How did we ever communicate before social media?

Twitter went down this morning and I didn’t know what to do.

Direct messaging? I guess I can send an email.

Broadcast my thoughts? I guess I can write a blog post (like this one).

Thankfully, there is always the reliability of my telephone.

After all, the purveyors of duct cleaning know which technology is the most dependable.

There seems to be some confusion about what the CRTC meant when it updated its service objective to include broadband in 2016.

It is often a challenge to try to paraphrase a 55-page, 259 paragraph Decision and summarize it in an easy-to-understand soundbite.

The CRTC’s “Broadband Fund” webpage says: “Whether you’re at home, at work, or on the road, your phone should be able to connect using LTE, you should have an Internet connection with access to broadband speeds of at least 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload and access to unlimited data.”

I wonder if it would have been more clear for the CRTC to say “you should have access to choose an Internet connection with broadband speeds of at least 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload and access to unlimited data”?

Some [including the deeply flawed Ryerson University Local News Data Hub] point to that CRTC Broadband Fund web page as the source of their interpretation (misinterpretation) of the service objective.

They have apparently misread that summary to mean that the CRTC objective is for everyone to have a 50/10 broadband connection.

That clearly wasn’t the intent. How do we know? In its 2020 Communications Monitoring Report, the CRTC reported that “87% of households had access to Internet services with speeds of 50/10 Mbps with unlimited data and 96% of the population were covered by Long-Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) networks.” The 87% figure has been the headline number for how we are doing on the broadband scorecard.

On the other hand, CRTC data shows that just 46% of residential service subscriptions were for a 50/10/unlimited broadband connection. Nearly half of the households with access to a 50/10/unlimited chose a different service.

And if that isn’t sufficient evidence, the CRTC itself said (on a different page of its website), “That is why we set new targets for Internet speeds. We want all Canadian homes and businesses to have access to broadband Internet speeds of at least 50 Mbps for downloads and 10 Mbps for uploads.”

The absence of a clear understanding of our national broadband objective has led to at least two flawed reports from researchers at Ryerson University [ConnectTO and the Local News Data Hub] and it appears to be a contributing factor to communities adopting the flawed CIRA broadband test to measure the need for broadband investment in various communities.

Hopefully, university researchers and advocacy organizations will take a step back, review their studies and reports, and make the appropriate adjustments to their work.

Price isn’t the only factor driving many consumer purchasing decisions, and telecom services are no different.

We know that quality and coverage are important factors as well. People are willing to pay more for faster speeds, greater reliability, and a host of other factors [see “Competition brings out the best”]. That isn’t to say price isn’t important. All else being equal, who doesn’t want to save money?

The thing is, all else is rarely equal.

Whether shopping for shoes, groceries, cars, clothes, telecom services or whatever, quite frequently, all else isn’t equal. As consumers, often there are other factors at play.

We might deal with the same car dealer years after our last purchase, or stick with the same brand of car. We find stores that we like – for a variety of reasons – and continue to deal with them, even if the price isn’t always the lowest. Maybe we have found the store employees are friendlier; or, the grocery store’s produce is fresher; or, the meat seems better.

The lowest price isn’t always the deciding factor.

We often speak of the regulatory and policy tension in balancing quality, coverage and price for telecommunications services [see, for example “Value, affordability and investment”].

It has become popular to use the term “affordability” to refer to the service offerings of the wholesale-based service provider community. That is misleading and wrong. Doing so is hijacking the term “affordability”.

As I have discussed before, the households that truly need the greatest assistance with finding affordable telecom services have access to programs such as Connecting Families [newly improved with version 2.0, see “Is there a better approach to affordable telecom service?”], Rogers’ Connected for Success, or TELUS’ Internet for Good.

The marginally lower priced offerings from wholesale-based service providers simply don’t offer such affordable options for those most vulnerable Canadian households. Indeed, it is doubtful the reseller community could compete with these truly affordable services, even if the CRTC’s flawed 2019 wholesale internet rates decision is restored.

As I suggested recently, there may be a better approach to affordable telecom service.

It is disappointing to see a singular focus on price as the sole defining factor in determining the public interest.

The CRTC, and the federal cabinet, recognized the need to “appropriately balance the objectives of the wholesale services framework”, and acknowledged that the 2019 rates would “undermine investment in high-quality networks”.

The CRTC, and Cabinet recognized that quality, coverage and price work together as public interest considerations. Expanding service to unserved or underserved areas needs private sector investment.

These factors impacting consumers, and the tension between them, show the complex nature of the public interest.

Politicians need to consider the multi-dimensional considerations associated with consumer interests. Consumers have demonstrated that purchase decisions are more sophisticated than simply looking at price.

I am saddened to be writing this post, a rare weekend event for me.

On Friday evening, I saw a stream of articles on my Twitter feed promoting a number of localized versions of a Canadian Press wire story (“Test results for Chatham-Kent show many users could not access minimum speeds needed for everyday internet use”) saying research show that in most communities tested, “users could not access minimum speeds needed for everyday internet use”. I found various versions on National Post (with local versions for Chatham, Halifax, Hamilton, Minden Hills, Quebec City, Regina), CBC, Ottawa Citizen, Global TV. I am certain there are others floating out there.

The story is fatally flawed, from the premise through the test architecture and therefore, of course its conclusion.

A Local News Data Hub analysis of tests completed in 53 communities found that in 51 places, including Chatham-Kent, the majority of speed test results did not meet the basic service objectives for both upload and download speeds set by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

The results of the speed tests were irrelevant, because the tests weren’t measuring the CRTC’s basic service objective. The researchers don’t appear to even understand what the CRTC’s broadband objective is.

The Ryerson Local News Data Hub website describes its research goal:

Our goal was to compare the test data to the basic service objectives set for internet speed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The commission says Canadian households should have internet connections with access to broadband speeds of at least 50 megabits per second (mbps) for downloads and 10 mbps for uploads.

Unfortunately, the researchers apparently misunderstood the CRTC’s broadband service objective. The stories state “The commission says Canadian households should have internet connections with access to broadband speeds of at least 50 megabits per second (mbps) for downloads and 10 mbps for uploads.” I will forgive the use of lower case “m” (which refers to “milli”), instead of the proper upper case “M” (for “mega”). The more important flaw, indeed the most fundamental flaw, is that the CRTC’s objective is for Canadians to have the ability to subscribe to a broadband service with 50 Mbps down; 10 Mbps up; and an option for unlimited data. The CRTC didn’t say that this was the minimum speed needed for everyday use.

It is a subtle but important difference. By access, the CRTC was referring to access in the marketplace, not a broadband access line. The CRTC recognized that it was perfectly fine for people to choose a lower speed to meet their needs; the Commission wanted to make sure we had the ability to choose a faster (50/10) connection.

But the second flaw in the research is the use of the deeply flawed CIRA test architecture for its dataset. CIRA’s test does not, and cannot measure the internet access speed for consumers. And it certainly cannot measure whether the CRTC’s broadband service objective is available in an area.

Earlier this year, I wrote about flawed work coming out of Ryerson’s Leadership Lab [see “Mythbusting Canadian telecom”], that also misunderstood the CRTC’s broadband service objective.

The Local News Data Hub has an Ethic Policy that failed to detect these fundamental flaws: a flawed premise; and, a flawed architecture for gathering measurements. Clearly, an opportunity for the Hub to exercise its promise: “We will therefore critically review and update these policies on a regular basis.”

With two significant strikes this year, Ryerson needs to improve the quality of its broadband research. These are some basic flaws impacting the quality of information – indeed, misinformation – being distributed in the public sphere.

Sadly, Ryerson isn’t alone in failing grades for its communications research scholarship. But I will save that discussion for another time.

I want to draw your attention to an opinion piece in today’s Globe and Mail by former Industry Minister Brian Tobin: “Twenty years later, it’s time we finally closed the digital gap”.

The article reflects on him having established the mandate for the National Broadband Task Force 20 years ago.

It is a piece that resonated with me, so I decided to share some excerpts with you, hoping you will check out the full commentary in the Globe:

The 2001 task force was chaired by future governor-general David Johnston and included many of the major players in Canada’s telecom industry. Their report was the first to identify the gap between urban and rural Canada in terms of access to digital connectivity. It was also ahead of its time in identifying network connectivity as a high-leverage tool that could increase urban-rural equity in Canada by strengthening economic opportunity, improving health care and increasing access to education in rural and remote communities.

And extremely relevant to today’s policy discussions:

Which leads to the question, how do we close Canada’s digital gap not just today, but for the years ahead?

Looking back at the 2001 task force recommendations, two key principles still stand out. First, “The private sector should play a leadership role in the development and operation of broadband networks and services.” And second, “Governments should facilitate the deployment of broadband networks, services and content through policies and regulations that favour private sector investment, competition and innovation.”
…
The caveat is that investment at this scale requires regulatory certainty. That is why the second task force principle is also essential. To make these investments in prosperity happen, Canada needs a regulatory environment based on a commitment to long-term infrastructure planning. We also need an agenda that promotes innovation, and a competition policy that acknowledges the fundamental need for facilities-based investment.

As we can see, policies favouring private sector investment and facilities-based competition are hardly new.

Consistent for the past 20 years is a theme: Canada’s future depends on connectivity.

“Twenty years later, it’s time we finally closed the digital gap”.