The CRTC in Canada (their version of the FCC) just took a step that is bound to reopen a discussion of best definition of broadband – they defined broadband to now be 50 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. But they went even further and said that broadband is now a ‘basic telecommunications service’, meaning that everybody in the country ought to have access to broadband. In today and tomorrow’s blog I will look at the two issues raised by the CRTC – if there should be a right to broadband, and the role of governments in defining broadband.
Has broadband grown to become a ‘right’? I put the word in quotes because even I don’t think that is what the CRTC did. What they did was declare that the government of Canada officially blesses the idea that their citizens ought to have access to broadband. Over time that decree should prompt other parts of the Canadian government to help make that happen.
But even the CRTC does not think that every home in the country should be wired with fiber. I’ve traveled north of the arctic circle and there are plenty of remote places there that are not connected to the electric grid. And there are remote homes on top of mountains and deep in the woods where homeowners have purposefully withdrawn from civilization. The CRTC is not guaranteeing broadband to such places.
But the CRTC has made a strong statement to recognize the importance of broadband. This is not without precedent. During the last century the US government made similar statements about the right of Americans to electricity. The government then went on to create programs that would help to realize that right. This meant the formation of the Rural Utility Service to provide funding to create rural electric grids, and it mean the creation of government-sponsored electric generation such as with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
These government programs worked well and the vast majority of US homes were connected to the electric grid within a few decades. The investments made in these programs paid back the US government many times over by bringing numerous communities into the modern world. The electrification of America was probably the most profitable undertaking ever undertaken by the US government.
The action taken by the CRTC will be an empty gesture unless it pushes the Canadian government to take the steps needed to get broadband everywhere. The latest statistics show that nearly 20% of homes there, mostly rural, don’t have access to landline broadband. That’s an even larger percentage of homes than in the US and probably reflects the vast rural stretches in central and northern Canada.
The US government has not made the same kind of firm statement like the one just issued by the CRTC, but we’ve clearly taken official steps to promote broadband. There were billions poured into building middle-mile fiber in rural America with the stimulus grants. And the $19 billion CAF II fund is promoting broadband for areas that have none – although it’s still puzzling to understand the bandaid approach of that program that is pouring money into building infrastructure that doesn’t even meet the FCC’s definition of broadband. But the official goal of CAF II program is that US homes deserve broadband.
The CRTC statement is more pointed because it was paired with a new and higher definition of broadband at 50/10 Mbps. The only technologies that can meet those speeds are cable company HFC networks and fiber – and nobody is building new cable networks. The CRTC has really taken a position that rural Canada ought to have fiber.
It will be interesting to see over the next few years how the rest of the Canadian government responds to this gesture. Without funding this could be nothing more than a lofty goal. But this could also be viewed as a government imperative – much like happened in the US with electricity. And that can drive funding and initiatives that will bring broadband to all of Canada – and is something we here in the US ought to be watching and emulating.
No, “broadband” service is not a civil right. That said, I applaud the Canadian government for setting a universal access standard for advanced telecommunications. Unlike American policy that also did so (FCC’s 2015 Open Internet rulemaking), the Canadians must now determine how that standard will be expeditiously achieved. IMHO that means public sector ownership of telecom infrastructure since as along as we frame the issue as “broadband,” it will be seen as a subscription-based service best provided by vertically integrated telecom natural monopolies that lack economic incentive and the means to timely ensure a standard of universal service.
I agree it is not a ‘civil right’. But in the past we’ve had the federal and state governments take positions that they ought to promote getting both electric service and telephone service to as many homes as possible. And both of those efforts resulted in networks for the two services that reached 99% of the homes in the country. But even those efforts did not attempt to bring services to the most remote and hard to reach homes and there are still places today that never got electricity or telephone service.
Our solution in our efforts toward bringing community owned broadband fiber connectivity resulted in a feasibility study suggesting an OPEN ACCESS model. This model works toward development of a public/private effort that ensures the public’s interest as broadband internet access has become a critical infrastructure information highway. This is not unlike our critical infrastructure vehicular highways and our air traffic controlled spaces, all performed in a public/private fashion that serves our country well. You can read our feasibility study at http://www.theforthutility.org.