Obligation to Serve: Commission wants a speed target; NEOnet will show the gaps

TIMMINS – It became clear through the first day of the CRTC’s obligation to serve hearing that commissioners would like to set some sort of speed target for service providers to hit when it comes to providing broadband for rural Canadians.Both chairman Konrad von Finckenstein and vice-chair telecom Len Katz repeatedly asked executives with Bell Aliant, Barrett Xplore and Northwestel if they would accept some sort of megabits per second speed target to come out of this proceeding.All were reluctant.While government and the industry has tended to define a base of 1.5 Mbps as “broadband”, most recognize that just isn’t...