Evidence of meeting #94 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 access.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Project Manager, Montcalm Télécom et fibres optiques
Yes.
The fact that we work with municipalities helps us a lot, because they give us the rights of way. We can just start digging in the streets, you know—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Let's just stick with what the federal government could do.
Project Manager, Montcalm Télécom et fibres optiques
The battle is endless. These costs are—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
If we regain control via the CRTC, and we go over the rental fees—
Project Manager, Montcalm Télécom et fibres optiques
There are also maintenance fees, which are very high.
Project Manager, Montcalm Télécom et fibres optiques
Yes, that's what we call them.
Liberal
Project Manager, Montcalm Télécom et fibres optiques
Absolutely.
The engineers will redo a design, realign the poles, decide to change the lines, and send us the bill, which we have to pay in full. The bill is one thing, but the time it all takes is another.
We are told that it will be done, but that our area isn't a priority.
Project Manager, Montcalm Télécom et fibres optiques
First, I think that we should have realistic costs when we do maintenance work; the costs should therefore be standardized. We should say that a pole costs $1,500, and not $4,500 as is sometimes the case.
Project Manager, Montcalm Télécom et fibres optiques
That's engineering. Each project is evaluated and is given an identification number. I don't know if you remember a process called “special assembly”, which was a black box at the time in telecommunications. Things went in on one side, and came out on the other, and it cost $100,000.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
SaskTel, do you have any issues with pole access or people accessing your pole?
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
We don't own very many poles. The vast majority of our backbone is buried. We don't have any issues there.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Let me then go then to another point that you raised about spectrum. You said that you have an issue with fixed wireless spectrum, not with cellular spectrum. What is your issue there? I thought a lot of fixed wireless spectrum was open or unused spectrum. What is the particular the issue you have with that?
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
We have not deployed unlicensed spectrum for our fixed—
Liberal
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
We're not using unlicensed spectrum. We are using licensed spectrum.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Why don't you use the unlicensed spectrum for your fixed wireless?
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
I did speak to our spectrum engineer the other day. It's a question of interference and quality of service. There are no guarantees. When people come to SaskTel for service, they're looking for something that's very robust.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
If you use the unlicensed spectrum, you just don't have the quality you need. I got that.
Who has that spectrum? Why can't you get your hands on it?
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
Industry Canada is going to auction it off. They say there is a cap of 60 MHz. Our issue is that the spectrum in the 2,500 band is not all created equally. You have the single band in the middle that we're not using for cellular. It doesn't have the up and the down. That's the one we use, and they count that as part of the cap. We tried to make submissions—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You have a cap on your spectrum. Is that what you're telling me?