FCC’s national broadband plan to impact wireless broadband in Canada

Industry experts say the US Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) new 360-page National Broadband Plan is likely to influence Canada’s wireless spectrum allocation and broadband coverage. The plan, released Tuesday, recommends that the United States government make 500 MHz of spectrum newly available for broadband within the next 10 years. It says the FCC could share wireless auction proceeds with over-the-air broadcasters that drop some of their signals to make room for broadband. “Once the US makes a determination about re-purposing bandwidth spectrum, Canada follows that lead because it helps with the availability of equipment and it helps with the ability of consumers to roam more seamlessly,” Mark Goldberg, a telecommunications consultant with Mark H. Goldberg & Associates, told The Wire Report. Goldberg said Canada has been a “fast-follower” of developments in American wireless spectrum because it seeks to remain consistent with the United States. “People end up travelling across the border, and they expect their devices to work on both sides of the border in similar ways,” Ken Engelhart, Rogers Communications’ vice president of regulatory affairs, said in an interview. “The radio waves don’t honour the border,” Engelhart added. “They flow right over the border, so we pretty much have to do the same things on both sides of the border with the spectrum.” Engelhart said he hopes the government will move toward opening up more spectrum for wireless broadband. “It will hopefully influence Canadian policy makers to realize the wireless networks have fundamentally changed with the advent of wireless broadband, and that is putting huge spectrum requirements on the industry,” he said. Overall access to broadband is a major component of the FCC’s national plan. It proposes the creation of a Connect America Fund to make 4 Mbps broadband Internet available to every citizen of the United States. The program’s estimated cost is $15.5-billion over the next 10 years. But Engelhart said Canada is ahead of the United States. “The message I would take from it is that the Americans will spend a lot of money to catch up to where we are already,” Engelhart said. He said Canada has 80 per cent broadband penetration while the United States is at about 65 per cent. The FCC also proposes that at least 100 million American homes get access to 100 Mbps broadband by 2020. But Michael Hennessy, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs at Telus, said it would be difficult to convince industry—in Canada or the United States—to invest in large-scale access to 100Mbps broadband in the near future. “Nobody today would invest the kind of money that would be required to provide dedicated 100 Mbps to each individual household,” he said. “There’s no demand for it.” Goldberg said the FCC target is realistic and that it will be more difficult to offer basic broadband access to the poorest and most remote parts of the country. The United States Congress directed the FCC in 2009 to develop a national broadband plan. “I commend Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Commissioners, and the FCC staff for their hard work in developing the National Broadband Plan,” US President Barack Obama said in a release Tuesday. “My Administration will build upon our efforts over the past year to make America's nationwide broadband infrastructure the world’s most powerful platform for economic growth and prosperity, including improving access to mobile broadband, maximizing technology innovation, and supporting a nationwide, interoperable public safety wireless broadband network.” Michael Janigan, executive director and general counsel with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a consumer rights group in Ottawa, told The Wire Report that he supports the FCC’s plan to expand very high speed broadband access, but that he remains skeptical about how it will work in practice. “What has been pointed out as the way ahead in the United States and Europe is substantially different than what the major players would like to happen,” Janigan said. Tom Copeland, chair of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), said Canada lacks the political leadership to follow in the United States’ footsteps for broadband access. “Until we have somebody in the government that really wants to bring us into the digital age, I just don’t see it happening,” he said in an interview. The FCC’s plan is not binding on the government and consists of recommendations for the United States’ executive branch, Congress, the FCC, policy makers, and local and state governments. “At this point I think the broadband plan in general is more of a mix of ideas and questions that are going to lead to public proceedings, which might result in significant changes, or might not,” Hennessy said. He added that governments around the world will want to read the plan as a reference for what could happen in the United States. jmigneault@thewirereport.ca

FCC’s national broadband plan to impact wireless broadband in Canada

News | March 16, 2010

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