The ruling comes as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) looks to lower the cost of cellphone plans and increase competition.

For years, Canadian consumers have complained about high cellular bills, which rank among the steepest in the world, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has threatened to take action if the providers failed to cut bills by 25 per cent.

The CRTC has since been under pressure to increase competition and lower prices where three companies — Bell, Telus and Rogers — control over 80 per cent of the mobile subscriber market.

Antitrust regulators for this reason have stalled the $16 billion acquisition of Shaw Communications by Rogers, on the grounds that the deal would further reduce competition.

In April last year, CRTC ruled that large telecoms firms must offer wholesale wireless access to so-called mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) — smaller outfits that can then resell the capacity at reduced retail prices and pass on the savings to consumers — but with several stipulations that were seen as wins for big companies.

In Wednesday’s ruling — which, along with the nationwide big three, will also apply to SaskTel, Saskatchewan’s Crown-owned phone and cellular utility — CRTC said the service will be mandated for seven years, giving the regional providers time to build and expand their wireless networks.

The CRTC said Wednesday its new ruling is “opening the door for more companies, in particular smaller regional wireless providers in more rural areas, to provide greater competition and choice to more Canadians by accessing the wireless networks of Canada’s largest providers.”

In addition, prices for MVNO access must be negotiated between the providers.

Bell, Telus and Rogers did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

— Reporting for Reuters by Eva Mathews in Bangalore; includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The House of Commons’ standing committee on industry, science and technology, chaired by Vancouver area Liberal MP Dan Ruimy, on Tuesday released its report and recommendations for meeting federal targets on rural broadband connectivity.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 2016 declared broadband internet to be an “essential service” in Canada and set minimal performance standards of 50-megabit per second download and 10 Mbps upload, working with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) to fund broadband deployment in rural and remote areas.

However, the committee wrote, evidence it received from various stakeholders shows the digital divide to still be “prominent” in Canada and the CRTC targets “may not be appropriate to all rural and remote areas.”

Licensed incumbents in the broadband sector “tend to only invest in high-density areas that are more economically profitable,” the committee wrote, but if Ottawa were to “adapt” its regulatory framework, particularly on spectrum and network management, “small providers, non-profit providers or non-incumbent providers” could deploy rural broadband in “an economically profitable manner.”

The government also needs to “consider ways to increase the accessibility of funding programs for small providers, non-profit providers and non-incumbent providers, and consider the spectrum allocation process for the purpose of broadband deployment.”

Ottawa also needs to take steps, possibly through legislation in tandem with the provinces, for such providers to be able to accessing “existing infrastructures for the purpose of deploying broadband access,” such as granting easements or servitudes, “especially in regards to utility poles.”

The government also needs to consider the spectrum allocation process, focusing on the “scope of licences, pricing and effective use of allocated spectrum, including ensuring that small providers, non-profit providers, and non-incumbent providers have reasonable access to spectrum for broadband deployment.”

The committee also urged the government to “consider new ways of collecting service and performance data in addition to the speed of internet services, including, but not limited to, adding new indicators, using local knowledge.”

The CRTC, the committee said, should also consider not only broadband speed, but other indicators in its targets, such as “standards of parity between urban and rural centers, network performance, purchased consumer packages, latency and redundancy.”

(“Latency” refers to the time it takes for a given signal to get from a transmitter to a receiver, usually measured in milliseconds.)

The CRTC should also consider “regularly reviewing” its target broadband speeds to make sure they “remain relevant with technological development and international standards.”

Some witnesses during the committee’s hearings on the matter cautioned that the CRTC will have to “regularly update” its broadband speed targets “to keep up with technological change.”

Corroborating those witnesses, the committee said, is “the fact that actual broadband speeds in Canada substantially lag behind many countries that invest more in digital infrastructure.”

A monitoring report, the committee said, shows 99 per cent of Canadians living in rural areas have some form of internet access, including wireless, but to speeds between 1.5 and 4.9 Mbps — and only 42 per cent have access to speeds between 30 and 49.9 Mbps.

“Thus, while most Canadian communities do have Internet coverage, in many rural communities, the available speeds are so low that they only allow for a limited number of uses.” — AGCanada.com Network

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The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on Thursday issued a directive to that effect to all wireless service providers.

The alert system would allow emergency management officials to warn Canadians via mobile devices of “dangers to life and property.”

The alerts would go to mobile phones and other mobile devices connected to LTE (long-term evolution) networks, which are available to over 97 per cent of Canadians, the CRTC said.

Messages would be issued by federal, provincial and territorial governments and emergency management officials to warn the public of “imminent threats” such as fires, tornadoes, floods, water contamination and Amber alerts, the CRTC said.

Service providers are expected to work with their federal, provincial and territorial counterparts to develop an awareness campaign and a test schedule.

The CRTC’s interconnection steering committee network technology working group is expected to file a progress report by July 5 and a final report by Oct. 3, 2017, on a proposed awareness campaign and test schedule.

The exact launch date for the distribution of alerts would be announced once “all required functionalities are in place,” the commission said.

Requiring “pre-LTE” networks such as 2G and 3G to carry alerts would increase deployment costs and delay deployment of wireless alerts, the CRTC said, while exempting pre-LTE networks would have “minimal impact” on alert coverage.

Canadians getting alerts via mobile devices would hear the same alert tone as they now do via radio and TV, and receive a “unique vibration cadence” when an alert is issued.

The CRTC has required since 2014 that AM, FM and over-the-air TV stations and “subscription-based” service providers must broadcast emergency alert messages. — AGCanada.com Network

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CRTC intends to invest over $750 million to support this initiative. In spite of the lack of details contained in the announcement, in terms of future costs for Canadians and businesses, it spells good news for Canadian agriculture and consumers alike.

Let’s face it: most Canadians take the Internet for granted. Being connected has become second nature for most of us. As an example, most knew the minute that George Michael or Carrie Fisher had passed on, even though it occurred during the holidays when many are not connected. You only need to experience a complete sense of disconnectedness once in order to really appreciate how important high-speed Internet is to modern living. In remote areas, the Internet can get choppy, simply due to high winds. Even precipitation can slow the Internet down to a point where work becomes impossible.

The CRTC’s focus on broadband Internet access comes at the right time. In agriculture, things will get much more interesting as getting sound data in real time will play a significant part in most farming businesses. In an era in which Donald Trump’s most outlandish message on Twitter can move markets in seconds, farmers need the proper information tools in order to keep up.

Rurality, of course, makes closing distances a challenge, which in turn makes communication critical. Therefore, the need for better and more efficient communication through a reliable network becomes obvious. For meetings, sharing data and most important, for anticipating unpredictable effects like climate change, access to data underlies almost every business decision. Crop prices and futures are also key information points for farmers who want to make their operations more sustainable.

The “Internet of Things” is an increasingly promising concept for a growing number of farmers, allowing them to anticipate the future before it happens. With devices like wireless sensor networks, network-connected weather stations, high-tech cameras and smartphones, farmers can obtain an impressive amount of environmental and crop performance data, collected by field sensors and cameras, and accumulated by human observations, which have been recorded via mobile smartphone applications. Triangulating data is what it’s all about. Farmers can analyze the data they have, filter out worthless data and compute personalized crop recommendations for any specific farm and commodities. But without proper, affordable bandwidth, all of this can be at best a very painstaking process.

Farmers are no longer rustic labourers on tractors. Things have changed. Given that Canada is losing farms at a yearly rate of seven per cent to nine per cent, agricultural operations have got larger — much larger — and smarter as well. With precision agriculture, resources are managed more sustainably, which lowers the carbon footprint of farms. Adapting production input based on localized needs for each individual animal allows better use of resources to maintain the quality of the environment, while improving the sustainability of the food supply.

This is what is happening already. What is not happening enough, however, is any systematic attempt to appreciate how more efficient Canadian farms could contribute meaningfully to global food systems, and increase profitability for the sector. Better Internet capacity can only help in this regard.

Canadian consumers will also gain on many levels. First off, allowing rural Canada to connect with the rest of the world would help urbanites better understand agriculture. This could potentially be the most significant contribution from the CRTC’s decision. Farmers will gain access to more data, but so could city dwellers. The great rural-urban divide could be narrowed, thus allowing citizens from both socio-economic segments of our nation to understand each other better.

Over the last century or so, public discourse around how we support agriculture in Canada has mostly been fuelled by misconceptions and confusion. We have seen interest groups repeatedly use ignorance as a weapon to serve their constituents. Data-driven debates can only bring farmers closer to people’s kitchen tables. In other words, better virtual connectivity could potentially lead to better agri-food policies in Canada.

What is more, Canada has almost 200,000 farms, many of which are still hobby farms. With access to broadband Internet service, it could become possible to operate small-scale farms more efficiently, thanks to better market access and perhaps in turn creating more variety for Canadians looking for locally grown products.

One day, expectations in grocery stores and in restaurants could be more aligned with how limiting agriculture can be at times. This may be a pipe dream, but if access to broadband Internet service can only accomplish half of what it is capable of, Canada will gain. However, we can only hope this access is affordable for farmers to use.

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“Everybody treats broadband with a mentality of ‘build it and they will come,’” said RDI research associate Wayne Kelly.

“What we’re finding, though, is that there is a need to encourage use so that people can fully take advantage of the availability of high-speed Internet. This will become even more essential as rural communities get access to the level of service recommended by the CRTC.”

Just before Christmas, the Canadian Telecommunications and Radio Commission (CRTC) declared broadband to be a basic service and set a target that download speeds of 50 megabytes per second (Mbps) become available to all Canadians.

The CRTC will expect providers to invest $750 million over five years to build or upgrade broadband and improve access in underserved areas.

• Read more: CRTC Internet decision draws strong support

Kelly co-authored a report with colleague Scott McCullough at the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg that looked at use in rural areas of southern and central Manitoba.

The RDI study The State of Rural Information and Communications Technologies in Manitoba found access and lack of digital literacy are both barriers to increased use.

Access to moderate broadband (minimum 1.5 Mbps) is already good throughout southern Manitoba, the report notes.

An access strategy alone, without additional supports, poses other challenges for rural communities, the RDI report found.

The study provides a number of recommendations to increase both access and use of broadband. Strategies to improve access include incentives for Internet service providers, communities and small- to medium-size businesses to invest in broadband infrastructure to make the technology more widely available and affordable.

Broadband use could be enhanced by establishing and enacting plans at the provincial and community levels, supporting digital literacy and ensuring that all levels of government are developing local content to help those in rural regions use digital tools. Monitoring those strategies and conducting research to fill in knowledge gaps are also critical.

“A wide range of options for action exists for all parties in pursuing the opportunities of broadband Internet access and use,” the report says.

The federal government committed $500 million in its 2016-17 budget last March to improve rural Internet service. Last month Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains also rolled out a new federal program, Connect to Innovate, to improve Internet service to 300 rural and remote communities by 2021.

It will be used to build so-called “backbone” networks, which are the digital highways that move data in and out of communities. It will also help support satellite-dependent northern communities and also fund ‘last-mile’ connections to households that don’t have Internet speeds of at least five megabits per second.

Canada has good-quality high-speed networks in its cities and telecommunications companies invested more than $13 billion last year, Bains said in a statement noting that “the era of the smart city has arrived.”

“But this high-speed revolution cannot just be confined to cities. Networks need to be extended to remote and rural areas.”

The RDI study says a major cause of the digital divide between rural and urban areas is market failure in rural regions.

“Competitive and affordable access is the foundation for realizing the potential that broadband can bring,” the report says. “In many parts of rural Manitoba and Canada, the large geographic distances, low population density, and sometimes lower income make it difficult to attract a single ISP, let alone the multiple ISPs needed to create a competitive environment. The resulting market failure in rural regions has resulted in patchy broadband access that is substantially slower and more expensive than what is available in urban areas.”

Canada’s National Broadband Task Force in 2001 recognized the problem and recommended direct investment to ensure access and literacy across Canada but that approach was never implemented, the report says.

“Instead, the federal government spent more than a decade focusing on policies to stimulate private sector investment in high-cost rural areas,” the report notes. Additionally, these stimulus policies and investments have taken place without a national broadband plan or clear definition of targets for effective broadband. The results have been low levels of investment by the private sector, and the development of patchy, non-cohesive Internet services across rural Canada.

The RDI study can be downloaded at the Brandon University website.

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The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said it was establishing a new fund that providers will pay into that will invest $750 million over five years to build or upgrade broadband infrastructure with a focus on improving access in underserved areas.

Telecom companies with revenues of $10 million or more already contribute a percentage of their profits to subsidize basic phone services. Companies currently pay about 0.5 per cent of their telecom revenue.

Internet revenues, which are currently excluded, will now be included in the calculation of what companies have to pay for the new fund, potentially chipping away at an increasingly profitable area for providers.

With consumers moving to streaming services such as Netflix, offering internet access has become more lucrative for Canadian companies than offering television services.

Canadian telecom and cable companies made $9.81 billion in revenue from the supply of internet connections in 2015, outstripping the $8.92 billion companies made from cable, satellite and internet-enabled television subscriptions, the CRTC said in October.

The CRTC also set a download speed target of 50 megabits per second, well above its previous target of five megabits, and recommended providers offer an unlimited data option for fixed broadband. The regulator did not set a price cap.

In 2015, about 82 per cent of Canadians had access to internet at those speeds.

Providers that are not able to meet those targets will be able to apply for financing from the new fund, which will be run at arms’ length from the CRTC. Only those applying for funding will be obliged to meet the targets.

Applicants will be required to secure supplementary funding from the regional or federal government and put their own investment into the proposed project.

In its budget earlier this year, the Canadian government set aside up to $500 million over five years for improving broadband service in rural and remote communities.

— Reporting for Reuters by Leah Schnurr.

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In recent televised remarks, Jean-Pierre Blais said the necessity of broadband Internet access was a “self-evident truth,” shifting the focus of the current review of basic telecommunications services from proving the need for basic telecommunication, to examining how they can be delivered.

“That’s huge,” said Wayne Anderson, speaking by phone from the small island of cellular service that exists around the town of Piney. Anderson, who represents the Rural Municipality of Piney as reeve, and others lobbied hard for years to get service in the town site. They’re continuing to work with the Association of Manitoba Municipalities to bring cellular service to the southeast corner of the province.

“We had put forth a resolution to have the CRTC lobbied to make it an essential service, because it is an essential service,” he said.

In the spring of 2012 the need for better telecommunications was starkly illustrated, as massive wildfires across the rural municipalities of Piney and Stuartburn made communication both imperative and impossible.

“When we had those fires… emergency services lost radio contact and we have no cell service, then we had water bombers coming in, and it was just a fiasco,” said Anderson.

Accessing high-speed Internet is also challenging and expensive, if not impossible, in rural and northern areas of the province.

“We do have some MTS high-speed Internet in a couple of small hamlets, but it does not reach into the country at all and it’s very spotty. We had one Internet provider come by some years back and put up tiny towers, which don’t work very well,” Anderson said.

At the Keystone Agricultural Producers annual general meeting this winter, two of the resolutions put forward by members concerned telecommunications, expressing a desire for better cellular service as well as high-speed Internet access.

“It’s really good they are addressing this,” said Dan Mazier, KAP president. “Because our request is to have 25 megabits of service to all of Canada by the year 2020. Right now we are sitting around five or 10 megabits. You can get 12 or 15 through some service providers in rural Manitoba, but it is very, very expensive.”

Whether on their smartphones, a laptop or a desktop, Mazier said producers today rely on the Internet to run their businesses. Information, sales, purchases, regulations, program applications and more are all handled electronically, with data-heavy farming playing an increasingly important role in efficient production practices.

“I can do this job so much better now with Internet, with cell service,” Mazier said.

And then there is the safety aspect.

“There is a lot of hours, even on a large modern farm, where you or your employees are working by themselves, so that whole necessity to monitor and make sure everyone is looked after is more prevalent that ever,” said Mazier.

For Anderson, who operates an emergency tow truck, safety is also paramount when it comes to having cellular service.

“A lot of time I have customers who are stranded for long periods of time, and they are trying to use their cellphones, but there is no service like they are used to having in Winnipeg,” he said.

Neither Mazier or Anderson buy the argument that rural telecommunications can only be justified with a business plan, stressing the essential nature of the services.

MTS tells us it does not want to do anything about it, because it does not make business sense to provide phone service out there, that there are not enough customers to sign up is what it is saying,” explained Anderson. “But we don’t think that’s a fair yardstick. The yardstick should be things like safety. There are a lot of customers driving through the area who need service too.”

Mazier believes the ultimate responsibility lies with the federal government and regulatory bodies, like the CRTC.

“Government should have a set of rules to let business know that this is what will be provided, rather than you live in an urban centre or a rural or remote centre. It needs to say to the companies, you need to provide the same service across Canada, we don’t care how you do it, you figure it out, but the service has to be there if you want a licence,” said Mazier. “There is no reason why we can’t get service all over Manitoba. I mean to live in a modern-day society, we need access to these kinds of services.”

The findings of the CRTC’s review of basic telecom services are expected to be released later this year.

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“Even two years ago, it was way worse out there in terms of apps, in terms of what’s possible,” said Dean Harder, a Manitoba rep and board member with the National Farmers Union (NFU).

Technology has been edging into farming for years — not just in machinery such as combines or tractors, but in sensors for measuring yield and soil moisture, drones for scouting fields, mobile apps and more.

“It really spreads the gamut, between just basic simple apps for recording your input in a more succinct way, to stuff like figuring out your nutrient level,” said Harder, a grain and oilseed grower near Lowe Farm, Man., about 45 km northeast of Winkler.

“I think the shifts are happening. We’re just barely on the verge.”

But the extent to which farmers are able to connect with ag tech also depends on their connections.

People living in rural areas are more likely to experience slower download speeds and monthly caps, and are twice as likely as their urban counterparts to be dissatisfied with their service, according to the most recent survey from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), released March 18.

“This has been an issue for years,” Harder said.

Many farmers have turned to using data on their phones, which outpaces their Wi-Fi services — but using that data often comes at a higher cost, he said.

“There needs to be room for us to play. To be able to work with it, for it to be able to work with our farms.”

Since Harder’s farm is about an hour out of Winnipeg, his service is sometimes slow but OK overall.

“Top of the hill”

Next door in Saskatchewan, however, an interactive map of high-speed internet availability in Canada, released last week by the CRTC, shows many blank spots in rural areas.

“The coverage is there if you’re on top of the hill, but if you go into the field the coverage is gone,” said Norm Hall, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) and a farmer at Wynyard, Sask., about 140 km northwest of Yorkton.

A lack of coverage — and even an inability to make cellphone calls — is more than an inconvenience for farmers, he said. “It’s a safety issue. That cellphone is your lifeline.”

Slow and sometimes unavailable internet isn’t the only reason some farmers are apprehensive about integrating technology.

“My father’s old-school, he doesn’t even use a computer at all,” Harder said. “And you also have to have workers on the farm who also are willing to integrate that.”

But some apps are catering to that, Harder said, noting one app he uses with quick-convert options for recording how much grain goes into a bin.

“What’s nice is you can do it in pounds, kilograms or bushels right on the spot,” he said. “It’s so nice when you’re dealing with a variety of generations.”

Technology can be used to improve crop management and unnecessary spraying, said Hall, who added he has seen producers use drones to scout fields rather than walk through and pick out individual leaves.

“The younger guys coming in are using a whole lot more,” he said.

Learning about new technology isn’t worthwhile for some producers, especially those nearing retirement, he added.

“You’re not going to spend the money and do the education that needs to happen to get to that point, and to be able to use this stuff,” he said.

“But if you’ve got your whole career ahead of you, you’re going to do everything you can to improve the management and operation of your farm if you can.”

Some producers are concerned about companies being able to record and use their information against them, Harder said.

“There’s kind of a fear amongst farmers of like ‘If you’re able to record all my information — what I do, what I put in the field, and then what my outcome is in terms of harvest — is that OK for the company to have?'”

To an extent, he said, data can show a farmer did a good job, but sometimes technology such as yield monitors hasn’t been synchronized properly and could be inaccurate.

The NFU sees an opportunity for technology to be used more on farms, he said.

“Farmers have been open to things like tractor technology,” he said. “But there’s so much potential, especially as we move forward.”

— Jade Markus writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow her at @jade_markus on Twitter.

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