The application period has opened for The 2023 Women of STAC Bursary Fund [application pdf].

In relation to last year’s bursary fund, I wrote “Creating A Better Reflection”, talking about how I learned the importance of diversity and inclusion early on in my career, nearly 40 years ago at Bell Labs in New Jersey. I wrote about programs we had where we would to go into inner city schools to stimulate interest in math and science from non-traditional communities. Our objective was to try to increase the number of young kids who might pursue those disciplines in high school and in university. Ultimately, the objective was to have a pool of candidate employees that were a better reflection of the markets we served. “We were playing the long game.”

In September, I wrote “Training The Next Generation Of Tower Technicians”, looking at efforts by the Structure, Tower and Antenna Council (STAC) to train the next generation of telecommunications tower technicians, supporting the growing need for wireless
connectivity.

The Women Of STAC is a subcommittee of the Council with a vision to encourage and support women in their pursuit of career advancement in the telecommunications and related industries in Canada. The committee works to identify areas where there are training, mentoring, and networking gaps and opportunities for the career advancement of women working in the telecommunications industry in Canada.

To that end, the Women of STAC offers a bursary, providing financial support to enable the pursuit of training, professional development, or academic programs for women in the telecommunications field. The fund is supported this year through financial contributions from Technostrobe, Varcon, WesTower, and the CWTA.

In addition to monetary support, the bursary recipients receive an invitation to participate at the annual STAC Conference (taking place March 28-29, 2023 in Niagara Falls), to gain valuable learning and networking opportunities with STAC members.

Applications must be received by February 27, 2023. For more information, send an email to info@stacouncil.ca.

I’d like to follow up on the passing reference I made recently to structural separation in my post about Australia’s broadband quagmire, the $50B government sinkhole known as NBN.

Structural separation is the regulatory theory that posits better consumer outcomes will be achieved if regulations require a separation between the builders of telecom network infrastructure and the retailers of telecom services. The theory is that the infrastructure company will have incentives to invest all of its energy in building better networks, and the various retail service providers will compete on an equal footing to deliver service excellence.

Two and a half years ago, at a meeting of Parliament’s Industry Committee (INDU), the British model was identified by Canadian Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner as an potential example for Canadian telecom policy. Tony Geheran, Chief Operations Officer at TELUS told the Committee, “I haven’t seen that work anywhere globally, to sustainable effect.”

At the time (May 19, 2020), I noted “Ofcom is showing that broadband speeds in the UK increased 18% between 2017 and 2018 to reach 54.2 Mbps. According to the CRTC, average speeds in Canada reached 126.0 Mbps by the end of 2018, an 89% increase over 2017.”

A year later (May 19, 2021), I provided an update: “According to Ofcom, “the average download speed of UK residential broadband services increased by 25% since 2019, from 64 Mbit/s to 80.2 Mbit/s.” According to the CRTC, at year-end 2019, 18 months ago, the average download speed in Canada was already 176.9 Mbps, more than double the current speed in the UK.”

Some recent articles show that the situation hasn’t improved for those in the UK. A recent article in the Financial Times says “almost a hundred smaller alternative networks — or “altnets” — have emerged with the goal of laying fibre as quickly as possible to attract customers frustrated by their existing service”. As it turns out, these “altnets”, such as Virgin Media O2 and the UK’s largest altnet, CityFibre, have argued against BT OpenReach lowering its wholesale prices, claiming the move would be uncompetitive.

The CRTC is reporting Canada’s average download speed was 220.4 Mbps by year end 2020, two and a half times what the UK regulator has observed.

Structural separation isn’t a solution. As Tony Geheren told INDU in May of 2020, “if you look at the UK, they are wholesale moaning about the quality of their infrastructure, their lack of fibre coverage. across what is a very small geography. I know. I originated from there. And quite frankly, the Canadian networks are far superior in coverage and quality and performance through COVID has demonstrated that.”

The Canadian model, creating a policy environment that encourages private sector investment in competitive infrastructures, means that most Canadians can choose from multiple suppliers of broadband access. It is a framework that has delivered better broadband for more Canadians than the structurally separated policies in the UK and (as discussed a few weeks ago) in Australia.

Canada’s future depends on connectivity.

Allocating spectrum, the radio waves on which wireless technologies depend, is a multifaceted challenge for policy makers across the globe.

Each determination requires a balancing of interests: who should get to use radio frequencies; in what areas; for how long; for what purpose; under what conditions. Spectrum policy must consider consumer and corporate interests, and national economic policy.

Governments taking too much of a “hands-off” approach could lead to interference across spectrum bands, undermining valuable uses of wireless technologies; too much intervention could stifle innovation and competition by artificially raising prices, or allocating spectrum to operators with insufficient incentives or abilities to invest.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that New Zealand had once again decided to allocate mid-band spectrum to its 3 national mobile operators at no charge in order to help drive more rapid deployment of 5G. Two years ago, New Zealand cancelled its planned auction of 3.5GHz spectrum and simply assigned 40 MHz to Dense Air, 60 MHz to Spark, and 60 MHz to 2degrees. New Zealand’s approach stands as an interesting contrast to the multi-billion dollar spectrum auctions in so many other jurisdictions.

The International Telecommunications Society is hosting its final webinar of 2022, Driving Digital Transformation: International Comparisons of Spectrum Policy [pdf, 143KB] on November 15, 2022 at 9:30 am (Eastern).

Spectrum policy requires taking stock of international experiences to expand the pool of knowledge and identify global best practices. While no two jurisdictions are entirely alike, drawing on the global experience in the design of spectrum is critical to ensure that nations can benefit fully from their spectrum resources. Featuring four international experts, this webinar will compare international spectrum policies, including assignment mechanisms, deployment conditions, and governance frameworks. In doing so, these global experts will reveal lessons for governments and others involved in spectrum policymaking, as well as the implications for the global digital transformation.

The speakers are:

• Dr. Helaina Gaspard, co-founder and Director, Governance & Institutions, of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy (IFSD) at the University of Ottawa. Her work centres on key actors of fiscal ecosystems, while leveraging relationships with partners such as the World Bank, the National Governors Association, the OECD and the International Budget Partnership. The IFSD recently completed a report for comparing spectrum assignment mechanisms across countries.
• Dr. Marja Matinmikko-Blue, Research Director of Infotech Oulu Institute and Director of Sustainability and Regulation of 6G Flagship at the University of Oulu. She coordinated the writing of twelve 6G White Papers that were published and led the development of the White Paper on 6G Drivers and the UN SDGs. Marja has published over 170 scientific papers.
• Dr. Petrus Potgieter, Professor in Decision Sciences at the University of South Africa and a researcher at the Institute for Technology and Network Economics. He conducts research on the impact of new technologies to the economy, policy and society. Petrus is a board member of the ITS, and editorial board member of the Journal of Telecommunications Policy.
• Ms. Janette Stewart, senior spectrum expert at Analysys Mason, with 25 years’ experience in radio engineering, wireless technologies, spectrum policy and spectrum management. Prior to 2001 she worked for the UK Radiocommunications Agency (now Ofcom). Janette’s expertise lies in mobile, wireless and broadband technologies and markets.

Registration for the webinar is free.

It has now been a little more than 2 months since the Laith Marouf affair hit Canada’s mainstream media. Although readers of this blog have known about Canadian government agencies funding hate for almost a year and a half, it was Jonathan Kay’s amplification of my social media stream that brought attention to the issue in mid-August.

In recent weeks, we have learned that the Prime Minister’s Office knew about the government funding of CMAC and Laith Marouf in mid-July, yet said nothing until the story left the Twitter-verse and made it onto the Canadian Press newswires about a month and a half later.

Why?

But there is still much that we don’t know, and it is unclear how much more we will find out.

According to the minutes of a recent Heritage Committee meeting, “the officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage that were responsible for the funding of Laith Marouf [will] be invited to appear before [the Heritage Committee] regarding the federal funding provided to the Community Media Advocacy Centre by the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Department officials’ handling of the situation”. The appearance will take place after the Committee’s deliberations of Bill C-18, likely late this year.

Two months ago, the Liberal Member of Parliament for Mount Royal, Anthony Housefather endorsed a thorough review.

Mr. Housefather (and a few other members of the Heritage Committee) leveraged the appearances of Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez and CRTC Chair Ian Scott before the committee in the context of the review of the Online News Bill C-18 to ask a few questions. You can find the video replay on ParlVU.

The Heritage officials will certainly be grilled at Committee, but will anyone actually be held to account for what should be embarrassing and shameful lapses in judgment? There is so much that needs to be uncovered in this affair. Canadians need to understand how the funding was awarded in the first place. How could the Minister of Diversity have been quoted in a press release with such a shameless purveyor of hate? Why was there such a lengthy period of silence following the information reaching the Minister’s office and the Prime Minister’s office?

If I had been given the opportunity to speak before the Heritage Committee, these would be my opening remarks:

Let me start with a few statements that are important to have on the record.

I am a Canadian. I am proudly Jewish. And, I am unapologetically a Zionist, supporting the indigeneity of a Jewish state of Israel in its ancestral land.

Professionally, I focus on telecommunications policy. I have enjoyed a reasonably accomplished career over the past 42 years.

I tend to follow a number of Parliamentary Committee meetings and most CRTC proceedings as part of my work, often “live-tweeting”. Some of you may be familiar with my online presence.

That was how I first intersected with Laith Marouf. In 2016, I made a comment on Twitter about Community TV during a CRTC proceeding; his replies were less than cordial. And that was what put him onto my radar screen.

But it was his harsh responses to my tweets about his appearance at the CBC licensing hearing in January 2021 that were most surprising. So, I started taking screenshots and I have a collection of about 100 tweets of his that I thought should be archived.

Some, in my view, crossed the line set out in Twitter’s terms of service, so I reported them. In mid-2021, Twitter suspended his account <@LaithMarouf>. In violation of the terms of his suspension, he created a new account, fooling Twitter’s sophisticated algorithms by simply inserting an underscore between his first and last name <@Laith_Marouf>.

In July of 2021, I started writing on my blog about Mr. Marouf accessing a CRTC Telecom cost award in May of last year. Despite this, the CRTC awarded a further $15,000 in October of 2021. While some apologists like to distinguish between funding awards to CMAC the organization, versus Mr. Marouf the individual, the CRTC receives detailed cost sheets from each consultant and the Commission clearly knew that the overwhelming majority of the funds were awarded to Mr. Marouf personally. The CRTC also chose to award Mr. Marouf at a rate of $225 per hour, rather than its standard internal consulting rate of $470 per day. And the CRTC bypassed its own procedures, not accepting interventions when it reviewed CMAC’s applications for costs.

CMAC received more than half a million dollars between 2016 and 2021 from the Broadcast Participation Fund, which was created by the CRTC in 2012 to make up for a shortcoming in the Broadcast Act that doesn’t include funding public interest groups’ participation in regulatory proceedings in the same way as provided for by the Telecom Act.

All of this preceded the revelation that Heritage Canada’s Anti-Racism Action Program engaged CMAC. When I learned of this in mid-April of this year, I wrote a blog post and tweeted links to that, tagging the official Heritage twitter handle, Minister Rodriguez, and MPs on both sides of the House. This was in advance of the first of 6 scheduled workshops. I also immediately notified a Jewish advocacy organization that informed me that it would reach out to its contacts at Heritage right away.

In July, when Mr. Marouf retweeted someone else’s tweet that included what I perceived to be a threat for an armed attack, I notified law enforcement, as well as a retired senior law enforcement officer and the Honorable Member for Mount Royal, Anthony Housefather, with whom I had engaged during some INDU meetings. At the same time, I asked Mr. Housefather to look into the Anti-Racism funding of CMAC and I provided considerable background material.

He replied to me on July 19 that he had informed Minister Hussen’s office. “The Minister is looking into it and will get back to me”. I followed up a few weeks later and was told on August 12, “I have gotten no good answer yet”. On August 16, “I have escalated this and finally got this moving at the highest level. Should have a resolution shortly”

By August 11, Jonathan Kay had already picked up on the story and moved the issue into the mainstream with his Twitter following of 68,000 (I had just over 5,000 at the time).

And here we are.

MPs on both sides of the House were notified in advance, including members from this Committee. Most did nothing until coverage of the story became too embarrassing to ignore. I don’t want this to be a partisan issue, although I do want to see some real accountability for the disbursement of public funds to this organization, and to this person.

The Honourable Member for Don Valley West recently posted a video on YouTube with a powerful message. He told us how he became sensitized to antisemitism when his father told him to apologize to friends of his for remarks he didn’t make. Mr. Oliphant was told by his father, “It doesn’t matter. You overheard it, and you didn’t counter it.”

Honourable members: too many people in Ottawa knew about this funding and didn’t act on the information. And didn’t speak out. Did nothing to counter it.

And that is why we are here today.

It will be up to Heritage Committee to ask officials why all of the money was paid up front, before services were rendered, and without so much as a web search to investigate the person receiving the money.

Perhaps the Committee will ask whether my blog posts or Tweets from July 2021 or April 2022 were part of the department’s news scan, or the Minister’s office news scan, and why there was no action taken by the army of communications and social media people who work for the Department.

The Committee might want to ask what screening was performed before the Minister was quoted in that press release with Laith Marouf saying, “Our government is proud to contribute to the initiative”.

Will there be any further investigation asking why there was more than a month of silence after the Minister’s and the Prime Minister’s offices were made aware of the situation? Surely it didn’t take more than a month for some communications person to compose a statement. I just keep thinking of that “actions speak louder…” thing, and I’d suggest the inactions of so many created a deafening roar.

Frankly, I’ve had enough of “bended-knee” apologies for past wrong doings. We don’t need another statement expressing regret for the lack of judgment in engaging with CMAC for anti-racism programming. We don’t need to see tweets from the Minister that he convened an antisemitism roundtable. Proclaiming “Online hate and violence doesn’t stay online” comes across as somewhat trite, when a government anti-racism action program sent more than $100,000 to someone who generates hate and calls for violence online.

As Michael Geist recently wrote, The House of Commons Committee Process is Broken. “The reality is probably that unless Ministers prioritize accountability and MPs show some independence, nothing will change.”

What questions would you want asked? [You can leave your comments here.]

A new report released yesterday by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) shows that Canada’s telecommunications sector directly contributes close to $75 Billion to Canada’s economy, supporting more than 650,000 jobs.

The study [pdf, 662 KB] also shows that Canadian telecom network operators outpaced their international peers in capital investments, investing $12.3 billion in infrastructure and $8.9 billion in new spectrum licences in 2021.

In releasing the PwC report, “Canada’s post COVID-19 recovery: The impact of the telecom sector in 2021 and beyond”, CWTA President and CEO Robert Ghiz said,

Canada’s telecommunications sector has played a crucial role in maintaining economic and social activity since the beginning of the pandemic, and by investing in critical network infrastructure at levels that exceed that of international peers, the telecom sector will be a key contributor to Canada’s post-COVID economic recovery. These investments are vital to maintaining Canada’s status as a world leader in telecommunications and meeting Canada’s innovation and economic growth objectives.

The report shows that capital intensity in the Canadian telecom sector represents 19% of revenues, significantly higher than the 14% average level of investment found in peer economies in the G7 plus Australia.

Measured on a per subscriber basis, Canada’s telecom sector invested $168 in capital per subscriber, nearly double the $87 per subscriber average among the G7 plus Australia.

CWTA indicates those investments are delivering positive outcomes for Canadians:

• As of the end of 2020, 99.7% mobile wireless network coverage where Canadians live and conduct business and along major transportation roads, and sector is on track to deliver 100% coverage by 2026;
• Based on a quality index that considers speed, availability and video experience, Canada ranks above G7 peers and Australia;
• Canada’s national operators ranked as Global High Performers for 5G Reach by Opensignal, with only South Korea, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia having as many network operators with as high a ranking;
• Wireline internet access to 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps are available to 87% and 76% of homes in Canada compared to 76% and 51% of homes in EU countries;
• The number of rural households with access to 50/10 Mbps internet speeds with unlimited data has risen by 46% between 2017-2020 (54.4% vs 37.2%), while rural access to 50 Mbps+ download speed increased by 90% over the same period (74.6% vs 39.2%);
• Continued sector investment in 2021, directly and through partnerships with government, are further closing the rural/urban divide.

The report concludes:

The telecom sector plays a significant role in Canada’s economy contributing almost $75 billion in GDP output and supporting over 650K jobs in 2021. The sector played a critical part of the economic and social recovery post COVID-19, supporting economic growth as well as underpinning Canada’s innovation ecosystem. Looking forward, the Canadian telecom sector will continue to contribute significantly to Canadian GDP and jobs, as well as impact revenues across industries—notably through the deployment of 5G.

The telecom sector’s ongoing investments in critical network infrastructure, including 5G and spectrum will provide increased coverage, high-quality networks across Canada and support the growth of the digital economy. The Canadian telecom sector has an important role to play in the advancement of technology, notably supporting the deployment of climate technology that is required for Canada to meet future sustainability targets, such as the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The telecom sector continues to contribute to prosperity and innovation in Canada, connecting Canadians across the country through provision of high-quality wireline and wireless networks.

The report reaffirms the importance of continued long-term investment by the telecom sector, consistent with the government’s policy that Canada’s future depends on connectivity.