Evidence of meeting #93 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 broadband.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Fair enough.
You've talked about the thousands of LTE towers thereabouts around the country. How much ground-based service do you now have?
4:15 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, General Counsel, Xplornet Communications Inc.
I'm sorry. I don't understand the question.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Xplornet was built on the satellite network, but you're now moving to a WISP style of service in a lot of the country. Can you tell us where you're at with that?
4:15 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, General Counsel, Xplornet Communications Inc.
We've been in business now since the 2004-05 range and we have been, since at least 2007, fifty-fifty between satellite and fixed wireless, and we continue to be today. We're balanced between the two. We're actually quite unique in North America in that sense.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, General Counsel, Xplornet Communications Inc.
No. Actually, we have fixed wireless deployments. The biggest ones are in Ontario and Alberta, but we also obviously have them in Quebec, and we have now added Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and are working on P.E.I., and Manitoba.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Fair enough. Thank you.
I have only a few seconds left so I'm going to go very quickly to you, Mr. Proctor. You talked about the fact that your iPhones work in Nunavut in all the different communities up there. Are you also providing cellular service yourself?
4:15 p.m.
Chief Development Officer, SSi Micro Ltd.
That is a cellular service. It's our network, so we—
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I don't mean that way, but how does it work? You are a cellphone provider up there, as opposed to reselling or repeating the signal for other services.
4:15 p.m.
Chief Development Officer, SSi Micro Ltd.
We have our own infrastructure. That's right.
Actually, as I said, last Thursday we launched mobile service for the first time, but it's more than just as a WISP: it's actually as a CLEC. A few years ago, we forced open the local market, which I think was the last regulated, protected monopoly in the western world, and we're now a competitor to Northwestel, offering local phone service, but across our own mobile network. Beyond that it's a 4G LTE network, so it's going from 0G to 4G.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
February 6th, 2018 / 4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
I'll start with Mr. Mitchell.
You may be aware that the Canadian government currently maps services to homes through a hexagon model. We usually pick one house to get the access speeds to see if that meets the requirement, but we could have 10 or 12 houses around there that don't meet the same standards. In the United States, what kinds of mapping models do you use?
4:20 p.m.
Director, Community Broadband Networks, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
We use census blocks, and those are irregular shapes, typically. We have roughly the same approach. If one [Inaudible—Editor has service, then it's considered served. There's an open matter at our Federal Communications Commission regarding whether they should mark whether an area is entirely served or partially served, which would provide an entity that ambiguity in some respect.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
You were saying earlier that most of the part of the country you're in is fibre-fed.
4:20 p.m.
Director, Community Broadband Networks, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Most of North Dakota is. I thought that would be more relevant for Saskatchewan and some of the provinces.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
What is the level of service? How many megabytes would you be getting on the average?
4:20 p.m.
Director, Community Broadband Networks, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
It varies. Roughly half is gigabit, I believe. Others may not offer gigabit, but are gigabit-capable with basic upgrades.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you.
Moving over to Xplornet, Mr. Maunder, I didn't catch all of your comments, but you said something about government and interfering. Is government interfering with the ability of your company to provide service and expand your customer base?
4:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Communications and Public Affairs, Xplornet Communications Inc.
What we had identified were three core principles. I'll start at the end and I'll work my way forward. The third is access to spectrum. The second is targeted public funding. The first, as you rightly mentioned, is governments at all levels just getting out of the way of the private sector and allowing it to continually and aggressively expand its network.
The pace of innovation and transformation in the telecommunications sector is quite remarkable. Over the last five years, Xplornet alone has invested in excess of $1 billion in our fixed wireless and satellite network. Other witnesses and other providers will come before you and share with you similar figures. Where the industry was at even five years ago relative to where it's at now demonstrates that the transformation that has taken place from then to now is quite remarkable. The $1-billion investment is what we shared with you; others will do the same.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Well, we are government, and I'm curious to know some of the problems we're causing. Is it bureaucracy load-down, or what?
4:20 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, General Counsel, Xplornet Communications Inc.
If I may, sir.
