CRTC
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, K1A 0N2
Re: Telecom Decision CRTC 2006-9
The British Columbia Community Connectivity Cooperative (the BC3) would like to register its support for the CRTC decision to make deferral account funds available to expand broadband service to unserved rural and remote communities and improve accessibility of telecommunications services to persons with disabilities as outlined in Telecom Decision CRTC 2006-9.
The BC3 is a consortium of 65 community organizations with the common goal of bringing broadband connectivity to every community in BC. As such, the BC3 welcomes the CRTC decision to make funds from the deferral accounts available to address this issue..
We believe that the availability of broadband services is critical to the social and economic development of rural and remote communities, and that targeted action is required to ensure that these communities will have reliable and affordable access to these services. Broadband services have taken on increased importance in health, education, business, government, and communications to the point where these services are now as important as basic telecommunications, and arguably more important to those in rural and remote areas. Furthermore, the provision of broadband access is critically important to lower barriers that rural and remote communities have to accessing the new networked economy. If we do not assist these communities now, they will fall further behind the urban areas and only create a larger problem later. 26% of the Canadian workforce lives outside the major areas and 40% of the natural resource exports are generated in these areas as well. This economic engine must not be allowed to fail.
We believe that the use of the deferral account funds for the purpose of expanding broadband service to unserved regions is not only appropriate but fully consistent with the Commissions mandate of promoting equality of access and affordable pricing for telecommunications services for communities disadvantaged by geography or population density. It is an appropriate policy response to a real problem for Canadians.
The BC3 would like to see these funds used to expand broadband availability in a manner consistent with the strategies that have been developed to address the digital divide in BC by partnerships between the Government of BC, as represented by Network BC, Telus Communications (TCI), and the communities in the province as represented by the BC3. That strategy has attempted to extend the reach of broadband service to unserved communities by extending high bandwidth fibre and microwave backbone circuits in the province into unserved areas so as to make an affordable open access Point of Presence (PoP) in each community. Each community is then enabled to work with the telecommunications carrier, the local Internet Service Provider (ISP), or a community owned and operated network to provide a “last mile” solution to distribute the services to homes and businesses. By focusing on the PoP availability at an affordable cost, this strategy addresses the most common deterrent for a community looking for a broadband solution, and in many cases it allows the community to implement a community owned and operated solution where no business case exists for commercially operated service.
This strategy to date has been funded through the purchasing leverage of the Province of BC. Network BC has been negotiating community PoPs in places where the Province needs a PoP for government business – schools, health facilities, or government services. As TCI extends its IP services to accommodate the province’s needs, Network BC is also asking TCI to provide sufficient capacity and the gateway for the community network needs. The BC3 believes that the deferral account funds can be used to further expand the backbone and PoPs to communities that have not been served because of costs or because there is no provincial government presence in the community. This applies to many of the First Nations communities in the province, as well as to extended rural areas with few school and health facilities.
We believe the three way partnership between the Province, TCI, and the communities (through BC3) has been effective in expanding the availability of broadband services in BC over the past few years, and the BC3 would welcome the opportunity to work within this framework to assist in developing the appropriate plans for the deferral account funds. The BC3 will favour proposals that allow for flexible last mile options that would allow non-ILEC service providers and community networks to participate in the broadband solution. We believe strongly that backbone proposals should allow for full open access to the infrastructure for service providers and regional community networks.
We applaud the Commission’s decision to recognize the importance of broadband for rural and remote communities and to allow the use the deferral account funds to provide affordable access to broadband for BC’s un-served communities, and we look forward to an expeditious planning process to make the most effective use of these funds.
Signed The membership of the BC3
