Lack of infrastructure, bylaws challenges for remote connectivity

TORONTO — Remote communities looking to build internet as an essential service are being challenged by more than just financing, as internet service providers (ISPs) looking to take-on the task of delivering service in those areas face unique circumstances not seen in bigger metropolitan areas. Those challenges include lack of quality of service, regulations — or lack thereof — and even infrastructure theft, said Ken Sanderson, executive director of the Broadband Communications North Inc., an Indigenous not-for-profit ISP serving remote and rural areas in Manitoba. Sanderson was talking about internet as an essential service and what it means in hard-to-reach remote communities on the first day of the ISP Summit in Toronto on Monday. While traditional discussions on the topic have focused on the business case of connecting those sparsely populated areas — with the federal government committed to providing a helping hand financially — there are other less-talked about issues out there, too. “There’s a whole lot of other challenges that we find,” Sanderson said. “When you’re out in these more distant communities, the monitoring of people following proper quality of service is just not there,” Sanderson said. “You can’t just call up an inspector...and make sure that the job is done right. We saw some of these cases where they’re not very responsive.” Sometimes outages can mean residences don’t get service for days, which snowballs into other safety concerns, such as residents in those outage areas climbing their roofs to fix infrastructure problems themselves. Poor quality can even come in the form of faulty engineering — towers built on unstable foundations that risk their collapse, he added. “We have bylaw issues — permits, quality control, those things are very lacking. In many communities, there’s just literally no bylaws, there’s just nothing that holds you to any particular standard, so that’s one issue,” Sanderson said, adding “a lot” of communities don’t even have street names or house numbers. There have even been cases where towers were stolen and radios used as shotgun target practice. “When we talk about internet as an essential service...how do we work around and through all these challenges ?” Sanderson asked. The CRTC has already carved out a $750-million fund for rural broadband out of its basic services decision in 2016, and the federal government has set aside $500-million over five years for its Connect to Innovate rural and remote broadband fund, whose mandate is to bridge that divide. The CTI fund has seen issues surrounding how ISPs communicate with those communities it wishes to serve. “There’s a lot of politics involved now and a lot of issues,” Sanderson said. “Some of the contenders did not respect the community jurisdiction,” Sanderson said, adding those who want to serve the community must communicate with them to “make sure they even want you in the first place. “It’s messy,” Sanderson said. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Kyle Duggan at kduggan@thewirereport.ca

Lack of infrastructure, bylaws challenges for remote connectivity

News | November 5, 2018

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Lack of infrastructure, bylaws challenges for remote connectivity

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