CANADIAN CABLE SYSTEMS Alliance CEO Jay Thomson knows Canadian networks and media inside and out. How could he not? Before the CCSA, he worked for the Canadian Cable Television Association, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Canadian Media Producers Association (Telus and the CRTC, too).
The long-time Ottawa executive was hired as CEO of the CCSA in January 2017, replacing Alyson Townsend, who was let go in the summer of 2016. Thomson is steeped in the business and, as importantly, knows government – especially an Ottawa whose politicians and bureaucrats tend to be preoccupied with the biggest fish in the pond (Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Telus, Quebecor, etc.).
This is an important challenge – one which the CCSA has long faced – when it comes to the vast sums of money the federal government, and to a lesser extent provincial and municipal governments, is throwing around to push rural broadband. Bringing high speed to the hinterlands is an easy political win, of course, but it can’t be at the expense of existing independent operators. CCSA members fear government money being handed to the Bells and Teluses of the world to aid the push of those big networks into regions various levels of government don’t realize are already served by independent network operators.
CCSA members have already spent their own resources delivering high speed internet to their customers (something Cartt.ca has been outlining in our “The Independents” series) and don’t want to be stepped on, or have the competitive scales tipped by another provider backed by taxpayer dollars. In fact, if taxpayer money is needed to extend broadband, CCSA members want to be involved and may know better how to do deploy those dollars.
One of Thomson’s raisons d’etre as CCSA’s CEO (and chief lobbyist) is to make sure his members are constantly part of these conversations, at the highest levels. “Because we're in those marketplaces, we're on the ground and we know the communities, our position is that we have a better knowledge of their needs than a larger company who's not in those communities,” said Thomson in a recent interview with Cartt.ca.
“If you extend your funding to our members, we really know how to spend it wisely.” – Jay Thomson, CCSA
“There are not a lot of benefits to being small, but one of them is nimbleness and the ability to innovate,” he added. “(CCSA members) know how to make things work when you don't have a whole lot of money – and that's a message that we're trying to get across to government: ‘If you extend your funding to our members, we really know how to spend it wisely’.”
The secret sauce, if there is one for small independent network operators, is mostly just working hard, locally, delivering the same Mbps or number of TV channels to their small communities which are available in big cities from the huge providers, with the added benefit of providing local, high-tech jobs. It’s also a story of building networks that help retain businesses and young people in rural regions. It’s a pretty good one, really.
However, providing that level of service is not always easy to do, given the various pricey hurdles in the way when the names on the trucks are Access, Westman, Cable Cable, CCAP, Video Déry or Seaside, rather than Rogers, Bell, Telus or Shaw. So, keeping costs in check remains the CCSA’s top focus: providing contract negotiations and single-point billing to its membership, for example. The office and the indispensable services performed by the staff in Quispamsis, NB, is not going anywhere.
“Ultimately, there are high-level objectives that everyone has. (CCSA members are) in their community, improving service, growing their businesses and they understand that in order to do so, they need to get access to programming at a reasonable price on reasonable terms. They know they need help in order to extend their networks to new communities and to build on their capabilities. That's a common theme,” says Thomson.
“Things like getting a contract in a reasonable time from a programmer. Everyone shares that concern. Getting it nailed down so that they are not faced with a lengthy term of retroactive payments, which is a big concern that happens now with the way contracts are negotiated – and the CRTC's rules about retroactive payments. That's a huge issue we're trying to deal with.”
However, consolidation has taken many members out of the CCSA ranks over the years, shrinking its impact somewhat, but Thomson says he has a mandate for growth of the CCSA, too. “There are other providers of video services out there. We get membership applications on a regular basis from traditional providers who are facilities-based and want to have access to our contract negotiating capabilities and our single point billing – and we're also getting applications from new players, resellers of internet service who are now looking to add a video component to their package. They see value in the contract negotiation administration service that we provide so they're interested in joining us,” he explained.
“Rate increases that are going on in Ontario are counter-productive to the goal of extending broadband services out to remote and rural communities.” – Thomson
“Currently resellers don't qualify for membership in our organization because we represent facilities-based providers… but we're looking at whether that should change going forward… (however) if it divides us on advocacy issues because they're coming at issues from a different perspective than us, then the sum of the parts isn't better.”
Thomson says the CCSA has also added a regional focus to its work as well, making sure different levels of government don’t get in the way of the larger objective of connecting Canadians to broadband – and that means keeping a close eye on pole attachment rates, for example. A bit of a boring issue, but access to poles and support structures are key “and rate increases that are going on in Ontario are counter-productive to the goal of extending broadband services out to remote and rural communities because one arm of government doesn't understand what the other arm is doing,” he explains.
“They should be understanding that the ultimate goal is to extend those services to Canadians across the country and recognize that maybe a decision that one part of one government area is making whether it's municipalities or provinces or whatever it's going to impact negatively on the broader goal.”
