By Ahmad Hathout
WHITEHORSE – Northwestel will join the Connecting Families program, officials from the Bell subsidiary said Friday, after participants in the CRTC’s far north hearing this week expressed disappointment about its absence from the broadband discount program.
“We’ve listened to our partners this week and I would like to announce today that Northwestel will be joining Canada’s Connecting Families program,” Tammy April, Northwestel’s vice president of customer experience, said during the company’s opening comments. Its participation will be subject to CRTC tariff approval because it cannot set its own price, it said.
The program, which is funded by the participating telecoms, provides eligible households with the federal standard speeds of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload with 200 gigabytes of data for $20 per month. The program is often touted as a benefit allowing lower income Canadians to get high-speed internet at an affordable rate.
When asked about whether it will commit to the 50/10 standard, Northwestel representatives said it will where that speed is feasible. The company also said this discount will exclude satellite-dependent communities, as none of the others in the program provide that service to those areas.
April added that the company doesn’t have a timeline on when customers can expect the service as the decision was made just this week. She said the company notified Innovation Canada today and will likely have to work through some data, adding the company expects more information in the “coming weeks.”
The company said it intends to keep the program running until 2027, similar to the other companies, and will discuss renewals when it comes time.
Because Northwestel is the dominant provider in the far north, several hearing participants expressed disappointment that the company was not among the 18 other service providers providing the service.
In lieu of Northwestel’s participation, the Northwest Territories government asked the CRTC earlier this week to implement two affordability streams – a low-income subsidy and a universal service subsidy to deal with higher prices in the region. The government said it would prefer that the company join the program.
Northwestel also pushed back against recommendations for the commission to eliminate overage fees in the region, saying that doing so would cause severe congestion on the network and cripple its satellite services. (The company has deals, including with OneWeb, for low-earth orbit satellite services.)
The Competitive Network Operators of Canada, the independent telecom rep that appeared before Northwestel, pitched to the regulator Friday that it mandate wholesale access to Northwestel’s network.
“Mandating Northwestel to provide wholesale access will create a pathway for the development of new, locally-owned and operated, TSPs in the Far North, including TSPs that are owned and operated by Indigenous peoples and communities,” the organization said.
CNOC also cautioned the commission about low-earth orbit satellite technology that it said is expensive, provides inconsistent service and therefore does not provide an adequate competitive alternative.
“Customers must pay an initial one-time equipment fee of $3,170.00 and a monthly fee of $635.00 for Starlink’s internet service optimized for the Far North above 60 degrees latitude, which includes the three territorial capitals,” CNOC said.
But Northwestel backed satellite services, claiming Starlink is competitive now and will “continue to innovate to bring more capacity and lower rates to Northern Canada.”
