely not going to get that at the peak time.” An internet service provider’s (ISP) oversubscription ratio is the understanding that the service provider needs to sell more connections than it can support simultaneously to remain profitable, because its customer base is unlikely to use the service all at the same time. Too much oversubscription can negatively affect network speeds, if not managed correctly. Cybera said that those ratios are not regulated, so there are no guarantees to avoid congested networks. It also pointed to latency as an important metric, noting that network latency “is an expression of how long a packet of data takes to get from one designated point to another. If the data round trip time is high, the user will experience slower loading times and degraded videos and graphics. Rural users with satellite connections encounter round trips roughly 20 times longer than those with a terrestrial connection.” The committee hasn’t released a deadline for the briefs to be submitted or a start date for the study. In a June press release asking for comments, it asked three main questions, including what constitutes acceptable service. A common theme found in submitted comments so far is the idea that the current metrics being used to gauge the effectiveness of funding programs could be improved. For example, that includes future-proofing the CRTC’s new 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload basic service standard. “While this is a great start, we must comment that it fails to provide long-term solutions,” said the brief submitted by Rod Shaigec, mayor of Alberta’s Parkland county. “The ever-increasing demands of broadband will quickly make the aforementioned targets ineffective within the next couple of years.” The Olds Institute for Community and Regional Development also said in its submission that 50 Mbps “will shortly be deemed insufficient for much of our population.” Olds is a small town in Alberta that began offering gigabit internet in 2013, years before large telecoms made those speeds available. It added that “enough” bandwidth “need never get in the way of innovation. Citizens and businesses can, and do, expand their use of the internet daily. Our community has acquired businesses because of abundant and inexpensive broadband. Engineers working from home, video production companies and magazine publishers are just a few examples.” The First Mile Connectivity Consortium (FMCC), which represents First Nations internet service providers, also argued requirements “for high speed connectivity are evolving rapidly as applications, services and demands of users evolve. We are concerned with any prioritization of speed as a primary measure of adequate broadband.” It suggested reviewing any benchmarks that are set every three years. It also pointed to the need to monitor reliability of networks, make sure services are affordable, ensure networks are scalable so that they can accommodate higher demand in the future, and consider the needs of businesses and organizations in addition to households. “In some regions, households can include up to a dozen users, while community services such as schools and nursing stations play a key role in everyday life,” the group wrote, adding that “household users focused on consumption may desire asymmetrical bandwidth, while organizational and business users focused on production or interaction may desire symmetrical bandwidth that enables faster upload speeds.” Metrics like latency, jitter and packet loss were acknowledged by the CRTC’s December basic services decision, but a range of potential standards was discussed. “OneWeb Ltd. submitted that Canadians need latency as low as 30 milliseconds (ms),” said the decision, but it noted an earlier comment submitted by Xplornet Communications Inc. found that “mobile wireless services have a latency of approximately 100 ms and that satellite voice services have a latency of 400 ms, and that this has not prevented Canadians from adopting these services.” The decision noted that other recommendations were as low as 5 ms and for packet loss to be kept under one per cent. In the decision, CRTC interconnection steering committee (CISC) was tasked with returning in six months with recommendations on how to best measure and recommend acceptable quality of service levels. The goal of determining “appropriate metrics and reporting to define high-quality fixed broadband Internet access service,” according to the CISC, is proving challenging. As of an August report, that objective is still far off from being completed. “Contrary to the initial belief of many members of the sub-group, the Task has revealed itself to be more complex and contentious than previously considered. A member has mentioned that some government bodies, such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have been working on similar subjects for years without reaching a conclusion,” said the most recent status report from the Network Working Group. As of now, the group has asked for an extension to a Sept. 29 deadline, which is almost four months after the deadline the CRTC imposed in its December decision. — With reporting by Bryson Masse at bmasse@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

For ‘acceptable’ internet, look beyond speed, House study told

News | October 25, 2017

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For ‘acceptable’ internet, look beyond speed, House study told

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