YET ANOTHER FEDERAL government digital/new media announcement was made on Friday that offers hundreds of millions of dollars to connect the 280,000 Canadians without broadband access because of where they live while remaining silent on the million or so who have broadband already at their doorsteps but who aren’t connected because they can’t afford it.
Yes of course it is important to connect rural Canada, but there has long been – and continues to be – many government programs to help that along. That’s despite the face that private companies such as the numerous independent phone and cable companies and satellite/wireless provider Xplornet already offer various levels of broadband connectivity across much of rural Canada.
What’s constantly missing from the federal government over the years has been any mention that connecting the estimated one million Canadians whose homes are already passed by broadband providers but who can’t afford the service, despite the fact the “guiding principle” which received top billing in Industry Minister James Moore’s announcement in Waterloo on Friday is “Connecting Canadians”.
The Digital Canada 150 announcement promised “the Government of Canada will provide $305 million to extend and enhance high-speed Internet services to a target speed of 5 megabits per second for 280,000 Canadian households in rural and remote areas.” Great. But what about extending and enhancing the ability of the urban poor, which vastly outnumber those rural households, to connect to the internet? Kids can’t take part in modern education without broadband connectivity. People can’t research about new jobs without it – or even apply for most positions without an internet connection. Computers at the libraries or job centres just don’t cut it.
Two programs already running, the Connect to Compete effort in the United States and Rogers Communications` Connected for Success program in Toronto show that the federal government needn’t even provide any money – but instead could help with a well placed kick in the posteriors to the country’s other ISPs to make this happen on a much larger scale. So why is this document silent on something so important, we asked the Minister after his speech at the OpenText headquarters.
“There are different tools within the government of Canada, whether it’s a program like you said (Connect to Compete), or the chastising of the State, or maybe something that Jean-Pierre Blais and the CRTC can do, we’ll see. But our door remains open for ideas on how to accomplish that,” Moore said in a scrum after his formal presentation. “There’s nothing in this plan, but as I said, the last paragraph says that it is inclusive, not exclusive and if people have ideas on how we can have more competition and choice going forward then we’re open to hearing that.”
“We see it going up every day with increased call volume as we promote the program.” – Peter King, Rogers
But, we wanted to know, why was this issue not mentioned at all in Digital Canada 150? After all, this has all been under study since 2010 and it’s not like people have been silent on the issue.
“What would you suggest? Be an advocate,” Moore told us, before suggesting the CRTC could certainly do something about it. “If you look at the mandate that (CRTC chair) Jean-Pierre Blais has and you look at the way he’s going into TV unbundling and the way in which he has approached other files, it may very well be a topic the CRTC chooses to tackle from a regulatory side. Far be it from me to personally choose what the Regulatory agency ought to do, there’s a boundary there, but if that’s something the CRTC thinks is worthy of study and possible action, then they have the ability to do that.”
However, Rogers Communications is already showing it doesn’t need the CRTC to take action. In June of last year it announced a new program in conjunction with the Toronto Community Housing where any of the residents in its 53,000 subsidized units can get connected for $9.99 a month, and a computer for $150 if needed.
So far, according to Peter King, Rogers’ senior director of community investment, it has signed up nearly 4,000 customers since its fall launch and sent out 850 computers through its partners Compugen and Microsoft. Participation is accelerating. “We’ve gone out and done lobby launches, direct mail inserts, as well as hiring Toronto Community Housing residents to help promote the program,” he told Cartt.ca in an interview. “We see it going up every day with increased call volume as we promote the program.”
Part of the sell is to convince TCH residents that the program really is only $9.99 a month and that the company really doesn’t do any credit checking. “We’ve had tremendous success with the program,” King added. “Some of the testimonials we get back from customers has been incredible.”
Once the company feels it has the deployment formula right, and that is coming quickly, it plans to roll the program out in other regions within its cable footprint, as this is a wired internet program. King adds there are another 97 subsidized housing organizations which fall within its network borders and he is anxious to grow the program.
So, why can’t our federal government publicly back this sort of effort? And where are the rest of Canada’s ISPs on this? Comcast, Cox, Bright House, Suddenlink, Mediacom and other ISPs work together in the States to manage their two-year-old program (also $9.99 a month and a $150 computer). We simply can’t figure out what’s stopping the other Canadian ISPs from doing something like this on their own (or better, together. Rogers would welcome ISP partners) – or what’s standing in the way of the federal government encouraging the industry to get their act together and move it.
