Would speed rights of way access, reduce costs
TORONTO – The Ontario introduced the Supporting Broadband and Infrastructure Expansion Act, 2021 on Thursday – which aims to help connect more communities more quickly to high-speed internet.
The legislation “proposes to reduce costs to broadband providers associated with attaching broadband wirelines to hydro utility poles, and would provide timely access to poles and to municipal rights of way to install broadband on municipal land,” reads the press release.
As many as 700,000 households and businesses in Ontario lack access to adequate broadband speeds, says the province, or have no internet connection at all.
If passed, reads the release, the new Act would provide the Minister of Infrastructure with the authority to reduce barriers on provincially significant projects, including the ability to:
- Ensure municipalities and utility companies provide timely access to their infrastructure, including municipal rights of way and hydro utility poles, when appropriate.
- Support an approach to reduce the time it takes to prepare electricity infrastructure such as hydro utility poles for a new wireline attachment for provincially significant projects.
- Ensure owners of underground infrastructure provide locations of their infrastructure within 10 business days for specific broadband projects prior to a dig through the Ontario One Call system. This would allow internet service providers to more quickly start work on laying down underground broadband infrastructure.
The Act would also amend the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998, giving the Ontario government the power to:
- Reduce or fix the annual rental charge that telecommunications service providers must pay to attach their wirelines to hydro utility poles (Ed note: The CRTC already regulates this).
- Establish performance standards and timelines for how utility companies must respond to attachment requests.
- Require utility companies to consider possible joint use of hydro utility poles during their planning process, and transparency around when and where hydro utility poles are scheduled for replacement or refurbishment. This would help to save time and money in the future as telecommunications service providers seek to enter new communities
“These proposed measures build on the province’s Up to Speed: Ontario’s Broadband and Cellular Action Plan. As part of the 2020 Budget, the Ontario government announced a historic investment of almost $1 billion to improve broadband and cellular services, which is an additional $680 million on top of its previous commitment,” says the release.
So far, very little of this committed cash has been spent.
We’ll have more to come on this.
