Industry committee  When we sell the spectrum to telcos through auctions, we have deployment conditions that mean that the telcos actually have to deploy the spectrum they buy, so they have to serve the rural areas in the tiers that they buy. Basically, as a condition of the sale of spectrum, the go

Industry committee  What we do is that we say you have to serve 90%, 95% or 97% of the territory of the tier. That means you end up having to serve the people in that tier. We don't actually have a definition of “rural”. We just put a condition on the percentage of the geography that they have to se

Industry committee  Okay, sorry. I was talking about spectrum auctions. If you're talking about the connect to innovate program, smaller communities of fewer than 30,000 people were eligible, and they had to be further than two kilometres away from a fibre point of presence. That's how we defined

Transport committee  No. I'd have to go back, but I'm not aware.

Transport committee  There are other federal programs though that can make up, so in an instance where we're funding 50% there can be another 25% coming from other federal programs, be it the regional development agencies or Aboriginal Affairs. There are other federal programs that can supplement the

Transport committee  Sure. The connectivity programs are eligible. What we found in talking to Infrastructure Canada is that provinces tend to put forward other types of projects, so connectivity projects in this environment tend to be lower down the line. The other issue is in terms of the eligibili

Transport committee  Yes, there is a series of criteria against which the projects were and are being evaluated. Affordability was a factor. More points were given to projects that had greater affordability—absolutely.

Transport committee  That's correct. Of the 300 applications, we received applications from almost everybody, from the smallest to the largest. They're all looking to partner in this program.