North’s Internet service gaps could be solved in ’12 months’: Telesat

OTTAWA—Internet service gaps in Canada’s North could be solved within 12 months if the CRTC and all levels of government came together on a funding strategy, Daniel Goldberg, president and CEO of satellite provider Telesat Canada, said Tuesday. “We have the capacity to solve this challenge within months,” Goldberg said. “It really goes back to an economic challenge.” Goldberg said during a panel discussion at a conference hosted by the Ottawa chapter of the International Institute of Communications that, working with BCE Inc. subsidiary Northwestel Inc. and some other companies, Telesat installed a 240 Mbps demonstration cable into a library in Iqaluit, Nunavut, in September. He said the demonstration aimed to show how the problem of Internet service in the North can be solved “very quickly” from a technological perspective. Goldberg said its partnership with Northwestel also demonstrated third-generation wireless services. Goldberg said the company wanted to show northern residents that the services offered in southern Canada can be made available in the North and that there is enough satellite capacity to make it happen. “We have some frustration with the amount of gnashing of teeth and navel gazing that has taken place as folks ponder what can be done to solve this issue. That was really the focus behind this demonstration that we put in place,” he said. Telesat, based in Ottawa, Ont., has a fleet of 13 satellites offering signals to support broadcast, telecom, corporate and government clients around the world, according to its website. The company's satellites provide broadband services in Canada's North. Goldberg said establishing high-capacity services in the North is possible as technology becomes more efficient and cheaper to deploy. He said high speed, high-capacity services will be rolled out with targeted government support. “ just like there has been in Canada’s history, when basic phone services and the CBC broadcasting infrastructure were built out to make sure all Canadians can enjoy, more or less, the same quality of services,” Goldberg said. He said as long as there is political will and continued economic activity, services will be established in the North. “It’s not achievable three years from now, five years from now. This is a capability that can run within 12 months' time,” he said. Paul Flaherty, president and CEO of Northwestel, said during the panel discussion that, through Bell’s proposed $3.38-billion acquisition of Astral Media Inc., the company sought to bring 5 Mbps wireless broadband service to every community in Northern Canada. That broadband plan was part of BCE's benefits package related to the proposed purchase of Astral, which the CRTC denied in a decision this month. As part of the Astral acquisition, Bell said it would dedicate $40 million in tangible benefits to Northwestel to expand its wireless networks into 47 communities that do not currently have access to broadband. Flaherty said the CRTC decision pointed out that the commission did not see a link between broadband services and broadcasting, adding: “What we're going to do now, is we’re going back and seeing how we can deal with it.” This month, BCE filed a formal request to the federal cabinet, asking it to issue a government policy direction to the CRTC as part of the company's plan to re-file a regulatory application to acquire Astral. Industry Minister Christian Paradis said Tuesday the cabinet respects the CRTC decision and will not “intervene.” Flaherty said the commission and the federal government need to work together to understand that telecom infrastructure does more than provide basic telephone services. “One thing the commission has asked us to do is modernize our voice network,” he said. “That’s curious, because if you talk to customers, most customers aren’t all that concerned about our voice network.” Flaherty said federal policy on telecom services in the North is “very fractured” as the CRTC concentrates on voice technology and Industry Canada is focused on funding broadband. “The challenge is how do we provide that ubiquitous service and how are we doing it through a common policy,” he said, “versus one policy group saying ‘Let’s concentrate on voice,’ and another policy group saying ‘Let’s concentrate on broadband.’ We need to bring them together.” Flaherty said every northern community has some type of service but “we’d like it to be more.” Northwestel said in May that it will focus on improving its appeal with customers in response to a CRTC decision late last year that opened the North to competition and removed the company's decades-long Northern Canada monopoly. Following the decision, Toronto-based telecom provider Iristel Inc. said it planned to offer voice-over-IP services in some northern Canadian markets as early as summer 2012. dgrenier@thewirereport.ca

North’s Internet service gaps could be solved in ’12 months’: Telesat

News | 10/31/2012 7:35 pm EDT

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