Obligation to Serve: $7 billion to cover the final 5% with broadband?

TIMMINS – MTS Allstream dropped a number, a big one, onto the CRTC’s lap this morning as to what it would cost to serve the remaining 5% of Canadians who can’t get access to broadband because of their remote locations.Seven billion dollars. More specifically, $700 million spent per year over 10 years.MTS executives faced the Commission Wednesday morning in Timmins at the CRTC hearing into the telecom industry’s “obligation to serve” and offered a much different opinion than some of its incumbent telco counterparts who said yesterday that the market can take care of getting broadband to the rest of...