‘Logical’ to start CRTC broadband fund focusing on North: Scott

TORONTO —The CRTC chose to initially target its long-awaited broadband fund on Canada’s North because that’s the area with the most need for improvement when it comes to internet service, CRTC chairman Ian Scott said. “There’s not a single one of those communities that have the target today,” he said in an interview following a speech at the Canadian Telecom Summit, referring to the CRTC basic service speed of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. “To me, not only is it logical, it’s inherently defensible to say let’s start with the most challenged and the most challenging places, and that is the North.” He added: “That is the where the problem is the greatest, and I would submit where the solution has the biggest positive impact.” On Monday afternoon, the CRTC announced that it would begin accepting applications for its rural connectivity fund, and that the first round will only consider areas in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon, or satellite-dependent communities in any area of Canada. The fund, first announced in 2016, will provide $750 million over five years to hard-to-reach communities. Back in February, the commission released its application guide for the fund, and accepted comments into March. Applications are due by Oct. 3, 2019, and the CRTC will announce the results of the application process in 2020. In his remarks to the conference Monday, Scott also noted that in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut “72 per cent of major roads are not covered by LTE service.” Scott said in the interview the regulator will consider any eligible applications that come its way. “We should be open to all manner of technical solutions,” he said. Noting he wasn’t speaking about the fund but generally and in the long term, Scott said the solution to getting adequate connectivity in the North will require a combination of approaches, he said. “Fibre where it’s practical, satellite where it works,” he said, adding that low-earth orbit satellites “hold a great deal of promise.” The fund is part of a suite of initiatives across the federal government aimed at improving rural broadband access. Earlier Monday, The Wire Report reported that the newly-minted Ministry of Rural Economic Development would take over responsibility for all of the $1.7 billion for rural broadband funding announced in this year’s federal budget. That money had previously been split up between the new ministry and Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (ISED). The CRTC’s $750 million fund is only a small part of how much it will cost to connect all Canadians to the CRTC’s basic service speeds. When it announced the $1.7 billion fund, the government said it aims to have 95 per cent of Canadian homes and businesses meet the CRTC’s basic service standard of 50/10 Mbps by 2026, and then a full 100 per cent at that level by 2030. Scott added both CRTC and ISED estimate it will take around $8 billion to connect all Canadians to the basic service speeds. In announcing the federal budget in January, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the Liberals expect somewhere in the tune of $5-6 billion in combined public and private sector investments for rural broadband to be made over the next decade. Scott said that figure that doesn’t include any future renewal of the CRTC’s fund beyond the initial five years -- noting he expects the fund to continue -- or provincial funding. Minister for Rural Economic Development Bernadette Jordan told The Wire Report last week that the federal government will announce its own national broadband strategy before the next election. That’s something critics have long been saying is necessary, including former CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais, who unusually called for the government to create such a strategy in the middle of a hearing. Scott declined to comment Monday on whether he agrees with his predecessor. “I don’t know that it’s my place to tell the government whether we need one or not,” he said. “It’s not my role to comment on what government ministers should do.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca

‘Logical’ to start CRTC broadband fund focusing on North: Scott

News | June 3, 2019

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‘Logical’ to start CRTC broadband fund focusing on North: Scott

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