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On Friday, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains announced agreement had been reached with his provincial and territorial counterparts on the principles for a national broadband strategy.

The strategy is based on 3 key principles: Access, Collaboration and Effective Investment. These form what could be a “table of contents” of a more complete strategy document.

As we move forward and engage in this work, we will be guided by the following connectivity principles:

Access

• Access to reliable, high quality and affordable services are necessary for Canada’s success in a digital world, to allow all Canadian businesses, households, and public institutions to realize the economic and social benefits of connectivity through the use of advanced technologies and applications
• Work towards establishing universal access of at least 50 Mbps download / 10 Mbps upload taking into context scalability and longer-term growth.
• Businesses should have access to networks that support their ability to utilize technology, compete, and contribute to the economy.
• Mobile connectivity on major highways and roads is an important need, including for safety.

Collaboration

• Collaboration is essential to address the scope of the challenge and maximize the effect of our actions.
• Shared objectives and priorities will lead to better outcomes.
• Gathering, having access to, and sharing reliable data can significantly improve analysis and deployment strategies, as well as enable public reporting on progress.
• Recognize the unique circumstances of Indigenous communities, especially in remote and isolated locations.

Effective Investments

• Targeting market failures allows governments to direct support to where it is needed most.
• Coordination of regulatory and spending levers helps ensure effective implementation.
• Open access requirements can promote competition, affordability, and greater choice and should therefore be considered.
• Addressing deployment barriers can significantly reduce constructions costs of digital infrastructure.

Improving broadband adoption is predicated on two key elements: an effective strategy needs to be concerned with increasing the availability of high speed services (supply), as well as ensuring that all Canadian households are able to get on-line (demand).

The elements in Friday’s announcement set out a framework that needs to reach beyond the various levels of government and encourage increased private sector investment, potentially unlocking billions of dollars per year in capital spending.

There are many ways that government can help, especially in improving access to rights of way and access to existing government infrastructure, as well as providing faster processes for investment approvals. The recent court decision striking down a bylaw from the City of Calgary shines a light on how some policies have restricted telecommunications industry access to rights of way and municipal infrastructure, creating disincentives for investment. I have written before “How smarter policy can create smarter cities.” And more than 11 years ago, I wrote that a “city would be better off with a declaration that it will no longer fight carriers looking to invest and it will get out of the way of service providers that want to improve fibre access to their customers. The best way to support industry may be for the city to just get out of the way.”

Canada should examine the rules recently put in place by the FCC that require accelerated timelines for municipalities to approve or reject construction projects and the federal regulator also imposed limits on the fees that municipalities could extract for communications infrastructure projects.

The strategy appears to endorse the CRTC’s pragmatic approach for implementing its new Broadband fund. “Work towards establishing universal access of at least 50 Mbps download / 10 Mbps upload taking into context scalability and longer-term growth.” As I have written recently, the Commission recognized the challenges of extending broadband to some remote area, even when it set its ambitious national broadband target. “In some underserved areas, achieving the objective will likely need to be accomplished in incremental steps due to many factors, such as geography, the cost of transport capacity, the distance to points of presence, and the technology used.”

How do we increase demand?

This past June, Minister Bains announced the coming launch of “Connecting Families“, a project in collaboration with most of Canada’s major telephone and cable companies, that is designed to help hundreds of thousands of low income Canadian households get affordable internet services. It is a major step in the right direction. While Rogers and TELUS have been offering similar services for a number of years, the national program is supposed to be launched very soon.

As the Federal and Provincial ministers agreed, “Gathering, having access to, and sharing reliable data can significantly improve analysis” to improve our understanding of other factors that are inhibiting increased adoption, as I wrote in “Building a broadband research agenda.”

The new national broadband strategy, based on the principles of Access, Collaboration and Effective Investments, will help drive supply of advanced broadband infrastructure. The launch of Connecting Families will be an important step in helping to increase subscriber adoption.

With far less fanfare than the previous government’s widely ridiculed national digital strategy – perhaps better characterized as a national digital pamphlet – Minister Bains has put forward a more actionable broadband strategy. Digital issues have moved higher on the national agenda evidenced by the multi-stakeholder broadband strategy, the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review and the CRTC’s Broadband Fund.

These are encouraging signals. We will continue to watch the file as greater detail is released.

Over the holiday weekend, I had a chance to read a recent post from the Verizon Public Policy blog, calling for reforms in policies governing antenna siting and access to rights-of-way in order to accelerate deployment of 5G networks. Verizon says a “fundamental building block for the networks of tomorrow are small cells that will be deployed on light poles and other ‘street furniture’ throughout cities.” One of the biggest challenges facing service providers is getting approvals to deploy small cells on a reasonable and timely basis.

As we heard at The 2018 Canadian Telecom Summit [watch the 5G panel here], the deployment of 5G networks is a journey, with incremental deployment of more cell sites and more fibre connectivity.

About 6 years ago, I wrote about some of my experiences as a member of a community advisory body assisting my local municipality in the development of a new tower siting protocol. At the time, I was writing about health concerns, saying that we need more towers in order to reduce exposure to RF energy, since that would allow the devices we carry in our pockets to dial down their transmitting energy. “Tell your local municipal councillor that you want more towers – attractive ones, or camouflaged towers – to reduce your exposure to RF energy and improve your mobile service.”

We want towers within sight of our cell phones; just not within sight of our eyes.

For more than 10 years, I have suggested that a city could be “better off with a declaration that it will no longer fight carriers looking to invest and it will get out of the way of service providers that want to improve fibre access to their customers.” Smart cities require advanced communications infrastructure.

If a service provider is looking to deploy capital to upgrade facilities, how should a community respond? Is there an existing communications facilities protocol to be followed? Are there administrative or financial inhibitors that may discourage the decision to proceed or do processes encourage and welcome investment?

A few years ago, I wrote a post called “A little smarter every day“, saying “Building a smart city means creating a culture that works to make the community a little bit smarter every day.”

When setting policies, it really shouldn’t be that complicated:

• Set clear objectives.
• Align activities with the achievement of those objectives.
• Stop doing things that are contrary to the objectives.

If we want to lead in the development of smarter cities, more connected communities and delivery of better services for our citizens, we need to create an environment that encourages service providers and all levels of government to work collaboratively to stimulate investment.

It is all part of making our communities a little smarter every day.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was unable to make it to Toronto for The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit, but he sent a special video message, addressing the conference’s themes of Competition, Innovation and Investment and what the FCC is doing to promote each.

Greetings from Washington, DC, and thank you for this opportunity to address The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit.

I’m sorry that I cannot be there in person. Mark Goldberg feels like a kindred spirit to me. He’s from Parsons, Kansas and moved to Toronto; I lived in Toronto and eventually moved to Parsons. And the last time I attended, I had the pleasure of listening to and learning from my good friend, former CRTC Commissioner Raj Shoan.

Let me begin by thanking our Canadian counterparts for your long standing friendship and collaboration on telecom issues. Our recent incentive auction is just the latest example. We jointly developed a uniform North American band plan for UHF TV signals and the new 600 MHz wireless band, paving the way for cross-border inter-operability of devices and networks. I look forward to continuing to work together to craft solutions that benefit Americans and Canadians alike.

Now, I see that the theme for this year’s Summit is Competition, Innovation and Investment, so I will take the radical step of talking about Competition, Innovation and Investment and what the FCC is doing to promote each.

Let me start with innovation. We begin with the premise that breakthrough advances are going to come from private sector entrepreneurs, not government policy makers. We want to empower inventors to bring their ideas to life. Now often that just means getting government out of the way. That also means promoting competitive markets and providing key inputs, like spectrum, that aid the incentives to create.

So, what exactly are we doing? For starters, we are reviewing the FCC’s rules across the board, from media to wireline, and deciding which ones still make sense in the digital age. As part of this review we are asking whether the costs of a rule outweigh the benefits. When the facts warrant, we won’t hesitate to revise overly burdensome rules or repeal them altogether. We’ve also put in place a process to ensure that, if an innovator seeks FCC approval of a new technology or service, we’ll make a decision within one year. That’s light-speed in our world.

We also began the process of allowing television broadcasters to use the next generation TV standard, ATSC 3.0, on a voluntary market-driven basis. This standard, which marries the best features of broadcasting and the internet, would allow broadcasters to fully enter the digital era.

On the spectrum front, we moved quickly to open up nearly 11 GHz of spectrum in the bands above 24 GHz for mobile use. This gives operators a clear path to launching 5G and other innovative millimeter wave services in the United States. And we’re currently considering opening up even more of this spectrum.

Now, as we move to 5G, regulators also must recognize something many people often don’t. Innovation isn’t limited to the so-called edge of networks. Innovation within networks is also critical, especially in the mobile space. To realize the digital future, we need smart infrastructure, not dumb pipes.

And that brings me to investment. For almost two decades, the FCC pursued a light touch approach to regulation, one that produced tremendous investment and innovation throughout our entire internet ecosystem, from the core of our networks to providers at the edge. But two years ago, the US Government’s approach suddenly changed. The FCC, on a party-line vote, decided to slap an old regulatory framework, called Title II (after the section of our statute where the rules are found) originally designed in the 1930’s for the Ma Bell telephone monopoly, upon thousands of internet service providers, big and small.

We’ve already begun to see the harms from this shift to more heavy-handed regulation. From 2014 to 2016, the broadband infrastructure investment in the United States dropped, the first decline ever, outside of a recession. Last month, the FCC voted to initiate a process to reverse the Title II decision and seek public input on how to secure the Open Internet that we all favour. I enter this process with an open mind, and we will go where the facts lead us, but I’m confident that this move puts us on the path to more broadband infrastructure investment, which would mean more Americans with high-speed internet access, more jobs building those networks, and more competition, the third topic that I wanted to discuss.

When it comes to competition, small ISPs are critical to meeting consumers hope for a more vibrant broadband marketplace and closing the digital divide. But the simple reality is that the smallest providers simply don’t have the means or the margins to withstand the Title II regulatory onslaught. Now, since we launched our proceeding, 22 small ISPs, each of which has about 1,000 broadband customers or fewer, told the FCC that the Title II order and utility-style regulation had affected their ability to obtain financing. They said that it had slowed, if not halted, the development and deployment of innovative new offerings, which would benefit our customers. And they said that Title II hung like a black cloud over their businesses.

In my first week as Chairman of the FCC, I proposed to relieve small ISPs from costly and overly burdensome reporting requirements associated with the Title II order. Reversing that Title II order altogether would encourage smaller competitors to enter the broadband marketplace or expand their networks. This would mean more competitive choices for the American people.

In short, America’s approach to broadband policy will be practical, not ideological. We’ll embrace what works, and dispense with what doesn’t. That means removing barriers to innovation and investment, instead of creating new ones. That means taking targeted action to address real problems in the marketplace, instead of imposing broad preemptive regulations. And that means respecting principles of economics, physics and law, and acting with humility as we regulate one of the most dynamic marketplaces history has ever known. This vision will unleash the massive investments that the digital world demands.

I am proud to reaffirm my nation’s commitment to promoting more competition, innovation and investment.

And I look forward to working with all of you to bring the benefits of the digital revolution to the people of Canada and the United States.

Thank you very much.

I’d like to take more time this summer to collect thoughts on how Canada can create a better environment to encourage more innovation.

At The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit earlier this month, Namir Anani, CEO of ICTC, hosted a panel called “Strengthening Canada’s Digital Advantage in a Hyper-connected Global Economy” which provided a number of valuable discussion points.

Earlier this week, I wrote about “Powering an innovation economy“. In that post, I said “Real innovation needs government to get out of the way, allowing successful businesses to thrive and letting unsuccessful ones fail.”

That post also cited another earlier piece called “Don’t do stupid stuff,” in which I wrote “Increasingly, it appears that Canada needs a digital conscience in Ottawa.”

Perhaps that conscience can be embodied in the form of a Chief Digital Economy Officer, charged with looking across all departments and agencies, intervening when policies are at cross-purposes with advancement of an innovation agenda. As I suggested yesterday on Twitter, we might want to look at issues through an innovation economy lens, asking “Are we helping or hindering innovation?” Are we encouraging adoption of digital technologies? Are we establishing an overall environment that encourages entrepreneurs to locate in Canada and create jobs in Canada.

Every time we have governments handing out cash to one company as an incentive to create jobs, I wonder if it represents an admission that Canada is not competitive on its own. Should we celebrate companies that have a business model that is dependent on special concessions and hand-outs or should we fix the structural problems that made those hand-outs necessary?

Do handouts demonstrate failed policy? As I have asked before, are we picking winners and creating more losers?

Sure, those ceremonial cheques create a classic political photo-op. What politician doesn’t like handing out other people’s money under the guise of creating jobs? But, think of where these subsidies come from: out of the pockets of companies that are succeeding at being profitable without a hand-out. How does it encourage entrepreneurship to create a system that transfers taxes on profitable firms to companies that aren’t? What behaviour are we rewarding?

In the meantime, we have government agencies at various levels that have imposed “convenience fees” on online transactions, but waive fees for paying in person. What behaviour are we rewarding?

And who could forget my favourite piece of political pandering, the legislation that led to my post “Don’t do stupid stuff,” a legislated ban on charging for paper bills, found at Section 27.2 of the Telecom Act: “Any person who provides telecommunications services shall not charge a subscriber for providing the subscriber with a paper bill.” Read the post I wrote at the time to get a taste for how this was so completely unnecessary. What behaviour are we rewarding?

Can a digital conscience help reward the kinds of behaviour to guide us toward a more innovative economy?

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[Update: June 22, 10:45am] The government has launched its “interactive Innovation Agenda website.”

The website, Canada.ca/Innovation, allows Canadians to share their ideas for positioning Canada as a world leader in turning ideas into solutions, science into technologies, skills into jobs and start-up companies into global successes.

I have been traveling in Israel, a country that is frequently called the “Startup Nation.” The book, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, examines how Israel – a country with about 20% of Canada’s population, in a constant state of war since its founding in 1948, with no natural resources – produces more start-up companies than larger nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada and the UK.

Over the past week or so, I have tweeted somewhat facetiously from some of the better restaurants in Israel about how it is the food that powers the country’s innovation economy.

Last week, the Canadian Government announced its “vision to build Canada as a global centre of innovation“.

To achieve this vision, the Government of Canada will focus on six areas for action:

• promoting an entrepreneurial and creative society
• supporting global science excellence
• building world-leading clusters and partnerships
• growing companies and accelerating clean growth
• competing in a digital world
• improving ease of doing business

According to Minister Bains, “We don’t need another report on what our challenges are. We need fresh ideas and a joint action plan that will make innovation a national priority and put Canada on a firm path to long-term economic growth.”

The government plans to launch an interactive website to allow Canadians “to offer their suggestions on positioning Canada as a global leader in innovation.”

In addition, round-table discussions will take place across the country. They will be hosted by leaders who are innovators in their own right. These leaders represent the private sector, universities and colleges, the not-for-profit sector, social entrepreneurs and businesses owned and operated by Indigenous people. This collaborative approach is essential because the Government cannot act alone. Every sector of society must be mobilized for action. Each sector must also have a stake in determining what the targets to measure progress should be and how those targets should be tracked and reported.

What kinds of government action promotes an innovation economy? What kinds of government actions deter an innovation economy?

Nearly two years ago, I wrote a post called “Don’t do stupid stuff,” in which I wrote “Increasingly, it appears that Canada needs a digital conscience in Ottawa.”

Real innovation needs government to get out of the way, allowing successful businesses to thrive and letting unsuccessful ones fail.

We need to be concerned about governments’ propensity for handing out cash – picking winners and choosing which firms are deserving of state welfare. I wrote about this a few months ago when Sandvine apparently needed a $200,000 per job subsidy in order to continue growing its already profitable development centre in Waterloo. I asked if picking winners might actually create more losers.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are not terms usually associated with government. Knowing (and being willing) to get out of the way, may be the biggest challenge in the development of the government’s action plan.

My travels in Israel indicate that it takes great food to help power an innovation economy. Canada has some of the basic ingredients: Saskatchewan is already a world leader in chick pea production. It is time to harness more of our natural resources to develop a creamier Canadian humous!

Now that’s an idea I would like to see make it into the action plan.

Canada should take a close look at what factors have led to Israel’s successes in innovation and fostering a startup economy. We have great opportunities to collaborate and learn.