Smaller service areas and lower ISED wireless fees will drive rural broadband, too

By Denis Carmel

OTTAWA – While most people are on vacation, federal politicians are on the campaign trail, as anyone following telecommunications news can surely see.While the federal government also announced Wednesday a multi-million-dollar committment to Telesat’s low-earth orbit research and development efforts, which would impact positively rural wireless subscribers, Tuesday, ISED Minister Navdeep Bains also announced two less sexy measures signalling improvement for rural and remote wireless providers.Smaller service areasThe first is the creation of a new Tier 5 service area for spectrum allocation. This will allow providers to acquire spectrum for far smaller areas. In the past, a local independent provider,...