MANY OF THE SUBMISSIONS to the digital economy consultation offered recommendations on what the federal government should do, or not do, to ensure every Canadian household has access to high-speed Internet services. Rogers suggests that mobile spectrum can efficiently and effectively complete the rural broadband effort.
“We recommend a joint government/industry initiative aimed at extending broadband access to remaining unserved rural and remote communities in Canada as soon as possible. The emphasis here, we suggest, should be on mobile broadband networks which will simultaneously bring both mobile and broadband service to rural communities,” Rogers says in its comments.
Using mobile spectrum to fill the rural broadband gap is not a new idea. Bell Canada has proposed in its deferral account plans to use high-speed packet access (HSPA) wireless technology as a way to bring high-speed Internet access to communities currently without broadband infrastructure.
While there are calls from a variety of organizations for greater government involvement in getting the last broadband mile into rural and remote regions of the country, others say the government should stay out of this business as the private sector has already done a good job.
Telus, for example, urges the government to hold off and “take stock” before acting on any additional rural broadband plans. “Access and connectivity promises are unnecessary at this juncture” and “there is no reason to presume the inability of private investment and market based models to continue to close gaps and expand capabilities.”
“Whether by way of promises backstopped by government funding or promises backstopped by no more than a regulatory obligation to serve imposed on a single provider, both would distort competitive markets and crowd out willing private investment,” Telus tells the consultation.
Barrett Xplore Inc. says whatever the government decides to do on the rural broadband file, it has to make sure that its policies don’t impede the flow of private capital. It points to the distorting nature of the deferral accounts process which “effectively brought to a standstill investors’ willingness to invest in non-ILEC networks in areas that were potentially subject to the deferral account subsidy.”
