You are here

Help with Search (new window)
Picture of Rob McMahon
Federal government launches study of broadband across Canada
by Rob McMahon - Thursday, 11 April 2013, 10:32 AM
The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology began its study of broadband and Internet access across Canada, with Canadian Chamber of Commerce Director of Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy Scott Smith appearing before the committee.

According to this article in the introduction to his testimony, Scott Smith observed:

Canadian business is not online and this is despite the fact that Canada has some of the most advanced and available telecommunications infrastructure in the world...So the story I want to tell you is one of adoption, or lack of adoption, not about barriers to access. With our relatively small population in a huge land mass, the Canadian market is essentially California with a distribution challenge. Yet Canadians continue to be among the first users in the world to benefit from next generation network.

Read the full text of Scott Smith's testimony here.

Here is a reference Smith makes to remote/rural access:

In northern and remote communities where other infrastructure projects lack the market forces necessary to implement, the productivity growth potential of broadband telecommunications offers a model of how government might work with the private sector to meet public policy goals for infrastructure by providing sustainable incentives and public-private partnership options in remote areas.

Among Smith's recommendations are the following (cut n' pasted from here):

  • The government should accelerate investments in next-generation networks by amending tax policies to stimulate investments on a geographically and technologically neutral basis.
  • The federal government should continue to rely on private sector investment and competitive market forces to drive the rollout of broadband networks and facilities in Canada.
  • The government should ensure that any initiatives designed to help facilitate access to broadband facilities in Canada and by Canadians in rural and remote areas, where market forces are not sufficient, are introduced in the least market-distorting manner possible by working with relevant not-for-profit organizations, utilities, and service providers.

Commentary following this testimony is available here.

The website for the study (not yet available) is here.
Reply
Picture of Rob McMahon
Re: Federal government launches study of broadband across Canada
by Rob McMahon - Thursday, 11 April 2013, 11:06 AM
Further to this testimony...In his presentation, Scott Smith from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce directly references the Northern Indigenous Community Satellite Network (NICSN) as a success story for rural broadband.

From the discussion following Smith's testimony [ available here ]

Peter Braid Kitchener—Waterloo, ON

I think we really focused fairly widely on that. Hopefully we'll see that change.

I'm intrigued about your proposals for public-private partnerships in remote areas. I think that would be one of the answers to solving access in aboriginal communities, for example.

Are there any models or examples where a public-private partnership like this has existed in Canada or outside of the country that we could point to?

Scott Smith

There's one in Canada, and I'll always get the acronym mixed up so I'll look it up. It's NICSN. It's Northern Indigenous Community Satellite Network. That's a clear example of what has worked well.


Peter Braid Kitchener—Waterloo, ON

Do you know where that community is, or do you have any additional information about that particular project?

Scott Smith

I can leave the committee with a copy of this report afterwards.

Read more about the NICSN project here.

Show parent | Reply