Say letters telecoms sent to ISED in order to get funds
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Rogers and Videotron have promised Innovation Canada they will implement several key policies that will speed up and cheapen access to subsidized support structures if granted money from the $2.75-billion Universal Broadband Fund.
The two companies propose to participate in frequent meetings of a co-ordination committee of owners of passive infrastructure; streamlining and accelerating permit reviews, administrative processes and contracts; and establishing a “dig-once” policy, whereby other carriers will be able to lay their fibre down at the same time that their own infrastructure is being built.
However, they each have their own proposals, too. Rogers said it is willing to share duct space, carrier wires, and pole space for running fibre, and share points of presence shelters and structures, cell site compounds and shelters and ground-based power supplies for an agreed monthly cost. Videotron said it is willing to reduce or cancel attachment rates and infrastructure replacement costs and light up inactive “dark” fibre or another existing network that’s not in use.
Cartt.ca previously reported ISED requested internet service providers vying for UBF money send the department “commitment letters” outlining how the applicants will open up their existing support structures – such as wood poles and ductwork – to third parties to accelerate broadband deployment. Ease of third-party access to poles has become a way for applicants to look favourably – as ISED puts it – to the department to get money from the program.
This publication requested the letters through access to information and, besides the ones from Rogers and Videotron, got Bell’s, Telus’s, and a completely redacted one from Xplornet. It’s worth noting that of all the telecom companies, Bell and Telus own the vast majority of poles.
In its letter, Bell pointed to initiatives it has made over the past several months, specifically in Quebec, from where it receives nearly 70% of all requests for access to its poles.
It noted that it has, with Hydro Quebec, commissioned external engineering companies to review standards and propose new measures to speed up access to its poles; allowed service providers to do their own survey and engineering work on the poles; established a “Centre of Excellence” to “share best practices with service providers such newer providers that are recipients of subsidy from broadband funding programs, improve communications through a dedicated technical and decision-making resource person assigned to projects”; and launched a trial of “one touch make ready (OTMR),” which streamlines attachment work on poles by having one work crew make all changes at one time.
“If the launch of OTMR in Quebec goes well, we intend to explore the potential expansion of our new process changes to other provinces.” – Bell Canada
“If the launch of OTMR in Quebec goes well, we intend to explore the potential expansion of our new process changes to other provinces,” Bell said in the letter. “This measured approach to implementation will allow us to learn from the experience in Quebec from our new processes and implement properly in our other territories in the event of any lessons learned.
“It will also minimize the risk of fallow investments should the CRTC mandate different processes to the ones we have implemented,” it added.
Telus reiterated in its letter that access to its facilities and towers are regulated by the CRTC and ISED, access is mandatory in some cases, and the company “follows an efficient access application process, which has been in existence for decades, to grant access to its wireless towers and other sites.”
The Vancouver-based company added that it “affirms that access to passive infrastructure will continue to be available to third parties requiring access pursuant to Telus’ existing tariffs for wireline support structures and through commercial negotiations and processes for towers and other sites.”
ISED has said in the details of the November 2020 launch of the UBF it will prefer applicants which make every effort to make access to their passive infrastructure seamless, an increasingly important policy position of governments across the country as support structures play key roles that bring connectivity to homes and businesses.
The CRTC has heard from carriers in a consultation about barriers to rural broadband deployment that access to support structures has been one of the biggest issues facing such buildouts.
The prevailing view of some ISPs is that one of the biggest hindrances to timely broadband builds is getting permits and the make-ready work involved with configuring pole access. Generally, make-ready work is done by the owner of the pole, and some carriers have requested – as Bell is now recommending – to be allowed to do the work themselves (with owner oversight) or put strict timelines on when the owner must comply with work requested by the third party.
