Evidence of meeting #92 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was spectrum.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Okay, those are some good specific recommendations.
You're up, Mr. Grisdale.
4 p.m.
Founder and Vice-President Business Development, Rigstar Industrial Telecom
Okay, here we go. Thank you very much for asking the spectrum question. It's the elephant in the room. It's the private versus public, and we are all familiar with the spectrum squatting that has gone on for over 15 years now.
The first thing I'd say is that if you don't use it, you lose it—except in Canada, where you don't have to use it. You you can just keep it, and keep it out of the hands of entities, small entities like mine or Mr. Finlayson's.
There are a couple of problems. The first is that spectrum is priced on twisted pair copper per 56 kilobits, and so if I get a private licensed radio, Industry Canada looks at how many twisted pair 56 kilobits of spectrum I can put into that and prices it accordingly. It doesn't even matter if it's in the remote location and I'm doing a point-to-point for a client; this is just an archaic way of pricing spectrum in the first place. I'm sure many people have said that.
The second, of course, is that when you do an auction, you're auctioning off an asset that the public has. It is no different from a barrel of oil. When we sell land or a barrel of oil, we want a royalty in return, and we want it to be utilized. If you don't use that purchased land within five years, it expires and it goes back to the auction where other people can buy it. There's nothing wrong with the spectrum auction. What the telecom companies recognized a long time ago was that with the bandwidth and how much spectrum was going to be required, they were going to need to acquire and hold on to as much spectrum as possible. It wasn't about the immediate need; it was about the future need. We can go into Inukshuk about that. I refer to the other 98 people who have met before you.
So again it comes back to what I think is allocating proper spectrum in a defined area for companies that have an opportunity to make their capital costs back, provide the service, build the infrastructure, and then open it back up to free market.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I think one of the challenges—and you can correct me if I'm wrong—with the model we've had is that even if there is a government program to initiate it, there's no sustainable model, because the customer base just isn't there, and it may not even be renewed by people coming and going in those areas with the service once it has actually been subsidized.
4:05 p.m.
Founder and Vice-President Business Development, Rigstar Industrial Telecom
Why are we paying for any spectrum in that case? What's the value of the spectrum? It's nothing, because the amount of money that you can return on the capital is zero. You you have to make it affordable for those people, and for the companies to be able to provide that. It's true that you might have to subsidize the existence of that as a government entity forever. It's possible.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Lastly, how do you both feel about net neutrality? I would like your position on that.
4:05 p.m.
Founder and Vice-President Business Development, Rigstar Industrial Telecom
As a private company, I'm against net neutrality. I want all of your private information, and I want to leverage the crap out of it to make as much money as possible off it.
As a private citizen, I'm for net neutrality because I do not want you to have all of my private information and leverage the crap out of me.
4:05 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
That's probably the best answer I've heard on net neutrality.
May I have your response as well?
4:05 p.m.
NDP
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
I think we're going to have you come back again.
All right, we're going to move to Mr. Longfield.
You have seven minutes.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
It's great to get that on the record.
I'd like to focus first on Rigstar. I've done work with Ensign on remote drill rig monitoring systems. They were controlling drill rigs in the Middle East or in northern Alberta from central stations. The vehicles are looking at using 30 to 40 terabytes per eight-hour day in the upcoming world of AI and machine-to-machine communications.
With regard to the comment on the expanding technology as we get into artificial intelligence, I was in Saskatchewan last summer and I saw DOT run, an autonomous tractor. That means we're going to need a bunch of bandwidth everywhere in terms of rural Canada. If you're going to drive across Canada, you're going to need it. If you're going to work on a farm, you're going need it.
It sounds like the technology is there if you can pay the price. Is that basically what you were saying earlier?
4:05 p.m.
Founder and Vice-President Business Development, Rigstar Industrial Telecom
As an example, we can get colour pictures from a satellite that went by Pluto.
4:05 p.m.
Founder and Vice-President Business Development, Rigstar Industrial Telecom
Yes, if you have the money, we can do these things.
There are a couple of inherent problems. In this regard, I'd want to meet with everybody personally, because I don't want to give away all of my trade secrets, of course. That said, I will say there's an inherent infrastructure problem with the way telecommunications are designed, and the inherent problem that comes with that design is what you're speaking to, namely the assumption that all of the decisions that need to be made in an artificial intelligence or intelligent manner are a serial problem. In other words, there's a problem. I'm going to send it all the way to the head office here, and I'm going to make a decision there, and I'm going to send it all the way back. I'm going to use that bandwidth all the way through to make sure that I make that decision. That is a serial design of a communication system, and yes, we will run out of bandwidth, and it will fail.
In a parallel architecture, that's not the case. You will then have information that is relevant, and its relevance will escalate as it goes up, so that it minimizes the usage of your bandwidth. That will be where the technology advance comes that will minimize the amount of bandwidth you're thinking that you're going to need.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
I've got two short follow-up questions on that.
First, I'm not sure how that management would happen when you look at parallel structure in remote fly-in communities across northern Canada. Is that still an opportunity? You've developed solutions with power supplies using fuel cells and solar wind. You've done a lot of remote work.
Is there capacity to have parallel structures in the north?
4:10 p.m.
Founder and Vice-President Business Development, Rigstar Industrial Telecom
Of course, and it's ideal to have parallel structures in the north. I'm working on some in co-operation with some radio manufacturers who are looking at how to address that, but I really don't want to talk about that.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
That's fine. I understand.
If we were to look at research funding, there could be an opportunity for strategic innovation funding to develop some of those a little bit further.
4:10 p.m.
Founder and Vice-President Business Development, Rigstar Industrial Telecom
That is actually my only hurdle, the funding to develop the radios, and because it is fundamentally different from the thinking of how to do radios....
I'll give you an example. All Wi-Fi radios are using technology that's 25 years old, developed in Germany. I can't even remember what it's called. It was hacked years and years ago, but if you write a proprietary code for a Wi-Fi radio, people lose their minds. The security is there, however, so I will run with my proprietary code, and I'll just deal with the people losing their minds.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Right, but another solution could be out there as the previous solution was developed.
4:10 p.m.
Founder and Vice-President Business Development, Rigstar Industrial Telecom
Oh, it could be, 100%. Yes.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
This is very helpful. I have just over a minute left.
There's Community Futures and its role. You have mentioned counties playing a role. We have Community Futures from coast to coast to coast. Have you worked through Community Futures organizations? Is that an opportunity the Government of Canada should be looking at leveraging?
4:10 p.m.
Founder and Vice-President Business Development, Rigstar Industrial Telecom
That is an excellent question. I've been working with the Van Horne Institute, and I think I can speak for my colleague here.
We're businessmen. We're quick. We can respond quickly. That is an advantage. There's nothing wrong with the major telcos. That would be a great initiative. If, for instance, we could secure funding and have a viable future, just knowing we were going to recover our capital costs, we could resolve many of these issues right away. The uncertainty of knowing whether we're going to get the funding, and then to have the announcements out of the fund that Bell is getting it is just really like—
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Right. We have that on the record too. Thank you.
I have a quick question for NetWisper, and thank you for being here. Guelph has some nodes that are dormant because we can't get access into rural communities. We can't get funding to extend connectivity. Are you looking at the same problem in terms of using your company to try to get from the towers in the city into the rural communities?