“What if, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the internet had buckled?”

An article in The Atlantic this weekend asks us to consider that question.

In “The System That Actually Worked”, Charles Fishman takes a deep look at how major communications infrastructure companies have been able to cope with the sudden and dramatic increase in traffic, a shift that has been sustained for 2 months now.

By the end of April, network traffic during the workweek was up 25 percent from typical Monday-to-Friday periods in January and February, and showed no signs of fading. That may not sound like much, but imagine suddenly needing to add 20 percent more long-haul trucks to U.S. highways instantly, or 20 percent more freight trains, or 20 percent more flights every day out of every airport in the country. In fact, none of those infrastructure systems could have provided 20 percent more capacity instantly—or sustained it day after day for months.

Most sectors of the economy have been structured for ‘just-in-time’ provisioning (as an aside, I will admit that I have been known to say that many government works projects use ‘just-too-late’ provisioning, waiting too long to repair roads, add capacity, add subway routes, increase hospital space, perform maintenance, etc.). Telecom carriers can’t afford to design and build networks that way.

The pandemic has shown us the downside of perfectly optimized systems—from the supply of ICU beds and virus-sampling swabs to the availability of baker’s yeast. We’ve been desperately short of all three of those things precisely because we’ve spent years tweaking supply chains so we have only exactly the amount we can use right now, without the “waste” of empty ICU beds or idle swab-making machines. In that way, what has saved the internet—redundancy, flexibility, excess capacity—reflects not just a different design philosophy, but a different underlying economic philosophy as well.

The extreme growth rates in internet traffic we have experienced through the years have led to significant changes in how carriers design networks and manage their capacity. The most recent CRTC Communications Monitoring Report observed that average monthly residential internet usage increased by 25% year over year between 2017 and 2018.

In regulatory terms, ‘working fill factors’ (“WFF” and defined as “a measure of the utilization of a facility”) are used in costing studies to recognize there always needs to be some level of planned, non-working, capacity for various types of equipment. Way back in 2003, the CRTC set a standard WFF. Last summer, the Commission rejected specific factors proposed by Canada’s cable companies and phone companies when the Commission developed its wholesale rates decision (a subject of numerous appeals). Adjustments to WFF can have a significant impact on cost-based rates.

Fortunately, in real life, network planning engineers don’t practice their trade based on out-dated or hypothetical factors set by the regulator; they design and build communications infrastructure with buffers to have sufficient flexibility to be able to handle unpredictable changes in traffic loads, such as the dramatic shifts in demand we have seen over the past 2 months. There is an important lesson to be learned from our experience over the past few months.

The Fishman article acknowledges that “there have been hiccups.” With people online all the time, networks are experiencing a substantial increase in traffic, and consumers are experiencing some short-duration outages. “Your laptop — or the apps you’re trying to use on it — may well be advising you, from time to time, that your internet connection is weak. But that’s hardly surprising, given that we’ve taken growth that would happen over a year or two and compressed it into six weeks.”

The article celebrates the people who have been working so hard behind the scenes keeping communications systems running through the pandemic. “[The internet] has stayed on because people out there are keeping it on. The internet’s performance is no accident, but rather the result of long-term planning and adaptability, ingenuity and hard work.”

As the author writes, our telecom services don’t seem tangible, especially when so many of us use mobile devices or untethered Wifi connections for our computers, but for the companies that build and run them, our communications networks are intensely physical. Thousands of technicians, repair people, and engineers “mask up, glove up, and make sure that there’s enough service for hospitals, or that failed equipment is replaced quickly.”

Take a moment to celebrate Canada’s communications networks and the people who have kept them running at world leading levels of performance.

“It’s worth appreciating the internet as an unsung hero of the pandemic. It has stayed on because people out there are keeping it on. The internet’s performance is no accident, but rather the result of long-term planning and adaptability, ingenuity and hard work.”

Boston College law professor Daniel Lyons recently wrote, “For analysts of digital policy issues, few datasets are more useful and trusted than the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project, which regularly surveys Americans about internet-related topics.”

Last week, Pew released the results from a survey of nearly 5000 American adults, conducted over the week of April 7 to 12. The survey found that roughly half (53%) say the internet has been essential for them personally during the pandemic and another 34% described it as “important, but not essential.”

Professor Lyons dug into the data and said:

More interesting to me is the corollary finding: Even during a nationwide quarantine keeping most people at home except for essential services, 13 percent of Americans stated that internet access is “not too important” or “not at all important.” And that percentage is slightly greater among disadvantaged populations: 15 percent of lower-income Americans surveyed, and a whopping 20 percent of those with a high-school-level education or less, rated internet access as unimportant during the pandemic.

I have written before that we need to do more research in Canada to understand the factors that are keeping Canadians off-line. “As Canada invests in its Innovation Agenda, there is a gap in understanding why nearly 1 in 6 Canadian households has no broadband connection. There is an opportunity for better understanding to emerge from a Canadian broadband research plan.”

Since I wrote that in 2016, we have improved to 1 in 8 (88% of households as of the end of 2018), despite 5 Mbps service or better being available to 98% of Canadian households. Why?

A national broadband strategy needs leadership to understand and deal with concerns and fears that may inhibit adoption. It will take more than technology to get everyone online.

With most of the world self-isolating at home due to COVID-19, much is being written about digital connectivity – the haves and have-nots. Indeed, it has been the focus of much of my writing over the past 6 weeks.

Regular followers know that finding solutions for the digital divides – rural access as well as income-correlated adoption – have been personal missions for me for more than a decade.

Both divides, access and adoption, are challenging to overcome. Over the past 5 years, we have learned a lot about driving increased adoption of digital technologies and connectivity among low-income households and there are now a number of programs in place to help with affordability issues. In response to the pandemic, some carriers have waived fees for various vulnerable communities; Rogers and TELUS have developed programs with a number of boards of education to ensure school kids have connected devices to complete their school year.

Over the past week, I have found it to be especially frustrating to read sloppy statements and incomplete reports regarding the state of rural connectivity and what it will take to make broadband service available to all.

Through the weekend, CBC filed a story that deals with the subject matter in such a superficial way as to be unhelpful to our collective understanding of the issues.

The article carries a subtitle saying “CRTC data suggests as few as 40.8 per cent of rural households have access to high-speed broadband.” That was misleading.

In reality, the CRTC says that at at the end of 2018, 90.5% of rural households had access to broadband at speeds higher than 5 Mbps, 84.3% had access to speeds higher than 10 Mbps, and 72.1% had access to speeds of 25 Mbps. The 40.8% figure referred to those in rural communities who already had access to the CRTC’s long term universal service objective of 50 Mbps.

Of the 9.5% of households with no access to even a 5 Mbps service, about three quarters (7.6% of all Canadian households) have access to broadband via a mobile HSPA+ or LTE hub.

The story quotes CIRA’s spokesperson saying “We need to tap into the incredible talent and brilliant people we have in this country who can help string up towers and get those connections out far and wide.”

Really? If it’s that easy, why do all kinds of public interest groups and various agencies say we need billions of dollars and around 10 years for Canada to hit the CRTC’s broadband objective?

The spokesperson also said “we really need to make sure that rural Canadians have access to the same speeds and quality that their urban counterparts do.”

Of course, we would love to see everyone in Canada have access to blistering internet speeds today. But – spoiler alert – “same speeds and quality” for rural and urban internet just isn’t going to happen. Period. Such banal platitudes set unrealistic expectations and as such, these comments are inappropriate coming from Canada’s internet registry.

I feel bad being the bearer of such news. But, as the philosophers Jagger and Richards once wrote, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well, you just might find, you get what you need.”

The CRTC didn’t promise universal access to urban speeds as the basic service objective, because that would have been unattainable. The Commission set its objective to “meet the needs of Canadians so that they can participate in the digital economy and society.” So, can we please take a more grounded look at what should be done to provide all Canadians with access to really high-quality digital connectivity, which is distinctly different from trying to provide everyone in remote and rural Canada with all the options available in our cities.

While those who only have access to 5 Mbps service are justifiably envious of Canadians who have access to faster speeds, one might ask which communities should be our first priorities for funding support? Should we start with those who have no access to a fixed-broadband service at any speed?

For a given amount of money, there are a finite number of homes that can be connected. How should we set the priorities for spending that money? Should it be sprinkled politically, a little bit in every region of the country? With each wave of funding, should we maximize the number of households that are brought online?

Should we start with the households that still have no options other than a mobile hub? Would it be less expensive to provide a direct end-user subsidy to such households? The subsidy could be provided as a taxable item in order to improve the targeting.

In certain areas, we can expect that service upgrades will take place organically, as more spectrum becomes available for fixed wireless, or the economics and technology improves for wired and wireless technologies. That is a good reason why most government broadband subsidy programs have tried to avoid distorting a competitive marketplace.

As I have written over the past few weeks, there are serious issues to be explored as we expand broadband access and adoption. Canadians deserve better, more thorough reporting on the issues.

There are still too many Canadian households who lack access to sufficient broadband connectivity.

For many, there are connectivity options available for high speed internet, but not at the CRTC’s aspirational target speed and perhaps not at a price that all consumers are willing to pay. As Canadians enter the 6th week of isolation to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus, we have become more acutely aware of the gap between the majority of households with broadband internet and those unfortunate homes who lack connectivity.

Thanks to the leadership of service providers like Rogers and TELUS, devices and connections are being made available for free or for very low prices for low income households, students and vulnerable groups. A detailed list of initiatives by various service providers are described in a blog post by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.]

How do we extend the availability of faster broadband service to more Canadian households located in more sparsely populated regions of the country, with many living in especially challenging geographies?

Billions of dollars have already been spent, and billions more will need to be spent by government and the private sector in order to meet the objectives set by the CRTC in 2016.

I’m not sure I have seen a CRTC document as widely misquoted or misunderstood as Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2016-496, “Modern telecommunications services – The path forward for Canada’s digital economy“. In this document, the CRTC updated its universal service objective, adding broadband service to the definition.

Canadians, in urban areas as well as in rural and remote areas, have access to voice services and broadband Internet access services, on both fixed and mobile wireless networks. To measure the successful achievement of this objective, the Commission has established several criteria, including,

• Canadian residential and business fixed broadband Internet access service subscribers should be able to access speeds of at least 50 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 10 Mbps upload, and to subscribe to a service offering with an unlimited data allowance; and
• the latest generally deployed mobile wireless technology should be available not only in Canadian homes and businesses, but on as many major transportation roads as possible in Canada.

This was not expected to happen over night. At the time of the CRTC’s policy decision (December 21, 2016), the CRTC estimated that 82% of Canadians had “access to fixed broadband Internet access services at speeds of at least 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload.” By the end of 2017, that figure rose to 84.1% and by the end of 2018, 85.7% of Canadian households had access to such speeds. The policy decision set an objective for 90% of households to have such access by the end of 2021, a target well within reach, given the current rate of expanded service.

The CRTC expected that it would take 10-15 years to cover the remaining 10% of households, but specifically said it expected “that intermediate steps will be taken to progress towards these goals.” As I have written before, the CRTC’s philosophy has always been that some broadband internet is better than nothing. CRTC reports indicate that by the end of 2018, 89% of Canadians subscribed to an internet service. As such, a number of proposed rural and remote broadband expansion projects may introduce service with speeds of 25 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up, half of the aspirational target.

The CRTC’s Broadband Fund has a call for funding applications now closing on June 1. The application deadline was delayed for the second time yesterday; it was initially March 27 and then April 30. If the June 1 date holds, the applications will be submitted nearly three and a half years after the idea of a CRTC administered Broadband Fund was first announced.

According to the latest CRTC Communications Monitoring Report, as of the end of 2018, approximately 1 in 10 households did not have a residential internet service. But, 99% of Canadians had access to LTE mobile service, and 95% of households had access to LTE-Advanced – which has the ability to deliver a superior broadband experience.

Some might ask, why we aren’t simply using mobile broadband for residential service?

The challenge is that there are cost limitations associated with providing mobile broadband, especially in rural areas. Mobile networks are engineered to provide both coverage and capacity. In rural areas, the initial priority is to provide coverage and many service providers accomplish this using lower band spectrum which can cover a lot of territory from a single tower; based on demand, the mobile networks are reinforced with additional towers and using additional spectrum bands. Because of the lower density of the population, for mobile use it is often sufficient to design the mobile network for coverage without challenging the inherent capacity constraints of the network antenna.

However, residential internet typically generates 10-20 times the traffic of a mobile device, driven primarily by streaming video applications. It wouldn’t take too many residential users to overwhelm the capacity of a cell. It isn’t enough to simply have a signal. There has to be enough capacity built. In some rural areas, some mobile carriers have specifically engineered their networks to be able to handle the loads from fixed residential services and can then offer wireless home internet.

Wireless technology is an important solution for expanding broadband access in rural and remote settings in an economic way. Mobile service providers and some regional wireless ISPs are deploying a variety of affordable wireless broadband solutions using licensed and unlicensed spectrum. A number of service providers are offering download speeds of 25 Mbps using LTE in a fixed wireless application. For the past 6 weeks, I have been using Xplornet’s LTE and getting faster speeds than my neighbours are getting with DSL-based service.

Canada’s mobile and fixed wireless networks are able to provide coverage for nearly every household in Canada. The biggest challenge is expanding capacity cost effectively to accommodate the kinds of traffic most households would want to generate, using comparable applications to those available in urban homes. Will sufficient spectrum be available for rural broadband applications?

When the Auditor General reviewed the history of government-funded broadband expansion programs, the report identified that “ISED did not implement its broadband improvement program in a way that ensured the maximum broadband expansion for the public money spent.” Would wireless solutions help?

As the CRTC takes the next step with its Broadband Fund, and various provinces join ISED in funding broadband initiatives, we should ask if there is an overall rural broadband expansion strategy? Is there a fundamental objective to maximize the number of households for the public money spent? If not, what is the criteria for judging the merits of one application over another?

In the US, the FCC has taken a number of steps over the past few weeks to help allocate spectrum to service providers prepared to expand rural access during these extraordinary times, such as granting temporary spectrum access to Verizon. It also opened the 6 GHz band for WiFi and other unlicensed uses.

How do we ensure that more spectrum is made available by the Canadian government in a timely way to enable service providers to expand rural and remote fixed broadband access?

There was an inspirational message delivered by Rogers CEO Joe Natale during last week’s 1Q20 Investment Community Teleconference [transcript pdf, 261KB].

But there is a bigger purpose for corporations and individuals in this environment. It requires doing as much as we can to support our customers and our communities at large. We are not immune to the short term pressures, but we can certainly respond by providing extra support to the best of our abilities. Our customers have chosen us as their communications provider and we take that responsibility very seriously.

A bigger purpose for corporations and individuals in this environment. Doing as much as we can to support our customers and our communities.

He continued, describing some of the measures that Rogers has introduced as part of its “Forward Together” program:

• lifting daily usage caps for home internet plans, so customers don’t have to worry about overage charges;
• waiving Canadian long distance voice calling fees for homes and small businesses, so customers can check in on loved ones and keep in touch with customers without worrying about extra charges;
• offering a free rotating selection of channels to keep viewers and families entertained with additional hours at home;
• adding more flexible payment options and a commitment that customers will remain connected to the service, so nobody has to worry about losing their digital lifeline;
• waiving Roam Like Home, Fido Roam, and pay-per-use roaming fees from March 16 to April 30 in more than 180 countries, helping more than 150,000 Canadians stay
  connected at no additional cost while they made their way home from abroad;
• working with the Government of Ontario, local school boards in the province, and Apple to offer iPads with wireless data at no cost to help students in need who don’t have the tools for online learning;
• partnering with Food Banks Canada to donate over 1 million meals and are leveraging the power of our radio and TV assets to reach over 30 million people every week in an awareness campaign to help fill the shelves with food;
• providing smartphones in collaboration with Samsung and offering six months of free wireless service to Big Brothers Big Sisters Canada so vulnerable young people can stay connected to their mentors and their schoolwork;
• partnered with Women’s Shelters of Canada to help make devices and plans available and help raise awareness of sheltersafe.ca’s services, available through ads all across our digital and social platforms.

These measures are on top of the heroics by front-line workers who are keeping the factories – our communications devices and networks – running under extreme traffic volumes and challenging conditions.

Most of Canada’s communications industry has demonstrated admirable corporate leadership during these early days of the pandemic as described in a blog post by Canada’s Wireless Association (“The Telecom Industry Responds to COVID-19”). As the Investor Conference Call remarks continued,

Now like never before, we all appreciate the importance of staying connected. Canadians across the country and governments have recognized that telecommunications is an essential service. We serve as the lifeline that binds our nation together. We take our responsibility seriously and are proud to be working closer than ever with our government partners to support Canadians through this challenging moment, and that won’t change. Our networks power the business and the services that are getting Canadians through these difficult times. When we come through the other side, we will still be there for Canadians.

The global health crisis calls for corporations and individuals to demonstrate a commitment to a bigger purpose, doing as much as we all can to support our communities. Canada’s communications companies have answered that call and are delivering on that commitment to support the communities in which they operate.

As I recently commented on Twitter, I continue to take pride in being associated with this sector.