Industry committee  Thank you, and good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and honourable members. My name is Jay Thomson, and I am the CEO of the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, or the CCSA. With me today is a member of our board, Ian Stevens, who is also, as mentioned, the CEO of Execulink Telecom based i

Industry committee  We come at this question from an interesting perspective, because our members are Internet providers, but they're also cable television companies and IPTV companies, so they distribute TV programming services. It's a big part of their business. Most of those programming services

Industry committee  Our members don't have spectrum, generally. They'd like it, but they can't afford it. The licence areas typically are way too large and encompass too many potential customers for our members to be in a position to bid for any of those licensed areas. The auction process is very c

Industry committee  We'd certainly like to see that.

Industry committee  The reference I made to paperwork was primarily with respect to the application process for the funding programs. We have a live example of the cost of complying with requirements. I'll turn it to Ian.

Industry committee  It has definitely been a barrier—

Industry committee  —for a number of our members to get to participate in connect to innovate. The paperwork was too complex, and they would have had to hire an outside consultant.

Industry committee  That's our message, yes.

Industry committee  One of our proposals is a use-it-or-lose-it approach so that after a certain period of time, if—

Industry committee  I don't necessarily have a time frame for it.

Industry committee  A reasonable time frame to roll out....

Industry committee  Yes, and make it available to other players.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Jay Thomson. I'm the CEO of the Canadian Communication Systems Alliance. I'd like to thank all of the members of the committee for inviting me here to Saint John today to present our recommendations. While I'm based i

Finance committee  There are a couple of reasons. One is the one that I mentioned in my remarks, which is that local private sector entrepreneurs are used to making money work for them, stretching a dollar, particularly in smaller communities where costs are already higher than in urban communitie

Finance committee  It's an interesting question, because we actually don't have any members in New Brunswick. The organization started 25 years ago with Fundy Cable, based here in Saint John, but Rogers now owns most of the cable companies in New Brunswick. I would say that Eastlink is a very b