“We don’t fit their business model”
By Lynn Greiner
INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES FACE UNIQUE challenges when it comes to establishing broadband connectivity. At Canada’s Rural and Remote Broadband virtual conference (CRRBC) on Monday, a panel of experts who are addressing those challenges talked about what they’re doing, the roadblocks they’re facing, and why they’re persevering.
Moderated by Kim Barrington, Rogers Communications’ director of operations, enterprise division and chairperson for the Rogers’ Indigenous Peoples’ Network, the panel included Sally Braun, general manager, Western James Bay Telecom Network, Lyle Fabian, president/owner, KatloTech Communications, Rob McMahon, associate professor of communication and technology, University of Alberta, and Gary Wilson, director of operations, Coastal First Nations.
The challenge, said Wilson, who serves as director of community engagement and outreach in the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii, is that the telecom industry and communities can’t focus on the same things. The industry looks at economy of scale, and the communities don’t offer that, so their service levels and infrastructure remain limited. While there is certainly a strong desire for broadband through an ISP, the communities don’t have the capital resources or the skills to support one. Because of this, the needs of healthcare, education, economic development, and even household Internet are not met.
“And therefore, that that’s the major hurdle of our communities – we don’t fit their business model,” he said. ” And therefore, we have to work together to try and find the right partners and the right organizations who wish to support and work in supporting our communities in an attempt to get on the same level playing field that others who live in urban areas take for granted.”
Sally Braun has first-hand experience with business model struggles. It took her five frustrating years to get the $4.7 million funding for a fibre to the home (FTTH) project which will serve 1,135 homes by 2021.
“RBC wanted to see approvals from ISED and NOHFC (Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation) before they would commit to a loan of $500,000. ISED wanted to see approval from NOHFC and the bank before it would commit and NOHFC wanted to see approvals from the bank,” she said. And in order to increase NOHFC’s funding limit of $500 to $1,500 per household, she and Mushkegowuk Tribal Council Deputy Chief and WJBTN President Rebecca Friday met with then-Premier Kathleen Wynne and her policy analyst during their visit to Moose Factory in 2017, where they were advised to write to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines.
That’s a lot of hurdles.
“You have to have a lot of tenacity to finally get the project to the point where you can actually start working.” – Sally Braun, Western James Bay Telecom Network
“We applied to NOHFC in 2016 and after several rounds with three sets of evaluators and four different program officers, approval for $2.7 million was received in early 2018,” she said. “ISED funding of half a million was approved in August 2018. And the RBC and Wakenagun/Nord-Aski Community Futures Development Fund loans for $500K each were approved in spring 2019.”
“You have to have a lot of tenacity to finally get the project to the point where you can actually start working,” she observed. Since last year, her team has deployed all of the distribution cable and done the splicing in two of the shelters. While the Covid-19 pandemic has since slowed things down, they’re working on ways to mitigate the situation.
This challenge is global, Wilson noted. Indigenous communities don’t have the capacity to build and support the necessary infrastructure for high speed internet. On the B.C. coast, they’re trying to work in parallel with the Connected Coast initiative, which will bring new or improved high-speed internet service to 154 rural and remote coastal communities, including 56 Indigenous communities.
His team is also considering the needs of the community in advance rather than when a solution is deployed. With the current infrastructure in many communities limited to coaxial cable, the 50 MB download and 10 MB upload speed mandated by the CRTC is achievable, but nothing more. To do better, he said, “we’ve got to think about, if we’re going to do this in a phased approach, who are we going to work with, who’s willing to work with us, whether it’s not for profit or for profit, academia, you name it, who’s out there that can support this network of Indigenous ISPs that will be built. I believe the Indigenous ISP world is the emerging economy within Canada.”
“How can we amalgamate the last mile solution with those issues?” Lyle Fabian, KatloTech Communications
However, said Fabian, First Nations connectivity is not a priority for many Indigenous groups, especially in the Northwest Territories. They worry more about social issues such as housing, land claims, and healthcare. Connectivity falls down the priority list if you don’t have a decent place to live.
“I have to contend with all those things,” he said, “and so for us it was a journey of trying to look at how can we bring broadband initiatives to a community where those are the primary concerns. How can we amalgamate the last mile solution with those issues?
“What community members have to do is entice Chief and Council to really support what you do.” For him, it was positioning broadband as a tool to help bring government programs and services to the community and building a simple relatively low-cost wireless network. Now he’s working on building a 1,200 kilometer Indigenous broadband network to bring redundancy to the north, pointing out the incumbent (Northwestel) has suffered three major outage in the last six months, one of which the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce estimated cost the city and businesses about $20 million.
Another issue is what Braun called the adversarial divide – the difference between the regulations affecting for-profit and not-for-profit corporations. For-profit telcos have not invested in remote communities because the return on investment is too slow. Not-for-profit telcos have attempted to fill the gap.
“We need to move away from the adversarial divide between for-profit and not for profit ISPs,” she said. “If the objective of universal basic service was to lift large portions of the population out of poverty, this objective will happen a lot faster when Indigenous ISPs are supported in a manner that recognizes their uniqueness. This means changing the guidelines which restrict our ability to participate in the funding that is available. We’re not asking for the bar to be lowered. We want our own bar, period. Why should we have to compete with a multi-million-dollar for-profit corporations for funds? Why are we even on the same playing field?”
It’s not just a First Nations issue, Fabian pointed out. It’s a rural broadband issue for Canadians. Getting communities to build networks and interconnect them will solve two problems because nine out of ten times an Indigenous community is next to a non-indigenous community. “Not only can First Nations groups can help with rural broadband issues, but also solve that connectivity issue and develop relationships with the community and working together,” he said. “We are bringing reconciliation, sharing who we are as a people, and that we can be contributors to the Canadian economy.”
“I’d like to see a new business model created that focuses on how all of our human and social capital in all of our communities in Canada can participate in our society on an accessible and affordable connectivity platform and contribute to a new, post-Covid economy based on the premise and promise of innovation,” Braun added. “There is enormous entrepreneurial potential just waiting to be tapped in our remote communities: a potential that is just bleeding out right now.”
