BARRHEAD-Having reliable, quick Internet is a problem many rural communities are facing.
The question is what to do about it.
Peace River-Westlock Canadian Conservative Party (CCP) Arnold Viersen invited his colleague, Dane Lloyd, to help answer that question during a May 6 Rural Broadband town hall. Unfortunately, if the discussion is any indication, it will be some time before rural communities can expect to see a solution any time soon.
Viersen said successive federal governments, including the CPC have attempted to make affordable broadband or high-speed Internet available to the masses with limited success.
Lloyd who is the MP for Sturgeon River-Parkland and the CCP's shadow minister for rural economic development noted the problem is an infrastructure issue rather than having enough available spectrum.
"The question is why isn't the spectrum being deployed in rural communities?"
He said that the government has employed a system where they earmark portions of the radio spectrum.
"[Portions of the spectrum] have been set aside because it is a goal of the government to increase competition in the telecommunication sector," Lloyd said. "We want new companies to come in and challenge the incumbents, the Rogers, Telus, Shaw and the Bells, to lower costs for Canadians."
Currently, 40 per cent of the spectrum is set aside for this purpose.
However, he said the unintended consequence of this strategy is companies will pay an "exorbitant" amount for the remaining portion of the spectrum.
While that is positive in one sense as it generated billions in revenue for the government, it is also the reason why Canadians have "much higher" cellphone bill and less investment in broadband than other countries, Lloyd said.
"Companies are going into debt in these spectrum auctions instead of spending the money to expand their networks," Lloyd said. "They are also focused on where they can get the best return for their company and it isn't places like Stony Plain or Barrhead ... it's investing in places like Edmonton, Toronto, Vancouver."
One way Lloyd suggested that the government combat this is to link the spectrum purchase with identifiable outcomes.
"Rather than trying to get $5 billion at a spectrum auction, we could auction it off for less and ask the customers to create outcomes such as increasing rural broadband coverage by 40 per cent, and if they don't achieve it, the spectrum would revert to the government," he said.
The government would then have the option of giving the allotted spectrum to the next highest bidder or reauctioning it.
Instead, he said the government decided to take another path and allocated about $2.75 billion as part of the 2021 budget to ensure 98 per cent of the country has access to broadband by 2026. The money will be made available through the Universal Broadband Fund.
It is also part of the government's commitment to work towards a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruling.
In 2015, the CRTC designated broadband as an essential service, setting 50 megabytes per second (MBPS) download speed and 10 MBPS upload speed. It is estimated that 60 per cent of Canadian households do not meet that standard, and that percentage is dramatically lower than that in rural regions.
"I think this is largely an achievable goal even though there are so many communities struggling to connect," he said.
One of the challenges, Lloyd said, is making sure small rural communities, who do not necessarily have the staff or expertise to access the funding available through the Universal Broadband Fund.
That is why the CPC is suggesting the creation of a "concierge service" to assist communities to apply for government grants.
Take over of Shaw
Lloyd did not want to comment about the potential merger of Rogers and Shaw, saying it is important that the government needs to do its due diligence.
The estimated $26 billion Rogers buy-out of Shaw is currently being examined by Canada's Competition Bureau, which must sign off on the deal if it is to go forward. The deal, if approved, is expected to be finalized in early 2022.
"If Rogers does everything they say they are going to do, it certainly has the potential of being beneficial," he said. "They say they will build a headquarters in Calgary, which will create jobs and they want to increase their investment in rural regions, most of which would be in Alberta ... but the devil's always in the details."
As part of the merger, Roger has stated that they will lead $2.5 billion in investment in 5G connectivity.
