The City of Ottawa plans to vote on a resolution supporting the CRTC in an Federal Cabinet appeal over wholesale access to fibre optic facilities. The motion, put forward by former CRTC staffer Jeff Leiper, contradicts the position of Mayor Jim Watson, who submitted a letter supporting Bell Canada’s appeal.
WHEREAS in July 2015 the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled that large cable and telecom providers would have to make their new fiber-optic infrastructure available to smaller competitors; and
WHEREAS the decision made by the CRTC aims to promote competition and affordable internet for Canadians including those residents living in the City of Ottawa; and
WHEREAS in the fall of 2015 a request was filed with the Governor in-Council to review and vary the Commission’s decision; and
WHEREAS a final decision has not yet been made by the Federal Government with regards to this request to review and vary so the City of Ottawa still has an opportunity to share its position; and
WHEREAS other major municipalities, such as Calgary, have expressed their support for the CRTC decision and where the City of Toronto recently carried a similar motion requesting council support competitive and affordable internet prices.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of Ottawa support the CRTC’s decision to require the sharing of fiber-optic networks between large and small competitors; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the outcome of this motion be shared with the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, and Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario Minister of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure to ensure the City’s position is known as recommendations are prepared.
A few weeks ago, the City of Toronto passed a similar motion, designed to contradict the position of its Mayor, John Tory.
On the surface, one might think that these are big cities that should have no concerns about whether major phone companies and cable companies will invest in upgrades to broadband infrastructure, providing fibre-based internet access to all of the residents.
That may be true in Toronto, where the city itself has a population of more than 2.6 million people living in an area of 630 square kilometers. Toronto is the core of a census metropolitan area (CMA) with about 5.5 million people. The density of Toronto makes it quite likely that fibre optic facilities will quickly be available to all its residents. Indeed, there are a large number of residents who have access to fibre that was built independently by companies other than their incumbent cable company or phone company.
But at just under 900,000, the city of Ottawa has just a third of the population of Toronto, living in 2,778 square kilometers, a geography more than 4 times the size of Toronto. Ottawa has much less than 8% of Toronto’s population density, thanks in part to annexations and amalgamations about 15 years ago that led to about 75% of the Ottawa CMA’s population (1.2M) being within the city’s own boundaries, whereas the City of Toronto represents less than half of the population of its CMA.
These numbers can help one appreciate that there is a lot of Ottawa that is quite rural, quite different from the urban core that houses all the picturesque scenes that show up in typical post cards of our nation’s capital.
Jeff Leiper represents the Kitchissippi Ward, located just west of downtown Ottawa. It is quite urban, especially compared to many of the other wards in the City.
It is important to note that there are parts of Ottawa that are so rural that conventional wireline broadband services are not available. When we speak of the impact on the engineering economic studies created by regulated wholesale access, there can be no doubt that substantial parts of the city of Ottawa will fail the business case for building fibre optic facilities.
When Mayor Watson wrote to Cabinet, he expressed concerns for all of his residents, recognizing the sprawling nature of his city, saying:
Bell has stated publicly that it plans to invest $20 billion through to 2020, with one objective being to bring fibre-to-the-home service to millions of homes and businesses in communities large and small. My understanding is that the recent CRTC decision would impact their planned investments, leading to significant delays in the deployment of this technology.
These investments would have been greatly welcome by our residents and the business community, given their positive impact on the quality of service as well as their potential for job creation in our city. Unfortunately, I fear that our local economy and the residents of Ottawa – as well as those of other smaller cities, towns and rural areas – will be impacted negatively by these delays in deployment.
Mayor Tory expressed concerns for the extended greater Toronto area,
Bell’s $1 billion fibre build-out in Toronto, and other investments that are poised to follow, will provide the modern communications infrastructure needed to generate economic opportunity across the board from mature industries like financial services, to small business and entrepreneurs, to our research clusters, to public institutions like hospitals and universities.
These investments extend beyond Toronto’s borders as well and are key to our ability to sell the Greater Toronto region as a premier place to locate and expand business, and the important work we are doing building the Toronto-Waterloo innovation corridor.
Anyone who actually understands the principles of engineering economics will recognize that mandated wholesale access changes the business case for building fibre. Those changes will impact deployment.
The resolution in front of Ottawa city council aims “to promote competition and affordable internet”. It fails to even consider the impact on investment and innovation and the potential to deny fibre optic deployment for many Ottawa homes and businesses.
I suspect that the business case will remain positive for Kitchissippi and Somerset wards, and a few other of the more densely populated areas of Ottawa. But other Ottawa Councillors will need to consider whether the residents of their own ward will be left behind as a result of the distortions to the business case for fibre.
When Ottawa city council votes today, will Councillors consider all of the households in the city’s expansive border, those who are rural and those in the urban core, all of whom pay taxes to their city?
[Update: February 24, 12:45pm] Ottawa City Council voted 17-7 to defeat the resolution