IT’S BEEN A NUMBER OF months since we last tried to publicly discomfit the Canadian Internet service provider industry over its lack of action on delivering a cohesive, national, inexpensive broadband program to low income urban Canadians.
As we’ve noted, it’s happening south of the border. A program (the creation of private industry done at the urging of the Federal Communications Commission and with zero government money) called Connect 2 Compete allows qualifying low income families to get access to broadband for $9.95 a month as well as to low cost computers and tech support.
In the fall of 2011 we urged the big Canadian companies to do something similar. So far, we’ve seen little progress. Oh, the executives we talk to think it’s a grand idea, say they are interested and would like to do “something”, but we’ve been told there many reasons why it can’t happen or why it can’t happen any time soon. Some are good reasons, but there is nothing that is insurmountable and still, there’s been little progress here in Canada while the our poor continues to be left behind by our digital world, which is troubling.
According to Statistics Canada, in 2010 21% of Canadian households didn’t have Internet access at home. However, while the vast majority (97%) of households with incomes of $87,000 or more, had home Internet access, just 54% of households with incomes of $30,000 or less had it. I think most would agree this is a serious problem, more serious than the oft-stated goal of delivering broadband to rural areas (which is happening on its own – and still faces the household affordability problem).
Such a program should even an absolute no-brainer from a business standpoint, too. We’re not talking about substituting a bunch of $40/month subscriptions for one that’s $9.95. These Connect 2 Compete customers Stateside are newcomers who previously couldn’t afford broadband. We’re talking about homes already in the ISP footprints which currently are generating no Internet revenue.
So then we’re also not talking about a special multi-million-dollar network build. The wires (or wireless signals) are already everywhere and pass almost all of these homes which can’t afford broadband. Then, there are agencies like Mississauga’s Renewed Computer Technology (www.rcto.ca) which can provide the required laptops or desktops needed to make the broadband connection useful.
All the parts to do this exist. What’s missing is the will to act by our big network providers, some of whom are close to getting on board with this, while others dismiss it out of hand as something which should be a government project.
So, I turned to our Industry Minister, Christian Paradis, during his media availability session at Canada 3.0. He had just finished giving a speech that both urged businesses to lead the charge in the global digital economy and that the federal government is committed to “give our best and brightest the opportunity to succeed.”
If there were ever a couple of messages tailor made to drive a Canadian Broadband For All campaign, goodness gracious, this is it!
Now, while the Minister wasn’t briefed in advance about the American Connect 2 Compete program and my question was a bit out of the blue for him, given there were about four reporters present, he gave what to me, sounded like an answer showing some interest.
At first he went boilerplate and talked about the government’s commitment to competition in the wireless sector, saying the 2008 AWS spectrum auction spawned new wireless companies which helped bring prices down by about 11%, so we pushed a little harder. We explained while the American program does not require any government money, it might require a shove from the feds to get the ball rolling.
I asked: “Is there a way for your office to say ‘hey Rogers, hey Bell, hey CRTC, let’s get together and get this program put together where we can, for $10 a month, get broadband to low income families in Canadian cities, who are being bypassed by the digital world?”
His answer: “The principle is what I said: We don’t want any (digital) gap. We want to have as (many) Canadians as possible to have access to the internet, rural, urban, and of course if there are some other possibilities that could be looked at, why not? We have to work together. We have to understand the provinces, the federal government, the private sector – this is exactly why I said let’s work together so if some interesting things are worth it to look at, this is something we can look at for sure.
“If there are some good ideas that can be repeated here, why not?”
And that’s our position too. So, Canadian ISPs, when it comes to providing a low-cost broadband option for low income families, why not?
