Facebook and Analysys Mason released a report on the “State of Connectivity 2015” [pdf], that should be considered prerequisite reading material for those participating (and adjudicating) the upcoming CRTC Review of basic telecommunications services.

The four key barriers to internet access include:

• Availability: Proximity of the necessary infrastructure required for access.
• Affordability: The cost of access relative to income.
• Relevance: A reason for access, such as primary language content.
• Readiness: The capacity to access, including skills, awareness and cultural acceptance.

These barriers do not arise in isolation, nor can they be addressed in isolation. They function as a cluster, each one affecting the others. Unless corporations, government, NGOs and non-profits work together to address these chief barriers to access, the digital divide will persist and expand.

Despite Canada’s expansive geography, service providers have been able to tackle the challenge of “Availability”. At The 2015 Canadian Telecom Summit, Allison Lenehan of Xplornet spoke of increases in speeds being made possible by his company and he challenged the Canadian industry to set a goal of 100 Mbps service to be available to all Canadians.

The general affordability of mobile broadband in Canada was highlighted in a chart looking at “Average expenditure on mobile internet as a proportion of household income”, noting that this “does not account for all the variables that affect affordability, but it enables an approximation of the percentage of people who can reasonably afford internet services.”

As we plan initiatives to assist with affordability (a subject I have raised frequently), the report observes “Innovations that have the potential to significantly improve affordability, particularly at the bottom of the income distribution, are by nature risky. Given the very low amounts of money that individuals can commit, operators and other innovators must carefully plan and implement new tariffs or business models, to balance effectiveness with financial sustainability.”

Availability and affordability are just 2 of the 4 factors. The report says that for internet content and services to be relevant, they must be: Useful, Relatable and Accessible. Do content and services bring value to people, economically or otherwise? Is content compatible with individuals’ interests and culture, and services meet local needs? Beyond word-of-mouth, advertising and promotion, do platforms and devices enable people to find relevant content and share it easily?

Finally, individuals must be ‘ready’ to use the internet, implying: they have the skills to find and consume content, including language literacy (the ability to read and write) and digital literacy (the ability to use connected devices and the internet); they have an awareness and understanding of the internet and the benefits of being online; and, there needs to be a cultural or social acceptance of using the internet, a factor that the report claims particularly affects women, and is linked to attitudes about their education and empowerment. “Many people who can read and write lack the digital skills or a sufficient understanding of the technology required to get online, which affects their confidence and likelihood of becoming connected.”

The report is an important read for policy makers concerned about universal connectivity. Today is the deadline for submissions for the CRTC’s Review of basic telecommunications services, prior to an oral hearing beginning in mid-April. Will anyone submit this report as part of their evidence? Will the CRTC invite Facebook to share the insights they gained in preparing this report by participating in the basic services review?

Are there lessons from developing world initiatives from which Canada can learn to help reach universal digital connectivity?

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

Another indicator appear to show that Canadian telecom services are affordable, further contradicting the oft-repeated misrepresentations of some critics.

Just last week, a World Bank study showed that Canada’s mobile services ranks among the world’s most affordable, measured as a percentage of income.

Now, the Pew Research Center released a report that shows Canadian adults are among the world’s most connected, with 90% of Canadians affirmatively answering the question “Do you use the internet, at least occasionally?” Only Australia, marginally higher with 92%, had a higher percentage of its adult population reporting online access.

The detailed survey has data from a similar 2007 study allowing a comparison of changes between countries. In 2007, 75% of Canadians had answered the occasional use question “yes”; 78% of Americans said yes in 2007, compared to 87% in the most recent study. Unfortunately, no comparable 2007 data is available for Australia.

Canada and Australia were also among the top countries responding “several times a day” to the question “Overall, how often do you use the internet — several times a day, once a day, at least once a week or less often?”.

Together with last week’s World Bank study, Pew Research provides further ammunition to challenge those critics who repeat tired slogans about the state of Canada’s communications services. Will these studies help inform the CRTC’s upcoming “Review of basic telecommunications services“?

Last week, I met with my accountant – it’s that time of year, again. After we went through the paperwork for my taxes, he asked me what can be done to stop the scams.

He was referring to two types of scams that are troubling his clients. One type is email phishing; the other is a a telephone shakedown.

I have received both types over the years. The phishing fraud is getting better, meaning that authentic looking emails are getting through spam systems and clicking on the links takes unwitting consumers to websites that mirror the actual websites. At quick glance, the links are even passable, such as this one:
http: //acces . verific . cibc . cn . com/confirmation4878/m/CIBC/i/.

The telephone shakedown is even tougher to decode. The caller identification shows as being from Canada Revenue Agency, with an authentic toll free number; caller says that you have ignored repeated letters seeking payment of hundreds (or thousands) of dollars in unpaid taxes and now enforcement is coming to place you under arrest. Of course, the Agency is prepared to settle now if you want to put it on your credit card.

Both scams are fraud. No telemarketing or anti-spam regulations can stop the perpetrators. The CRTC has a web page “How to Protect Yourself from Scammers“. Its page on Call Fraud is empty of meaningful content and is out of date.

In late November, the CRTC published “Summary of Options Currently Available to Canadians to Manage Unwanted Calls“. The database listing does not appear to me to be useful. It was produced from information gathered as part of Compliance and Enforcement Notice of Consultation CRTC 2015-333 “Empowering Canadians to protect themselves from unsolicited and illegitimate telemarketing calls”.

As I have said before, I think the only effective solution is to provide better consumer education and have Canadians lose some of our inherent polite nature. Canadians need to be more willing to just hang up or press the delete key.

Tech savvy kids, consumer groups, schools, banks and social services agencies – together with the telecom industry – need to help vulnerable people recognize the signs. Just hang up.

Can you recognize a phone or email scam? What are the tell-tale signs? How can you help teach others what to look for?

This Saturday, February 20, marks 10 years since I wrote my first blog post, “It’s a start“.

For 10 years, I have tried to provide you with current perspectives on communications technology and services, sharing some of my thoughts on issues, often from a different angle compared to what you might read in other fora.

Every one of the more than 2500 posts is available on-line (use the “My back pages” tab on the right side). As I glance through some of the posts from the early years, I see that my style has evolved through the years.

Prior to launching the blog in 2006, I wrote periodic updates for my clients. Between 1997 and 2005, some of these appeared on the “Reports & Updates” section of my website. Over the past few weeks, I have migrated them onto this blog platform so that there is now a single archive of nearly 20 years of observations on Canada’s communications scene. I apologize if some of the links are dead.

It is always interesting for me to see which issues attract the most views; over the past few years, I have highlighted the “Top 5” of the year at year end. I hope that at least some of my posts have been worthwhile sharing with colleagues.

Very few of my readers add comments, but I always appreciate the emails or calls or direct messages on Twitter that provide feedback, some of which is positive enough to encourage me to keep writing.

I’m not retiring yet.

I certainly can’t expect to live off the ad residuals and I’m not even sure the “Donate” button on the left side of the blog is functional given the paucity of contributions to the Goldberg Vacation Relief Fund. Please feel free to earmark your donations to my yacht and helicopter fund.

But, keep those cards and letters and tweets coming.

Thanks for stopping by this website over the past 10 years. I’ll keep trying to playing the hits for you.