Industry Committee on Feb. 6th, 2018

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

This committee visited Washington last year. I'm just looking at my notes from Washington.

Mr. Mitchell, when the spectrum was being discussed at that time, there was mention of the Rural Spectrum Accessibility Act of 2017. Also, on harmonizing the spectrum between Canada and the United States, where the 600-megahertz spectrum aligns with Europe so that phones don't roam seamlessly, and the 700-megahertz spectrum is harmonized, which is good for 5G. Are you aware of the Rural Spectrum Accessibility Act of 2017 and how it's working? How do we harmonize between the two countries, so if we're driving a new autonomous car, or we're working with farm equipment, we have some kind of harmonized system between the two countries?

[Christopher Mitchell]

I'm afraid that when it comes to spectrum policy, I'm much more limited. It's not a good use of your time to listen to me on that.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Okay, but we have Canadian companies working in the States. Have you heard of any issues between Canada and the States, in how the companies are operating?

[Christopher Mitchell]

No, I have not. I've done extensive business with Ting every time I've called a call centre; it's located outside Toronto. They have an incredible customer service reputation. I think that's in part due to management, and partly due to people. It's been very successful.

I tend to work with the local groups. I'm aware of Ting because they have been very focused on Internet policy more generally.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'm going to share my time with Mr. Bossio. I know he's itching to get into more technology. It's great to have him subbing today.

[Christine J. Prudham]

Forgive me, Mr. Chair, could I answer part of that question?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Please do.

[Christine J. Prudham]

I think you raised a very important point there that may have been missed. You spoke about the 600 and 700 harmonization versus some of the higher level spectrums. It is incredibly important at the 600, 700, and 800 level that it be harmonized because of the cross-border potential for interference. We've seen some of that occurring in even the 2500 right now. There's an issue with Sprint in southern Ontario as a result of those issues. That becomes less and less of a factor the higher up you go because of the propagation characteristics.

When you start to get into the spectrums that are more commonly used for rural broadband, like your 3500s up to maybe the 4200 range, your propagation isn't that big. There are going to be very small areas where you need to harmonize along the border as a result.

Unfortunately, Windsor's always probably going to be a bit of a problem, but throughout the rest of the border, you're probably in pretty good shape because of the limited propagation.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

[Technical difficulty--Editor] in the fact that there is consideration right now that it might be given over to the local sector. I think it would be important for you to comment on the impact that could have on rural broadband.

[Christine J. Prudham]

Yes, we were highly concerned about that. A couple of years back, there was a suggestion that the urban portion of it, which was very liberally defined, would be taken back and converted into mobile. At that precise moment, I can tell you that was a heart-stopping moment for our company that day because it represented 62% of our fixed wireless potentially being shut off.

We all talk about the same thing, about being in those doughnuts around the cities. That's exactly where a lot of the folks in rural are who need the service. You're quite right; if you take that back to make it mobile, we've got nothing to do it.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Just to put emphasis on that, the Toronto bit of Bell Canada's 3500 goes all the way over to my riding in eastern Ontario, east of Belleville, between Belleville and Kingston, so it is a huge area, just to put that into perspective.

Finally, once again, if we can go back to our earlier conversation around microcells and bringing fibre to the PoP, [Inaudible--Editor] what percentage of rural areas, if we go with that model, that network design model, do you think you'd be able to provide with that 50 to 100 megabit download? For example, if you were to look at my riding or any riding in eastern Ontario, because of Beam EORN, because of your experience there, do you think you'd be able to achieve 100% coverage in those areas if you were to go to a microcell and offload from the larger antennas?

[Christine J. Prudham]

Yes, we do believe we can make significant differences by doing that. Over the years we've looked at one of the questions asked about costs. Obviously, the less dense the population, the higher the cost to provide. In places where the densities are generally over four households per square kilometre, you're absolutely talking about situations where fixed wireless would be appropriate. For example, a good chunk of southern Ontario, certain parts of southern Quebec, and huge chunks of Alberta are all in these areas. The answer is yes. As you start to do those sort of new 5G technologies with the microsites, based on our mapping, a very high percentage of the population would be covered.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

And CTI is what tips it over the top for you to be able to justify it financially.

[Christine J. Prudham]

Absolutely, because obviously, the faster the speeds you're offering and the more data that's going through, the bigger the backhaul and backbone you need behind it in order to achieve that.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much. I feel like I should have doughnuts here or something. I mean, we keep talking about doughnuts.

That will bring our questions to a conclusion. We will suspend for two minutes and then we will go back in camera to discuss future business.

I would like to thank our guests for coming in today and giving us a lot of great information.

[Proceedings continue in camera]