By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A technical working group with members from the country’s major telecommunications companies have this month recommended a bevy of changes to enhance network reliability, including enhanced criminal penalties in cases of negligent damage to critical network infrastructure, subsidizing certain infrastructure in areas with little coverage, and expanding the CRTC’s authority over municipal infrastructure.
The 27-page report from the Canadian Telecommunications Network Resiliency Working Group, released this month, packs a list consisting of general recommendations for network resiliency and asks of the federal government.
“To strengthen [service providers’] efforts to improve the resiliency of Canada’s telecommunications networks, the [working group] recommends that the Government of Canada take timely action (including, where appropriate, initiating a process to liaise with other relevant levels of government) in priority areas,” the recommendations report said.
Those priorities include more action to reduce network infrastructure damage. That means introducing a federal law that protects service providers’ “critical and ancillary infrastructure and maximizes criminal penalties in the event of willful or negligent damage to, and/or acts of vandalism or theft of critical network infrastructure” and enhancing measures enforcing existing regulations for utilities or municipalities to notify telecoms about underground work to “minimize any potential damage” to underground telecom facilities. The report notes the U.S. criminal code includes financial penalties, imprisonment, or both for such actions.
In September, Innovation Canada announced the large telecommunications companies agreed to share their infrastructure in the event a major outage, known as the “triggering event,” after Rogers suffered one such outage that summer that knocked essential services to millions of Canadians. The memorandum of understanding defines a triggering event as a “critical network failure.”
The working group proposed that the emergency spectrum sharing agreement under the MOU could also be applied to emergency circumstance “which may not qualify or rise to the level” of the triggering event, and asks that Innovation Canada implement a “timely approval process” for that sharing.
The report also outlines the need for the CRTC to have authority over all publicly-owned passive infrastructure that can support network infrastructure, including traffic lights and bus shelters that are under the domain of municipalities, and over support structures owned by provincial utilities.
The large telecoms have been requesting a broadening of CRTC authority for many years to streamline installation of those network components, especially as the next generation 5G wireless network will require many connection points for ubiquitous connectivity. They’ve even been embroiled in legal fights with municipalities over that type of access.
Last month, the CRTC ordered stringent timelines for wood pole preparation to house additional telecom equipment to address barriers to broadband expansion, but left wireless equipment for another proceeding.
The working group also recommends the federal government coordinate with federal, provincial and territorial emergency management organizations to provide service provider technicians with priority access at all times to sites to engage in repairs and fuel generators and priority restoration of utility power to provider sites.
Where there is no wireless coverage or there exists only one service provider, the working group is also recommending the federal government provide funding or tax credits to support reliability efforts in areas including backup batteries, generators and network backhaul.
The report is also recommending an exemption to labour legislation prohibiting the use of replacement workers during strikes for federally regulated entities, which the federal government said it is committed to introducing by the end of the year.
If applied to service providers, the legislation “could result in outages during work stoppages and Hours of Work limitations under Part III of the Labour Code in the contexts of emergencies, which would limit the ability of [providers] to respond to outages,” the report said.
General recommendations for telecoms to strive for
The report notes that any recommended actions the telecom providers take are not mandatory but is done on a best-efforts basis.
The working group, as such, recommends telecoms establish redundancy between critical infrastructures by having physically diverse fiber routes, especially those with access to emergency services; design physical structures to be “as resilient as practicable” to withstand extreme weather events; purchase equipment from “reliable, capable, and reputable” suppliers; and strive to install communications cables underground and to ensure risks of damage, such as a fibre cut, are “mitigated to the extent practicable.”
Rogers committed to physically separating its wireless and wireline networks following its outage last summer, part of its multi-billion-dollar effort to enhance resiliency.
Along those lines, the group also recommended other network practices, including applying network management controls to “limit the impact and onward transmission of excessive traffic volumes…but no more than is reasonably required” and segmentation of services so failure in one segment or region does not affect services in another.
The working group consistent of Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw, Videotron, Cogeco, Eastlink, SaskTel, TbayTel, Xplore, Telesat, and Zayo. It is co-chaired by executives from Videotron and Telus.
