SSi Micro says northern broadband won’t grow if everything is given to incumbents
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Last week, outgoing Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said a chunk of the United States’ historic C-band spectrum proceeds should go toward a fund intended to help bring basic telecommunications services to all Americans.
North of the border, NDP Member of Parliament Brian Masse (and many others) has long been calling for spectrum proceeds to fund rural broadband investments — even creating a proposal to connect the entirety of the country to universal objective speeds (50 Mbps download/10 Mbps upload) much sooner than the current government’s 2030 trajectory with that as a recommendation.
On Tuesday, Bell’s chief legal and regulatory officer Robert Malcolmson (above) floated to the Standing Committee on Industry studying telcom affordability and accessibility the idea of using money in government coffers obtained from spectrum auctions to help build rural broadband initiatives as a recommendation to bring universal broadband to all Canadians.
Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) and the telecoms are gearing up for the June auction of 3.5 GHz spectrum, which is said to be crucial for 5G and will draw billions of dollars for the government from the likes of Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw and others. The 600 MHz auction in 2019 drew $3.5 billion for the government, the AWS-3 auction in 2015 attracted $2.1 billion, and the 700 MHz auction in 2014 drew $5.3 billion.
For perspective, between the major broadband programs under the Universal Broadband Fund, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, Connect to Innovate, and the CRTC’s fund, just shy of $5 billion has already been promised for rural broadband.
The goal of connecting all of Canada to the 50/10 objective has seen a number of recommendations being thrown at it. The incumbents have universally called on the government to deploy more spectrum. Then on Tuesday, Bell suggested the government merge the different federal broadband programs above to deliver on large-scale rural projects.
Whether that means simply coordinating the funding or one program assuming sole control over the others isn’t clear. Masse and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre have both called for a centralization of the programs with one agency at the helm of the programs.
Whatever form it is conceived in, there have been similar calls. In November, Telus recommended the coordination of the UBF and the various provincial broadband programs to connect hard-to-reach areas faster. The Vancouver-based company has argued that the recommendation would help connect all of Canada to the universal broadband speed objective by 2025.
Part of that journey is to free-up spectrum — that is, spectrum held by the government or held by carriers and not used.
“As wireless solutions are often the most workable in rural and remote communities, the sooner more spectrum is unlocked and put to use, the sooner we can provide 50/10 Mbps to hundreds of thousands of underserved homes and premises,” a Telus statement from November said. “For example, this simple change could lift an additional 270,000 Canadians up to the 50/10 standard in Alberta and B.C. alone.”
One of the outstanding criticisms of the separate programs is how they will be co-ordinated. Or not. CRTC chairman Ian Scott said in November the
different mapping methods and connectivity requirements of the separate programs can help differentiate the programs — with some programs picking up where another drops applicants. But that still doesn’t entirely address the coordination concern or bureaucratic layering problem.
Both the idea of deploying spectrum and using their proceeds for rural broadband connectivity got a nod from SSi Micro’s Jeffrey Philipp (pictured, talking about the price of satellite broadband in the far north), who said with a caveat on Tuesday, that it won’t work if the money just goes to the bigger players.
“We have participated in every public auction in the last 15 years — we have not been successful in one,” he said, adding that includes auctions with set-asides intended to give smaller providers a better shot at winning the coveted radiowaves. “There are some real challenges with how spectrum is being doled out because once you hold that spectrum… if you don’t deploy it, what good is it to Canadians if you aren’t deploying it?” he added.
“It is a very critical asset for Canadians and there’s a revenue stream to ensure broadband in rural Canada, but it’s not by giving the money to a monopoly telco and hoping that they will be different than they have done in the last 20 years.” – Jeffrey Philipp, SSi Micro
“Yes there are better ways to do it; yes, it is a very critical asset for Canadians and there’s a revenue stream to ensure broadband in rural Canada, but it’s not by giving the money to a monopoly telco and hoping that they will be different than they have done in the last 20 years,” Philipp said.
Philipp, whose company is based in the Northwest Territories and is also a key broadband provider for Nunavut through its Qiniq brand, echoed some of the sentiments from a number of members of the legislative assembly of Nunavut who have complained to the regional government about a lack of action on broadband and the overreliance on the dominant carrier in the region, Bell’s Northwestel.
One MLA said that if the region relies on Northwestel, he won’t see adequate broadband in his area in his lifetime.
SSi Micro recently partnered with Luxembourg-based satellite provider SES for broadband capacity. SES has argued for the use of medium-earth orbit satellites, as opposed to low-earth orbit satellites. “What we need right now in rural Canada is to solve the training, the human resources, the job creation, and the open gateway infrastructure,” Philipp said.
He recommended building “open gateways — meaning co-location facilities and towers — and put in fibre-to-the-home in those markets that make sense… put in the antennas that we need for the last-mile distribution and we allow all competitors into that gateway,” he explained.
“In space, we need a longer-term commitment to purchase capacity, because what happens is we go through four-year beauty contests… when there’s a change in government, there’s a new funding program and there’s a new strategy for broadband. Which means competitors like us and Northwestel and Bell — we’re competing on a four-year program. And investing long-term is difficult in a four-year program.”
Bell’s recommendation for rural broadband was part of a four-point plan that included the standard call for government regulatory policy to “prioritize investment in networks by companies that are prepared to risk private capital to build connectivity.” The other is to incentivize public-private partnerships through entities like the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
But this wasn’t the only issue the committee on industry was looking at tackling. Bell was asked how it was doing with the Liberal government’s pledge to get the large telecoms to reduce their wireless plan pricess by 25% over two years.
“We’re about half-way there,” Malcolmson said. “We’re seeing consumers want more data, so some of those [targeted] plans are becoming less popular with consumers and so the other thing that’s happening is you’re seeing higher data usage plans having those prices come down, and that’s not by virtue of any form of government intervention — it’s simply by virtue of the operation of the competitive marketplace among facilities-based providers.”
