Provinces also looking at speeding up rural broadband rollouts

As the federal government and individual companies work on accelerating funding for and deployments of rural broadband in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of provinces are trying to do the same with their own programs. “I don’t think there is a province or territory that isn’t feeling the impact. So there is certainly interest,” Monique Arsenault, director of innovation at Develop Nova Scotia, said in a phone interview. “Everybody’s ability to make things go quicker might be different, but there certainly is an understanding of the need and a recognition that there’s value, certainly, in moving things forward.” Arsenault said there are “ongoing conversations” between the provinces and the federal government about what each is doing and what approaches are working. “As I’ve seen from other provinces, everybody is approaching it not too dissimilar from us. They’re looking at what they can do with work they may have underway right now.” Nova Scotia has increased funding for its Internet for Nova Scotia Initiative by an additional $15 million on top of the $45 million it originally earmarked for the first round of projects announced in early February. Develop Nova Scotia has also been “actively working with all of our partners who have approved projects to look at how we make that possible with them, so whether that be additional resources, support for removal of barriers where possible to ensure that we do get access sooner rather than later,” Arsenault said. The crown corporation has taken an individualized approach, reaching out to each initiative to get an idea of what it would take to speed it up. “With each project, they may look a little bit different, so the needs of each project might be a little distinct. But within each of those we would have the ability to have some impact on their timeline,” she said. Develop Nova Scotia has also been looking at other options, Arsenault added. “We’ve been exploring whether or not there are some interim technologies we might be able to use to support delivery of key services like health care. We’re also also looking at, do we have the ability to support some relief of congestion on some of these networks,” she explained. The British Columbia government has also moved to boost its rural broadband program in response to the pandemic. It added a new stream to its $100-million Connecting British Columbia Program, accepting applications for projects that can be implemented immediately to upgrade networks and expand bandwidth and coverage. On the federal level, Maryam Monsef, minister for women and gender equality and rural economic development, told The Wire Report in an interview Wednesday that the federal government will speed up its rural broadband funding in response to COVID-19, with details to be announced “soon.” Imran Mohiuddin, policy analyst with advocacy group Cybera, said in a phone interview governments should be “accelerating the deployment as soon as possible. Dealing with the short term pain people are going through. The most important thing would be rapid deployment.” Ray Orb, who is the Rural Forum Chair at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities said in a phone interview that the FCM has been “pushing a little harder” on the rural broadband issue in the light of the pandemic, and that the organization would like to see the federal government speed up the launch of the $1.7-billion Universal Broadband Fund. Orb said another way to accelerate deployment would be to make room for more partnerships between different levels of government and telecoms, such as the SWIFT project in Ontario. “Those partnerships work because the municipalities know what they need, how they can get those services out to their constituents, in a better way, a more efficient way,” he said. Allowing small municipalities to join forces and apply together for regional funding would also be helpful, he said. Quebec announced a $100-million program called Régions branchées in the fall. Spokesperson Jean-Pierre D'Auteuil said in an email that the province is currently analyzing the applications it has received, that process hasn’t been affected by COVID-19, and that the schedule it originally set out for the program hasn’t changed. Ontario also has a $150 million provincial broadband and cellular infrastructure program, scheduled to start in 2020-21. Spokesperson Sofia Sousa-Dias said in an email that the province is “currently finalizing program design and working to accelerate this investment in a way that will leverage other sources of funding,” and is still on track to meet the 2020-2021 deadline. Neither province specified whether they are taking steps to speed up deployment, though Sousa-Dias said: “To make sure the program meets its goals, and that we maximize the impact of every dollar that goes into the program, we need to take the time to get it right. But Ontario is working diligently on this issue, and we continue moving as fast as we can to find ways to extend these services to unserved and underserved parts of the province.” There have also been delays; in addition to provincial and federal funds, the CRTC has a separate $750-million rural broadband fund. The regulator has now twice extended the deadline for telecommunication service providers to apply, pushing back the deadline from April 30 to June 1. The CRTC didn’t respond to questions about the extent of the delay, including whether it will also affect the first round of applications, which closed in the fall and focused on the most remote communities. A number of companies have also said they will speed up some rollouts in response to COVID-19. BCE Inc. announced last week it will be delivering its fixed wireless internet to some 137,000 more homes than it had planned to by this point, while Telus Corp. said in mid-April it will expedite some capital investments in Alberta, which will include rural broadband. Xplornet Communications Inc. is also accelerating its network investments, spokesperson James Maunder said in a phone interview. Cogeco Inc. spokesperson Anastasia Unterner didn’t directly answer how the company’s rollouts have been affected by COVID-19, though she said in an email that “while certain investment initiatives across the company may be reprioritized due to the pandemic, we still intend to work with governments to support high-speed Internet access in unserved and underserved communities.” Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. spokesperson Greg Jacobs said in an email that COVID-19 “has not had a major impact on any of our initiatives related to the expansion and/or enhancements of broadband services in rural Saskatchewan.” Despite the efforts of the companies and municipalities, provinces and the federal government, there are limits to just how much these deployments can be accelerated. The efforts to expand connectivity across the country have been ongoing for years, and in 2018, 85.7 per cent of Canadians had access to the CRTC’s basic service standard of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload, according the regulator’s latest data. Nearly all — 97.7 per cent — of urban dwellers had access to those speeds, but only 40.8 per cent of rural households did. The situation is even worse in First Nations reserves, where less than a third, 31.3 per cent, have access to those speeds. The government plans to extend those target speeds to all Canadians, but doesn’t expect to reach that goal until 2030. Arsenault acknowledged it takes time to build out this kind of infrastructure, but said in the conversations Develop Nova Scotia has had with those building out the projects, “we’re seeing … it’s certainly weeks to months worth of impact that we can have, so in some areas that may be that we have people connected two or three months sooner than we may have otherwise, which to those residents and businesses that’s a pretty significant impact.” Overall, she said, “the impact may differ in different places, but we certainly see that there is enough that it’s worth continuing the conversations we’re currently having.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Adam Langenberg at alangenberg@thewirereport.ca

Provinces also looking at speeding up rural broadband rollouts

News | May 1, 2020

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Provinces also looking at speeding up rural broadband rollouts

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