Rural Canada is in line to be a lot more online, thanks to a pre-Christmas ruling by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
The commission concluded that residential and mobile Internet is a basic service required for modern life, as important as the telephone. All Canadians must have access to a basic service with world-class speeds and options for unlimited data packages. This would create a level playing field for rural and remote Canadians.
To make it happen, the CRTC will require the telecommunications industry to invest $750 million during the next five years in infrastructure projects. This is in addition to $500 million in Internet development for rural Canada announced by the Trudeau government.
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“For too long, rural and underserved communities all across Canada have faced an uphill battle to participate meaningfully in our digital economy,” says Josh Tabish, campaigns director for OpenMedia, a citizens’ group lobbying for better Internet service.
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The group called the CRTC decision truly historic. “The ruling will be a game changer for rural and underserved communities across Canada where Internet access is either unavailable or unaffordable, due to a digital divide keeping almost one in five Canadians offline.
“Today’s decision will go a long way toward closing this digital divide,” Tabish added. “Now that the CRTC has spoken, we need to hold the Trudeau government accountable for ensuring this exciting vision becomes a reality.
“Canadians asked for universal Internet access, support for rural communities, world-class speeds, unlimited data options, and minimum guarantees for the quality of their Internet,” he added. They want to enjoy equal opportunity to participate in the social and economic activities afforded by Internet access at a fair price.
“This ruling is great news for the far too many Canadians who have limited or no access to high-speed Internet,” said NDP Finance Critic Guy Caron. “Access to this basic service should be a right in Canada.
Currently, Canada has some of the slowest broadband speeds among developed nations and Canadians are forced to pay for the most expensive Internet packages in the industrialized world. The CRTC has ruled that full broadband should be 100 per cent accessible within 10 to 15 years.
That would include targets of 50 Mbps download speed and 10 Mbps upload speed, and the ability to subscribe to a fixed Internet package with an unlimited data option. Rural and urban communities must be able to access Internet speeds five times as fast as the U.S. minimum and the government should encourage the widest availability of the fastest mobile networks.
The CRTC said Canadians should have access to the tools and services they need to empower themselves regarding fixed Internet access services. By mid-2017, service providers should ensure that contracts are written in clear and plain language, and should make available online tools so consumers can easily manage their data usage.
Broadband Internet services would allow more Canadian entrepreneurs to easily access crucial information relating to international markets and create more business opportunities across Canada, the commission noted.
It said all levels of government must address gaps in digital literacy.
Affordability concerns are best addressed by the emergence of a dynamic marketplace where service providers compete on price for telecommunication services, in conjunction with social responsibility programs of telecommunications carriers and different levels of government.
