Forget landlines, broadband’s the new normal: northern ISP

A “PowerComm Hub” developed by SSI Micro is installed at a location in Iqaluit. It’s a high-tech communications shack, built into a sealift container, that supports a long list of telecommunication services, as well as FM radio, and can be hooked up to satellite, fibre or microwave. The firm proposes the use of this kind of technology to create a common gateway for all local users in northern communities to help share high backbone costs. (IMAGE FROM SSI SUBMISSION TO THE CRTC)

A rack of servers and routers at SSI’s satellite teleport in Kanata, Ont., the control centre for internet traffic passing through Qiniq’s 25-community network in Nunavut. Under a contract, SSI also runs the Government of Nunavut’s wide area network from this location. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

If badly underserved regions like northern Canada are to ever get better telecom service, Canada’s communications watchdog must recognize that basic service means broadband, not landline phones, the SSI Group of Companies told the CRTC in a submission filed July 14.

“Broadband is the basic telecommunications service, a must-have for all consumers, businesses and governments in Canada,” SSI said.

In that spirit, SSI says the national regulator must shift its basic service objective from landline phones to broadband and wireless services, even in northern Canada.

And that includes an altered subsidy regime in northern Canada that supports broadband instead of old-fashioned telephones.

“The North is vibrant and growing with a young population. To starve the North of broadband in an interconnected world is to deny the opportunity the North presents,” said Jeff Philipp, SSI’s CEO.

This past April, the CRTC launched a big effort aimed at modernizing its approach to telecommunications in Canada, to be finished after a public hearing to be held in Gatineau, Que. on June 30.

A big part of that effort is aimed at re-defining the meaning of “basic service.”

Another big part of the process is to find ways of solving the growing problem of underserved areas that do not meet the CRTC’s minimum standard for broadband service.

They estimate that in 2013, about 1.2 million Canadian households — or nine per cent of all households — were stuck with low-speed internet that does not meet the CRTC’s minimum target of 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload,

To that end, they’ve already received 296 submissions from private individuals, public interest groups, governments and telecom firms.

SSI’s submission, called “The Qimirluk Proposal,” consists of a 39-page intervention backed by three sub-reports totalling 86 pages.

In it, they point out that across Canada, people are abandoning telephones and turning to wireless devices

Between 2009 and 2013, the number of telephone lines fell from 18.6 million to 15.9 million. At the same time, the number of wireless subscribers rose from 23.5 million to 28.4 million.

But the CRTC’s current policy, which dates to 1999, still defines “basic service” as a landline touch-tone phone with “low-speed” internet access and a free copy of a printed phone book.

But in northern Canada, Northwestel receives a subsidy of about $20 million a year to help pay for landline telephone service — but not for broadband internet.

Those funds do not come from government — they come from a small charge imposed on most Canadian telecom providers.

To fix that, SSI recommends a basic service contribution aimed at broadband.

And one of their attached documents proposes a method for “evolving” that National Contribution Fund subsidy away from landline phones and into broadband by 2021.

“Reform of the contribution system and local service subsidy regime must recognise the profound importance for high-quality and affordable broadband service to be delivered to consumers in Canada’s remote and outlying communities,” SSI said.

SSI also acknowledges that satellite transport — which forms the incoming and outgoing backbone for all telecom service in regions like Nunavut and Nunavik — represents the biggest single cost and the biggest single bottleneck that is choking the current system.

To help fix that, they recommend a concept they say would share backbone costs among all local users: “open gateway facilities,” available to all, including firms that compete with each other locally.

And that, they say, would bring backbone costs down for everyone.

“Once the cost of backbone transport and open access to the backbone are addressed, there is no reason why multiple local service providers cannot serve the needs of end — users — be they consumer, business or government,” SSI said.

And the firm has already built a piece of technology to serve that purpose: a kind of prefab high-tech radio shack they call the “PowerComm Hub.”

Built into a sealift container, the PowerComm Hub holds a built-in diesel generator and electronic equipment that can support numerous telecommunication services, as well as FM radio.

It can also be connected to any type of backbone: satellite, fibre or microwave.

“If every satellite-served community were to have an open gateway facility, this would go a long way towards enhancing broadband delivery and enabling competitive local services in the North,” SSI said.

SSI offers internet service to 25 communities through its Qiniq brand.

Until this month the company offered a similar service in 26 Northwest Territories communities, called Airware, but that service is discontinued as of July 18, due to the shifting of a federal government backbone subsidy to Northwestel in 2012.

The CRTC’s basic service consultation will culminate in June next year at a public hearing scheduled in Gatineau, Que.

Other northern intervenors in the initial call for submissions include the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Qikiqtaaluk Corp., the Kativik Regional Government, the Nunavut Broadband Development Corp. and Ajungi Arctic Consulting of Iqaluit.

The Government of Nunavut does not appear to have filed an intervention at this stage.