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.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
You're way over time. It was a good question, though.
We're going to move to Mr. Bossio.
You have five minutes.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
I couldn't agree more with Mr. Eglinski, but you're right that it's a start. It's still the largest investment that has ever happened in rural broadband, and if we get partnerships with the provinces, the municipalities, and the private sector, we can turn $500 million into a billion. Then it makes a significant start, but yes, we certainly have further to go.
Mr. Hogan, I'm from eastern Ontario, so I'm very familiar with EORN, and I know that SWIFT is actually modelled on EORN to a great extent. Is that fair to say?
4:35 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology
Our governance model is very similar, yes.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Okay.
From a modelling standpoint, one of the issues with EORN is that it was out of the gate early—it was before Netflix—and so of course a lot the investments it made did not foresee Netflix and the huge impact of video on the networks. It invested a lot more into wireless and backbone, not the mid-layer of the network, the backhaul piece of it, and bringing fibre to the POP.
Is the model you're looking at trying to ensure that fibre gets to every POP, and then to combine it with a fixed wireless or microcell type of model, where you have microcells taking in certain levels of that density, and then going to the microwave towers, which will fill in the larger areas, and then where you've got density you can bring fibre right to the home? Are you looking at all three levels of types of model?
4:35 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology
Our model is different from EORN's in that the only technology we are going to subsidize is fibre. We believe it's the only long-term infrastructure that has the scalability for future needs. I must say that we don't think of 5-1 or even 50-10, because that's today's number, and the future number....
When we compare ourselves with the OECD rankings, we're 24th and have 5.3% fibre penetration, compared to a reasonable country like Sweden, which is 50% fibre penetration. I hear that the $5 billion number is unaffordable, but if you can deliver health care more effectively and reduce the cost because you're well-connected, it would be a great investment to make. We actually did the math and found that it would be a great investment to spend $5 billion in Saskatchewan or southwestern Ontario.
If you can imagine every business, home, or person no longer being constrained by bandwidth, whether it's a cap or speed, the innovation that would come out of this country would be unbelievable. We now make decisions all the time like I can't make a phone call on Skype right now because my daughter's on Netflix. I have to yell across the house to—
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Sorry, I don't want to run out of time, and I really want to go to Mr. Meldrum. I think the $5 billion is difficult. It's difficult to all of a sudden say that we're going to put $5 billion into this immediately. There are certainly some hurdles there. While we're trying to get over those hurdles, though, the spectrum discussion becomes tantamount to that.
Does Saskatchewan operate on 3.5 spectrum for Internet, as most others do, as far as fixed wireless is concerned?
4:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
We do not, but others do.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Okay. Would you say that's part of the difficulty then, that you don't have an allocated spectrum band dedicated to Internet?
4:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
We're using the unpaired 2500 blocks for our service.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
4:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
No, that was auctioned off. In fact, some of the surplus 2500 is being auctioned off. We're not eligible because we have too much cellular 2500. That's why we're going to continue to be spectrum constrained.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Your cellular and Internet are both on the 2500? Right now, in Ontario 3500 is strictly for Internet and cellular is a different band, right?
4:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
Yes, it's just that in the 2500 there are these unpaired blocks, and they can be used for fixed wireless.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Have you looked at dynamic spectrum allocation as a potential solution for the spectrum problem?
4:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Corporate Counsel and Regulatory Affairs, SaskTel
I think that is more applicable to the cellular end of the business, and we're not running into spectrum constraints with respect to the cellular end of the business.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
No, actually, it can be applied to any level. Sorry, am I out of time? I apologize.
I think the technology is there now that we can actually allocate spectrum depending upon need and the technology being utilized, but that's another discussion. Sorry.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
All right, we're going to move to Mr. Eglinksi.
You have five minutes again.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
4:40 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
I did have a question for Mr. Chen.
According to your lobbying profile, you're calling for the creation of a crown corporation Internet service provider that would provide Internet access to businesses and residential customers at a reasonable rate.
4:40 p.m.
Director, Wubim Foundation
We've re-evaluated that priority and believe that it would be better accomplished at the provincial rather than federal level. Admittedly, at the federal level it would be a stretch, primarily because the diffusion of funds would not be as effective as it would be within localized regions. We've amended our goals here to focus primarily on service at the municipal and provincial levels. The smaller the level, the smaller the mandate and the better the service, in our opinion.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you.
SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology, could you describe some of the challenges you've faced in obtaining either public funding or private capital to invest in rural broadband?