Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Honourable committee members, my name is Robert Malcolmson. I am the senior vice-president of regulatory affairs at BCE. Thank you for your invitation to provide Bell's views on the topic of net neutrality.
Bell is Canada's largest communications company, employing 51,000 Canadians and investing $4 billion per year in advanced networks and media content. These investments allow us to provide advanced communication services that form the backbone of Canada's digital economy.
Today we serve approximately 3.8 million high-speed Internet customers. We are also in the midst of a very ambitious fibre-to-the-home deployment that will expand our high-speed fibre footprint to approximately 4.5 million locations by the end of 2018.
We are also expanding our high-speed Internet service into rural and remote areas. Whether it is Flin Flon or Lynn Lake, Manitoba, the first nation in Stratton, Ontario, Mont-Saint-Pierre in Quebec, or Cook's Harbour in Newfoundland and Labrador, both on our own initiative and in partnerships with federal and provincial government programs, we are investing capital to bring more Canadians the infrastructure they need to participate in the digital economy.
We are also a key supporter of Canada's cultural and democratic system. BCE is the country's largest television provider, with operations that include Canada's largest over-the-air television network, CTV; many of Canada's most popular specialty channels; and CraveTV, our over-the-top video streaming service.
Our broadband network also supports Fibe TV and Fibe Alt TV, a low-cost application-based TV service that does require a traditional TV set-top box. In 2017 alone, Bell invested approximately $900 million in the creation and production of Canadian programming.
As a media company and one of Canada's largest ISPs, Bell understands and supports the concept of net neutrality. What does this mean? As Minister Bains said in January, net neutrality means “an open internet where Canadians have the ability to access the content of their choice in accordance with Canadian laws.” In other words, our government believes that all legal content must be treated equally by Internet service providers. That's why our government has a strong net neutrality framework in place through the CRTC.
Today, Canada has some of the strongest net neutralities in the world. Section 27 of the Telecommunications Act prohibits any form of unjust discrimination, and section 36 of the act prohibits blocking or interfering with the content or meaning of any of the traffic an ISP carries, except with the permission of the CRTC.
Under these provisions, the CRTC has developed and enforced a robust net neutrality framework. That framework ensures Canadians have access to the free flow of legal content described by Minister Bains by prohibiting ISPs from prioritizing Internet traffic, throttling traffic, and zero-rating data. The CRTC also regulates differential pricing practices, and requires ISPs to obtain the prior authorization of the CRTC before controlling or influencing the content of a message that travels over the network.
It is important to appreciate that regardless to the changes to the net neutrality policies in the U.S., Canadians' access to and use of the Internet will remain governed by our domestic net neutrality rules, which are developed and overseen by the CRTC.
Canada is also well positioned as a result of the competitiveness of our broadband market. Canadian ISPs operate in a highly competitive environment, with the vast majority of Canadians being able to access high-speed Internet over both multiple wireline and multiple wireless networks. There are also dozens of resellers, who use regulated access to our networks to compete aggressively on price and unlimited service offerings.
I know that one of the questions you and your colleagues may be considering is whether changes should be made to the Telecommunications Act on this topic. We do not believe that any changes to the act are needed in this regard. As I mentioned, Canada already has some of the strongest net neutrality laws in the world under the existing act. There is no need to change them simply because there's been a change in the United States. In our view, this is one of those situations that falls into the old adage, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”
Last week, you had Christopher Seidl, the executive director of telecommunications for the CRTC, appear before you. We agree with him that enshrining something more rigid than the current provisions in the act could pose a risk to future innovation or could quickly become outdated during the development of 5G and the Internet of Things. In our view, this is simply too big a risk to take.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide our views on this topic. We look forward to your questions.