Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope lauds a recent federal decision in regards to Internet coverage in rural Canada.
The CRTC, in a ruling handed down Dec. 21, said broadband Internet is a basic telecommunications service. As a result, the national regulator told Canadian Internet providers to start work on increasing Internet service and speeds in rural parts of the country.
“The future of our economy, our prosperity and our society — indeed, the future of every citizen — requires us to set ambitious goals, and to get on with connecting all Canadians for the 21st century,” Jean-Pierre Blais, chair of the CRTC, said at a news conference.
Hope called the decision “an important step.”
“We are finally seeing the national regulator taking significant steps to support connectivity for rural Ontario,” he said. “I see the government is listening. Now maybe people will get in tune with what we’re trying to do.”
The “we” to which Hope referred is the effort in Southwestern Ontario to improve high-speed Internet access for smaller communities. The Western Ontario Warden’s Caucus, for which Hope has been the chair, initiated the SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology (SWIFT) project to improve Internet connectivity to 350 communities across Southwestern Ontario. Despite the work done by the mayor, Chatham-Kent isn’t one of those communities, because the $180 million in provincial/federal government funding is coming through the New Building Canada Fund’s Provincial-Territorial Infrastructure Component – Small Communities Fund. Only municipalities that have a population of fewer than 100,000 are eligible for this funding, so Chatham-Kent doesn’t qualify.
As a single-tier municipality, none of the communities in Chatham-Kent could apply separately, unlike numerous communities located in one of the many counties in the region that are eligible.
Regardless, the recent CRTC announcement has Hope enthused.
“From the SWIFT perspective, hopefully it will be in the marketplace and doing a lot of stuff by early 2018,” he said.
Hope understands how Chatham-Kent could be left out of the SWIFT funding.
“It’s one of those things. Everyone made an application and funds were applied to communities under 100,000 in population,” he said. “We’re approaching the government, looking at creative ways for doing it with SWIFT.”
He added Chatham-Kent isn’t alone in being left out of funding to improve Internet access for citizens, as there are large urban centres that are already covered, and soon the smaller communities will be as well, leaving a hole with the small cities, such as C-K.
“In between, there is still the grey area. The goal is to clean all those gaps up. We’re part of that gap,” Hope said.
Until the Dec. 21 CRTC ruling, only local landline telephone service was deemed essential by the CRTC.
New goals set by the telecommunications oversight body for providers is to offer all customers, regardless of location in the nation, download speeds of at least 50 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of a minimum of 10 Mbps. Also on the table will be the option of unlimited data plans.
An estimated two million Canadian residences – nearly one in five – don’t have access to such levels of Internet. According to the CRTC, the objective is to cut that to one in 10 by 2021, and to provide at least that level of service to everyone in the country over the next 10 to 15 years.
Hope said offering broadband Internet across all of Chatham-Kent would only further entice people to live here.
“Everything from education, to your home, to small business – Internet is one of the key values today,” he said. “People want to live in a more reasonably cost-effective community and do their work or schooling. Everything would be at their fingertips.
“The sky becomes the limit as soon as you have the total reliability.”
As technological advancements are made, more people are working remotely, or even from home, Hope added. He said reliable Internet is changing the demographics of business, as companies don’t need the large boardrooms, and can have smaller property footprints, saving them real estate costs in the process.
According to a CBC report, to achieve the goals outlined by the CRTC, the governing body will require providers pay into a fund that’s set to grow to $750 million over five years. The companies will be able to dip into that fund to help pay for the infrastructure needed to extend high-speed service to areas where it is not currently available.
The fund is similar to one that subsidized the expansion of local landline telephone service in years past, the CBC continued. Providers used to pay 0.53 per cent of their revenues, excluding broadband, into that fund. Now they’ll pay the same rate on all revenues, including broadband.
Blais said competition and the broader base of revenues for the fund would keep the cost from being passed on to consumers. Small providers will also be able to access the fund to build infrastructure.
