Telecom industry heralds Broadband Task Force recommendations

Canada's telecom community is praising the National Broadband Task Force for its final report released last month, although uncertainty remains over how some of the recommendations would be implemented. "It's a good first step. We'll have to see how the government responds to it," Bill St. Arnaud of CANARIE Inc says. "I think we still have a challenge of what comes after DSL and cable modems." That decision will ultimately be made by the private sector, but with influence and some funding from the federal government, and Industry Canada in particular. One company that's anxious to find out more details is EastLink, a cableco and CLEC operating in the Atlantic provinces. "A number of the locations that we're rolling out to in the next year on our own would probably be assumed to be unserved at this point in the task force. What that will mean in the short term, it's probably just business as usual for us and we think it's a good business to go into in those locations," EastLink Telephone president David Caldwell told Network Letter. "We'd have a concern if subsequently there was some means that after we were getting started that other competitors were subsidized in some manner but it appears the report has this general principle that would be technology-neutral and competitor neutral." Some broadband networks are in the process of being rolled out. The Alberta government is at the forefront with the initiation of its Supernet grid (NL, Nov. 6/00). Saskatchewan has responded with its CommunityNet backbone (NL, Apr. 9/01). A strict interpretation of the task force's recommendations could penalize these provinces. In estimating the final price tag for bringing broadband to all communities, the report did not include areas it determined to be "served" - a community was counted as served if a province had already committed to bring broadband to it. The concern for provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan is that by moving early, they may not be eligible for federal subsidies. A spokeswoman for the Alberta Ministry of Innovation and Science is cautiously hopeful about how Industry minister Brian Tobin will handle the situation. "We recognize that there were some very optimistic, very big goals set out by that strategy," Kim Hunt states, "and we're looking forward to what minister Tobin is going to come back with and we certainly hope that we will get equitable recognition." Cash is also a concern for EastLink's Caldwell. He worries Ottawa may choose to revive a long-reviled mechanism for raising money. "I think we need to find out how's it going to be funded. If the government were choosing to fund a portion of that such that the cost to service providers was equal to those in urban areas and therefore the rates could be the same, where will they derive their funds?" he asks. "If it comes from general government revenues, i.e. taxes, on all segments then it's neutral. If it's coming from particular segments the way telephone contributions come from, that would be taxes on particular segments and could be bad for other parts of the business." Self-interest set aside Perhaps one of the most surprising things to come out of the task force was the level of consensus reached by the 34 members, several of whom were direct competitors. Gerry Wall is the president of Wall Communications Inc, who did work for one task force panelist. He says he was taken by the willingness of the participants to put aside self-interest to work for the common good. He reserves special praise for the chair of the task force. "I thought the choice of David Johnston was a really good one. A lot of people would have started pulling out their hair, or other peoples', because of the short time frame," he notes. "He didn't try to muzzle anybody, he didn't try to coerce anybody. He just tried to move things forward and as a result you see all the signatures on the report."

Telecom industry heralds Broadband Task Force recommendations

News | 07/03/2001 4:00 am EDT

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