ISED officials said areas with 5/1 Mbps are already served
By Ahmad Hathout
BRITISH COLUMBIA’S BIG $45.4-million broadband project which is expected to run a 3,400-kilometre stretch of underwater fibre cable along the province’s coast was reduced from Connect to Innovate funding because some communities already met an old guideline for broadband connectivity.
When officials from Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) came to do a due diligence assessment of the Connected Coast project, they found some communities had met the Connect to Innovate (CTI) program’s “served” criteria – those communities that had speeds of 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload would not be connected under the federal program.
The project on the CTI side was then reduced, according to ISED officials who spoke to Cartt.ca on background, and documents obtained from British Columbia. But to what extent is unclear. The ISED officials said they couldn’t say how many communities were eliminated from CTI funding.
Originally announced in January 2018, the project, headed by Prince Rupert’s municipally-owned telecom Citywest and Strathcona Regional District, was expected to connect 154 communities, according to the original press release, but the website now shows 139 communities should expect connectivity. It is now delayed by two years – completion is slated for 2023 – partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a change in the chief executive position at Citywest.
The news of the rescoping is significant because it illustrates how quickly outdated guidelines for broadband projects can become – especially as these same projects lag and eventually overlap with more modernized programs. For perspective, the new $1.75-billion Universal Broadband Fund (UBF) measures served communities as having speeds of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload.
The unhurried CTI program still measures served areas by a 25-square-kilometre hexagon model. If one house is connected in that hexagon map to the 5/1 speeds, the whole area would be ineligible in this case, according to the guideline. The UBF has since moved to more specific 250 metre segments.
The CRTC’s universal service objective of 50/10 was announced just days after the launch of the Connect to Innovate program in late 2016. The federal government is hoping to hook-up all of Canada to those speeds by 2030.
In this case, it’s up to the coast’s joint venture partners to come up with additional funds to fill any gaps left behind by the CTI rescoping, and it’s unclear whether that added to a delay in the project’s timeline.
Renée LaBoucane, Strathcona’s manager of strategic initiatives, told Cartt.ca the “project has not been scaled down” and the project’s scope of communities will only be increasing, not decreasing. ISED officials acknowledged the joint venture can and may come up with other funding sources to connect other communities that may have been axed from ISED’s fund. In fact, they said, that may have already happened.
Part of the difficulty with reporting this story has been trying to cross-reference information with the project proponents and ISED. ISED said it cannot say what’s going on with what B.C. is doing with their money and at least Strathcona cannot say for sure what happened with rescoping on ISED’s end.
To explain the discrepancy in the original January 2018 press release, LaBoucane said the terms “landing sites” and “communities” may have been used interchangeably, alluding to the mention of “154 communities.” Landing sites refer to where the fibre moves from land to water and don’t refer to communities per se.
According to the B.C. documents, the project was expecting 154 landing sites but was initially revised down to 147 sites. Strathcona said recently it will now sling cable to 159 landing sites, including in 48 Indigenous communities representing 44 First Nations.
Last week the Connected Coast joint venture selected Baylink Networks, a native of the province, to build the project. The contract bidding closed in September 2019.
LaBoucane said that a more accurate number of communities will emerge as the design of the project is finalized. That’s when “minor revisions” may be made, she said.
ISED officials could only speak to the CTI portion of the project, which will connect 90 communities, including 40 First Nations. Strathcona will connect 70 with CTI money and Citywest will connect 20 from that program. That was confirmed with ISED’s new tracking tool for CTI projects.
And therein lies another detail: The tracker only lists the communities the CTI program will connect and does not reflect other communities to be connected with other funding sources. Using the tracker will therefore reveal that the Connected Coast project will connect just 90 communities.
When faced with the possibility of a project scope change, the province, according to the documents, said it would “not support a change to the project scope without all options – including addition of new project partners or, last resort, assignment of projects to new partner – being carefully reviewed by the project leads and with support of the federal government as lead funder.”
In this case, ISED said CTI “does allow for reasonable changes to project schedules when it is in the best interests of Canadians and affected communities.”
When reached for comment, members of British Columbia’s legislative assembly governing some of the communities impacted by the project either deferred to the province, which confirmed the 139 figure; didn’t respond; or said they are just hearing about this rescoping through Cartt.ca.
The rescoping is just one glimpse into the trials of building government-subsidized broadband projects that have largely been slow to roll-out. Projects like Connected Coast are especially more involved: Besides placing fibre underwater, the cable needs to make landfall where there’s equipment, such as a cabinet to hold the communications wiring and a power source to light up the communications. LaBoucane said some communities need more than one landing site, hence the mismatch between landing sites and connected communities.
“There may be a few more changes as the project team validates landing sites through engineering, environmental assessments, First Nation Consultation, requests for additional sites are processed and the permitting process,” she said.
Just the First Nation consultations could be a major accomplishment, and ISED knows this well. It had to contend with a competing First Nation fibre project in northern Manitoba that wasn’t picked for federal money. Documents obtained through access to information show that ISED was frustrated with misleading information coming from that camp. The original winners of the federal money ended up losing it because progress wasn’t being made to the government’s liking, ISED said.
The coast project is also slated to provide backhaul connectivity exclusively, meaning when it’s completed, homes won’t instantaneously get connected. The last-mile will still have to be provided by internet service providers, who will have to sink their own investments into the project to make it worthwhile. (The backhaul is expected to enable download and upload speeds of 300 Mbps to 1 Gbps, Strathcona says.)
LaBoucane said Strathcona and Citywest are “actively submitting applications” for federal and provincial money for last-mile projects in “numerous eligible communities.”
“The eligibility of future last-mile projects in other government programs in those same communities would be evaluated based on new program parameters on a case-by-case basis,” ISED said of those kinds of projects. “In addition, support for last-mile projects is offered through the Universal Broadband Fund.”
The coast project signed its $22.2-million CTI contribution agreement last year, LaBoucane said. The project is also getting $12 million from Indigenous Service Canada and $11.2 million coming from the Connecting British Columbia program, which is administered by the Northern Development Initiative Trust.
Perhaps for all intents and purposes, the different broadband programs can complement each other. For one, the different mapping methods can help shore up communities that may fall through the cracks. While ISED has moved to more specific mapping and a baseline 50/10 requirement with the UBF, older programs like the CRTC’s $750-million Broadband Fund haven’t: the program still uses the hexagon model but allows for slower speeds with the eventual goal of at least 50/10.
That’s because some underserved areas can only be connected incrementally, due to geography, transport costs, and technology. For example, part of the first round of Broadband Fund money went to Broadband Communications North, based in tough northern Manitoba, to improve speeds there to 10/1 and unlimited data.
Photo borrowed from the Connected Coast website.
