By Denis Carmel
QUEBEC – Former CRTC Commissioner, Suzanne Lamarre is heavily involved in the government of Québec’s effort to speed the deployment of high-speed internet in rural and remote regions funded through the Québec Branché program.
We first heard of this when Bell issued a news release on October 30, announcing new measures to simplify the process of having access to its support structures. The same day, the CRTC announced potential regulatory measures to make access to poles owned by Canadian carriers more efficient.
“To accelerate the implementation of funded projects and meet deadlines, the Quebec government has set up the Coordination Table on Access to Support Infrastructure. Owners of support infrastructure, Hydro-Québec, Bell, Télébec and Telus, are working with proponents of projects funded by the Quebec government to advance the issuance of permits needed to deploy broadband Internet, where the service does not meet the 50/10 standard. Internet service providers, MRCs or other government-funded agencies are invited to present to stakeholders the status of the licensing of their projects,” the Québec Ministry of Economy and Innovation said in an email response to Cartt.ca.
One of the problems carriers have come across while in the field was that the process to have access to telephone and hydro poles was too slow and cumbersome.
Announced in May 2020, the Table started meeting with some 14 grant recipients to survey the status of the permit issuance. These first meetings were followed by some 30 detailed engineering sessions between promoters and support structure owners.
“Applicants’ priorities are reviewed to promote co-ordination between owners (Hydro-Québec and Bell) and to ensure the application of relief measures to the common standard for issuing permits for the installation of new telecommunications infrastructure on support infrastructure,” the email response went on.
The coordination table is led by Suzanne Lamarre, who on top of being a lawyer, is also an engineer. She acts as a mediator and facilitator for projects funded by the Quebec government. It is supported by Ministry of Economy and innovation team.
The work will take as long as it takes and there is obviously some work to be done if we trust the according to the release from Cogeco, Videotron and Maskicom.
