I noticed a number of people retweeting a chart produced by Visual Capitalist that looked at the price of 1 GB of mobile data in various countries.

Canada was listed near the top with an average price said to be $12.55 (USD), along with a caption of “Canada’s high cost for data can be explained by its high market concentration. In 2018, Bell, Rogers and TELUS collectively had over 82% of all wireless service revenues”, citing the CRTC as its source. I am not able to find a source for that figure. The CRTC’s Communications Monitoring Report actually shows a higher data point for 2018, but that isn’t really what is important. It simply isn’t true that ‘high market concentration’ is responsible for Canada’s mobile service prices.

In virtually every developed country in the world, the top three service providers hold an even higher share of the market. The trajectory of Canada’s smaller carriers is increasing; in 2019, Freedom Mobile and Videotron accounted for a third of net new subscribers. Other countries are experiencing consolidation.

In his opening remarks at the CRTC Review of Wireless Services, Dr. Robert Crandall testified “Canada continues to benefit from a competitive wireless industry, an industry that is less concentrated than the wireless industries in all but two developed countries in the world – Denmark and Sweden.”

Dr. Crandall continued, saying “In a regulatory environment that has relied heavily on platform competition, Canadian carriers have invested far more per subscriber than have European carriers, who have been traditionally much more regulated.” Indeed, if you look at the text that accompanies the pretty picture (and I know, many don’t bother with such detail), you’ll find that Visual Capitalist has a section that discusses variations in prices. “Relatively wealthy nations tend to charge more for mobile services since the population can generally afford to pay more, and the cost of operating a network is higher. This is apparent in countries like Canada or Germany.”

But let’s look at the data in a little more detail. How was this Canadian average price of US$12.55 calculated? The source information for the Visual Capitalist chart comes from cable.co.uk; there is a lot of important detail to be gleaned from its original research and data set [xlsx, 128 KB].

Apparently, cable.co.uk looked at 60 Canadian price plans on February 6, 2020. The samples ranged in price from C$2.50/GB to C$140/GB. Yes, that is right. Converted into US (cable.co.uk used an exchange rate of US$0.712 = C$1.00), and we see a range of US$1.78 to US$99.68. A remarkably wide range included in the sample. How was the sample size of 60 determined? In its description of methodology, the company says “Packages were recorded up to a maximum of 60 per country – records beyond this number have negligible impact on the average.” But, that actually isn’t true.

Plans that are in the order of $100 per GB each add $1.66 to the average, more than a 10% impact on the average for each plan at that level. Canada is one of very few countries in the sample that hit the arbitrary maximum in the sample size. In itself, isn’t that an observation on the amount of choice available to consumers? Looking at last year’s data, the maximum price plan included in the Canadian samples was $80, contributing to a lower average price point, despite a worse exchange rate. The data set shows the average at C$15.92 (US$12.02) on October 26, 2019 compared to C$17.63 (US$12.55) on February 6, 2020. Does anyone think prices actually increased in Canada between October and February?

Further, the mere availability of a plan at that $140/GB level (likely something like a $15 plan with 100MB), says nothing about its relative popularity or relative affordability. It is absurd to think that someone looking for 1 GB of data would give more than a passing glance at a $140 plan, when unlimited plans are in the marketplace from about $50. Similarly, someone mainly looking for an emergency phone, needing minimal data, might find such a plan to be a better solution than an unlimited plan.

Is it even appropriate to use straight arithmetic averages to compare countries or should there be weighting based on various factors, such as which plans consumers are actually choosing in the marketplace.

It’s very easy to look at a chart on social media, nod one’s head, and retweet or reply without bothering to look beyond the headline. It is tougher to apply a critical eye, look at the data, and determine policy based on deeper analysis.

Nearly four months into our isolation, there is one app that has returned to prominence on our phones: the app for making phone calls.

As CWTA reported last month in Part 2 of its “Managing Networks in Unprecedented Times”, mobile voice traffic peaked in late March at more than 60% over normal and has remained up to 45% over pre-COVID levels.

This isn’t just a Canadian phenomenon.

Based on analysis of calls made to 150,000 companies that use its systems for analytics, CallRail is reporting call volumes increasing 57%, and call minutes are up more than 80% compared to early April. CallRail’s clients include digital marketing agencies, automotive dealers, healthcare firms, home services providers, and more.

We’re making more calls and those calls are lasting longer, especially as we wait listening to music or messaging while holding for ‘the next available agent’. As an aside, these shifts in behaviour mess up all the traffic engineering tables that were classically built on an assumption of an average 300 second average holding time.

Call me nostalgic, but it’s nice for an old telephone guy to see people rediscover their voices, using that little icon in the corner on their devices for making phone calls. Sometimes, I just wonder if my grandkids will know what the handset symbol is supposed to represent.

We need more broadband.

People who aren’t connected need to get connected. Almost everyone who is already connected needs, or at least wants, to get connected faster and connect more devices to that faster connection.

So, I think it’s safe to say, “we need more broadband.”

The points of disagreement are found in trying to answer the question of “how do we get there?”

Over the past few weeks, I have written a number of posts looking at some of the arguments being set out. I think it’s worth your time to have a look at these posts:

• Fact checking rural broadband • May 4, 2020
• Words matter. Accuracy matters • May 13, 2020
• A more evidenced based approach is warranted • May 19, 2020
• A key to recovery? Communications leadership • May 25, 2020
• Policy-based evidence making • June 1, 2020
• Hey buddy, can you spare a computer? • June 2, 2020
• Great networks are just a part of the equation • June 8, 2020
• Should broadband be a ‘public utility’? • June 15, 2020
• Announcing a coming announcement • June 17, 2020
• An easy way to increase rural broadband speeds • June 22, 2020

But, of course I think it’s worth your time to follow those links and read those pieces. After all, I wrote them. There have been a lot of articles over the past few months – indeed over the past few decades – discussing broadband issues.

There is a real challenge for policy makers.

Despite everyone calling for more investment in rural broadband, and lots of levels of governments allocating money, there is a feeling that our wheels are spinning without getting us anywhere, or at least not moving fast enough toward the objective.

As we approach the Canada Day holiday, the mid-point of the year, it is pretty much too late for any of the government funding programs to have a material impact on rural broadband expansion in 2020. And, we still don’t seem to have any kind of focus on working to understand the factors that are standing in the way of broadband adoption among those who already have access to affordable connectivity.

Do we have too many layers of bureaucracy working on rural broadband funding programs? Despite multiple agencies at regional, provincial and federal levels, there just doesn’t seem to be enough progress being made.

Those spinning wheels, the “announcing a coming announcement” effect, led me to write last week’s “An easy way to increase rural broadband speeds”. That post describes a way for government to simply accelerate the already planned lowering of license fees for point-to-point radio spectrum, the kind of connection that rural broadband service providers use to connect their fixed wireless towers to their core networks. The government was already planning to lower the fees, recognizing that the current high rates for spectrum fees are inhibiting capacity expansion by rural ISPs.

Accelerating the spectrum fee reduction is a move that is consistent with a philosophy I have long espoused: for government to create an environment that encourages private sector investment and then get out of the way.

I wonder if broadband expansion is sometimes being inhibited, not stimulated, due to process delays associated with some of the government funding programs. When an ISP submits a proposal for funding, how often is work on that area frozen until a response is received?

Can our government agencies to do better? Can broadband programs be structured better? Are there more efficient ways to deal with allocating funding to stimulate supply? Will some of those efficiencies enable agencies to start work at stimulating demand, and not just supply?

With so many different agencies at every level of government creating broadband funding programs, I’m not sure it is a case of too many cooks stirring the pot; one might ask if we just might have too many pots, generating too much overhead and frankly, not delivering enough results.

In speaking with some operators of rural fixed wireless networks, it appears there may be an easy way for the government to help ratchet up broadband speeds.

A number of us in rural markets are using fixed wireless service. These days, one of the biggest challenges facing internet service providers (ISPs) is the heavy use by every user. While there may be enough capacity from the tower to home, many rural ISPs have capacity issues from the towers to the backbone network.

Ideally, those towers are connected by fibre, but in many cases, that umbilical is itself a wireless connection.

That is where Canada’s Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) may be able to help.

A year and a half ago, the Department undertook a “Consultation on Licence Fees for Fixed Point-to-Point Radio Systems”.

Recall, Canada’s high spectrum fees have been cited in the past as a contributing factor to higher telecommunications costs and prices compared to international peers.

Based on that consultation, in July 2019, the Department issued its “Decision on the Licence Fee Framework for Fixed Point-to-Point Systems”, dramatically reducing the license fees for rural point-to-point radio links by an order of magnitude.

The original consultation document contemplated starting the new licensing regime in April 2020. That should have been a good measure to help rural ISPs. However, when the final Decision was released, the implementation date was pushed out by a full year, to April 1, 2021.

Perhaps ISED can accelerate its timetable, making the new rates effective immediately, enabling ISPs to increase capacity and improve rural broadband services while the 2020 construction season is still a viable option.

The consultation is complete; the decision has been made. All that is left is for ISED to crank up the dial and implement the lower rates on its own original schedule. Even if ISED’s internal administrative systems aren’t fully ready for the new rates, there aren’t so many that license fees couldn’t be calculated manually.

This should be an easy fix. It’s a pricing change.

ISED should implement the new point-to-point spectrum pricing effective July 1, two weeks from now.

How many rural households could have access to faster broadband speeds and increased capacity in such an easy manner?

Could there be a simpler, more cost-effective, government stimulus program for rural broadband?

In central Ontario, the sun is shining, temperatures are in the mid-20’s, and there’s virtually no humidity. It is beautiful mid-June weather.

It is a perfect time for construction crews to be out installing broadband facilities in unserved and under-served rural markets except for one important missing ingredient: funding approvals.

Two weeks ago, Ontario re-announced its plans to spend $150M on rural broadband, plans that were originally announced in July, 2019. We will likely see another press conference announcing applications opening, another series of media events as funds trickle out to various communities, followed by ceremonial ribbon cuttings in time for the next election campaign.

This is, in no way, unique to Ontario.

Excuse my cynicism, but I am getting frustrated watching governments delay necessary spending as political strategists sort out optimal timing for the requisite media events – events with costs sometimes approaching the level of the government funding being handed out.

On June 8, Rural Economic Development Minister Maryam Monsef told the Rural and Remote Broadband Conference that a call for applications for the Universal Broadband Fund would be released “in the coming days”. In other words, June 8 was an announcement to announce a coming announcement, that is already too late. Those ‘coming days’ have already become ‘coming weeks’. And this follows Minister Bains telling the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on April 30 that the funding announcement would be coming ‘soon’.

The Universal Broadband Fund isn’t new. I wrote about it when it was announced 15 months ago. Over the 2019-20 budget year, the government had allocated $26M, presumably to develop the program. Prior to the world turning upside down, that fund was supposed to spend $162M between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, but 3 months into the year, we don’t even know when there will be a call for applications.

The CRTC delayed its application process for its Broadband Fund from March 27 to April 30 to June 1.

Recall that we learned in May that more than 2/3 of the applications for funding under the Federal Government’s $585M Connect to Innovate program were denied; of 892 applications received, 874 received a response and 610 were denied funds.

What happened to the remaining 18 projects that weren’t told ‘no’?

Four years ago, SWIFT announced it received $180M in broadband funding from the governments of Ontario and Canada. Although there are now a number of open RFPs on its website, it is an understatement to suggest its achievements to date are disappointing.

In many parts of Canada, especially in rural and remote regions, there is a construction season.

That season is now.

For shovels to start digging, companies first need planning, permits, equipment and labour to be in place. Let me rephrase that: those needed to be in place already to have a meaningful impact in 2020.

There are many communications companies, large and small, proceeding with projects on their own, projects that had corporate budget approvals last fall, and projects triggered by this year’s dramatic shifts in communications traffic from isolating at home.

But make no mistake, government dithering means many Canadians will have to wait another year or more because approvals will come too late for executing many rural broadband projects until at least the 2021 construction season.

Will there be gains in the number of homes that have access to better broadband this year? Certainly.

But, will it be due to government programs or in spite of them? Standby. We’ll be hearing an announcement on that soon.