Thank you, Madame Chair, and committee members.
My name is Ian Stevens, and I am a board member of the Canadian Communication Systems Alliance, or CCSA. I'm also CEO of Execulink Telecom, based in Woodstock, Ontario. Joining me today is CCSA's CEO, Jay Thomson.
Thank you for this opportunity to participate in your important deliberations regarding accessibility and affordability of telecommunications services. Mr. Thomson and I last appeared before you in May, when you were examining Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, Mr. Thomson presented our opening remarks. Today, it's my turn.
CCSA's members are small and mid-sized, facilities-based communications companies serving mostly rural parts of Canada. Our members are helping the government achieve its universal broadband goal by delivering speeds to their communities that meet or even exceed the 50/10 objective. Our members would also like to bring the benefit of mobile competition to the communities, but in most cases the incumbents are preventing them from doing so.
It is an economic reality in this country that government help is needed to extend broadband to Canadians who remain unserved or underserved. Government help is also needed so that more Canadians can access affordable, competitive mobile telephone services. I think it is fair to say that, because of my role at Execulink and in the CCSA, I've gained intimate and practical knowledge regarding what works and what is still needed to advance accessibility and affordability in telecom services in rural Canada. My company has benefited from various government funding awards to help extend or improve broadband service in southwestern Ontario, including in a first nations community. None of those projects has had a standalone business case. It took government funding to make them happen.
Central to government funding programs is the goal of affordability. Generally, affordability is assessed by comparing prices to be charged in a rural setting to urban prices. We are aware of situations where Canadians are paying more than $200 per month only to receive extremely poor service. Those situations certainly don't seem affordable to us. That said, we caution against strictly using urban prices as a benchmark for affordability in rural Canada. As committee members from rural ridings know, the time and cost to visit every constituent's door increases in proportion to the geography they serve. The same applies to us. While urban ISPs contemplate doors served per kilometre, in rural areas it's kilometres per door.
On a per customer basis, it simply costs more to build and maintain broadband services in rural areas. That means that absent government funding to offset those extra costs, rural retail prices must often be higher than urban prices, even with one time capital injections available from current broadband funding programs. That means that unless the government is willing to subsidize rural operating costs, funding programs should not penalize rural providers who must charge higher prices to serve their rural customers.
Madame Chair, we share the view of other witnesses that Canada needs a coordinated broadband strategy. Currently, we have a myriad of municipal, provincial and federal funding programs. They all have similar goals and strong support, but those programs are not aligned on their timing, their objectives, their focus or their commitment to execution. As a result, they compete for potential applicants' limited time and resources. For that reason, we fear that in terms of solving the rural broadband problem, those various programs will actually end up accomplishing less than the sum of their parts.
Furthermore, given that consumer consumption always increases and that it takes time to build out advanced broadband networks, government programs need to invest, not to meet today's needs but those of 2030 and beyond. To that end, fibre should always be the first choice where possible. All other technologies will require constant reinvestment and a hope for technology breakthroughs to meet the needs of Canadians. In our business, hope is not a strategy. Fibre, however, will continue to serve Canadians for generations to come.
CCSA thanks you again for this opportunity, and we look forward to responding to your questions.