Cooperation between government, commercial telcos and non-profit providers can support connectivity and innovation in northern and Indigenous communities

EDMONTON—As people are increasingly working, studying, and accessing public services online, COVID-19 provides overwhelming evidence of the need for high-speed, affordable, adequate broadband as an essential service. It also provides opportunities to consider the ways that connectivity is developed and delivered in rural and remote regions—and, in doing do, allows us to explore innovative solutions to a longstanding and entrenched policy challenge. It is no surprise to anyone that connectivity services in rural, remote, northern and Indigenous communities are expensive and inadequate. This has been the case since the earliest days of the internet. Commercial telecommunications providers tasked to provide services in ‘high-cost service areas’ consistently point to seemingly unresolvable challenges: a limited subscriber base, challenging geography, and dispersed communities. These issues reflect problems with a reliance on market forces based on conditions in densely populated urban centres. Assumptions about the benefits of competition generally don’t apply in northern and Indigenous communities. The regulator sets service standards. Companies that are required to maximize profits for their shareholders fail to generate adequate return on investment without subsidy. Government provides subsidies to support this unsustainable business case. Communities continue to suffer from limited and expensive access. This system fails to recognize an underlying problem: for-profit business models are simply not designed to service northern and Indigenous communities. COVID-19 provides an opportunity to disrupt this cycle. The pandemic has made clear that access to affordable, adequate digital infrastructure is essential. It has also highlighted the limitations of existing policies—cruelly exposing long-standing disparities marginalized groups and individuals face in many areas, including inequities in digital services. But members of these groups are also engaged in innovative solutions. For example, against challenging odds, non-profit service providers are delivering services in high-cost service areas. High-speed Access for all: Canada’s Connectivity Strategy highlights the Kativik Regional Government’s efforts to extend fibre optic cables, fixed wireless, and satellite links to 14 fly-in communities in Nunavik. Other pioneering examples include K-Net Services and the Western James Bay Telecom Network in Ontario, Broadband Communications North in Manitoba, and the First Nations Education Council and Eeyou Communication Network in Quebec. Their successes present evidence that non-profit Indigenous service providers are more than capable of constructing and managing networks in some of Canada’s most challenging terrain. Unlike large commercial telecommunications service providers, after initial capital investment and any essential operational subsidies (the same supports that commercial organizations ask to receive in these contexts) these organizations can reinvest any surplus to deploy or update infrastructure, improve quality of service, lower prices for users, or support other community projects. Local non-profits circulate revenues inside communities, contributing to the development of a sustainable economic base and local jobs. Through ownership and management of digital infrastructure and services, they contribute to the social, cultural, and economic development of Indigenous Nations. Commercial telcos can support this work. Rather than competing for limited customers and public funds in a ‘zero-sum’ game, commercial providers can benefit from cooperation. Travel costs are reduced through training and employing local residents. Stronger local and regional economies create additional demand for wholesale bandwidth and other services purchased by non-profits. Infrastructure developed through partnerships can increase the redundancy and path diversity of networks. Companies can demonstrate their corporate social responsibility through tangible benefits. For example, they can participate in shared ownership models—such as by leasing physical infrastructure like fibre optic cables or wireless towers owned by non-profits. Government departments and agencies play an essential role in encouraging cooperation through incentives or requirements to share commonly used resources. They can encourage information-sharing regarding the availability of ‘dark fibre’ and support structures like hydro poles through a public database. They could require mobile carriers to utilize spectrum that they may be ‘warehousing’ (owning without deploying), to stimulate a secondary market for subordinate spectrum—or even provide spectrum set-asides over Indigenous territories, as was done in the U.S. They could work with transport providers to ensure that non-profits in remote regions can access enough affordable bandwidth to meet universal service objective standards and support usage during COVID, given growing demands from households, schools, businesses, and so on. The pricing of wholesale bandwidth delivered through publicly subsidized transport networks could be regulated in cases where competition is not in place since price regulation is more cost-effective than overbuilding transport networks, particularly in expensive-to-serve regions. Above all, in the spirit of reconciliation and the context of COVID-19, government could provide direct funding to the non-profit and Indigenous service providers operating in high-cost service areas. Such funding could open new avenues for cooperation between these groups and the commercial providers which—despite their differences—share a common goal of providing access to essential digital infrastructure and services in Canada’s northern and Indigenous communities, at a time when they need it the most. Dr. Rob McMahon is an associate professor at the University of Alberta and the coordinator of the First Mile Connectivity Consortium, a national association of Indigenous internet service providers and technology organizations. The Hill Times