Thank you.
Yes, this is certainly an important issue to Canadians, and it's one we hear about all the time, as you are hearing today. Spectrum is an important piece of the puzzle, but it's just one. There's a range of degrees of freedom in terms of what frequencies are prioritized, deployment conditions and related matters that can help move the needle in rural areas. However, as my colleague indicated, it's not sufficient just to build a tower. The infrastructure does need to be sustainable over the long term. In some of these areas, if there's not even access to electricity, that can become quite challenging, so there's a range of other considerations there.
There are complementary tools, including direct funding. Our department administers the universal broadband fund, which has a component for supporting the funding of cellular coverage. The CRTC also operates a fund called the broadband fund, for which cellular is also eligible.
There are other tools that can help with this to a certain degree as well.
Mr. Ste‑Marie asked a question about this.
There are rules around roaming, for instance, that enable better sharing of the infrastructure.
Then, finally—and this is a new issue that's just emerging, but it's quite promising and veers into the spectrum world as well—there is supporting connectivity between smart phones and satellites. Historically, you needed a big piece of equipment with a big antenna to be able to talk to a satellite hundreds or thousands of kilometres in space. However, now we have satellites in space that can do texting and low capacity data. It's still new. Some of it is being tested. Satellites are continuing to be launched to do this, but over the next two years or so, about three new big constellations will be launched with improved service.
ISED issued rules in 2025—they're some of the first in the world—to help facilitate this connectivity, so we will see some improvements via that method as well.
Thanks.