{"id":19207,"date":"2025-07-30T05:17:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T09:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=19207"},"modified":"2025-07-29T06:18:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:18:52","slug":"following-up-on-nunavut-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=19207","title":{"rendered":"Following up on Nunavut broadband"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GovernmentA year ago I wrote about a CRTC decision<\/a> to award more than a quarter billion dollars to the Government of Nunavut to build a 1,300-kilometre fibre connection to four remote Inuit communities in Nunavut. That Decision<\/a> stated “Through its Broadband Fund, the Commission contributes to a broad effort by federal, provincial, and territorial governments to address the gap in connectivity in underserved rural, remote, and Indigenous communities across Canada.” I don’t like how the CRTC pats itself on the back as it spends other people’s money. The Decision was especially noteworthy because of a dissenting opinion filed by Commissioner Claire Anderson. <\/p>\n

I have frequently complained about the CRTC’s off-the-books social subsidies, managing wealth redistribution on behalf of the government, without it being part of the Parliamentary budget process. There is no more egregious example than the CRTC awarding more than $270M to another level of government (the Government of Nunavut) in order to fund a fibre project for roughly 10,000 residents of Iqaluit, Kinngait, Coral Harbour (Salliq), and Kimmirut.<\/p>\n

Since the original decision, the CRTC approved the project’s statement of work<\/a>, which attracted yet another dissenting opinion from Commissioner Anderson. Under that Order, the Government of Nunavut was “required to submit quarterly progress reports and expense claims beginning no later than 26 May 2025”. I haven’t seen the first (or any) of those reports. I find the whole arrangement somewhat remarkable.<\/p>\n

Personally, I have never been crazy about the CRTC’s Broadband Fund. When it was established in 2016, I wrote<\/a> “today\u2019s CRTC decision sets up yet another funding program. These are taking place ten years after the report of the Telecom Policy Review Panel, 16 years after the government first set its policy goal.” Five years ago, I asked if the program was fundamentally flawed<\/a> in that it fails to address the higher ongoing operational costs associated with operating a network in rural and remote territories.<\/p>\n

There have been a number of calls to review various aspects of the CRTC’s broadband funding program. In December 2022, Bell complained about how the CRTC was collecting funds and failing to disburse the money in an efficient manner. As Cartt.ca reported at the time, “Part of the reasoning is that there have been many more funding programs available since the Broadband Fund was launched and that the unused money held by the CRTC and not distributed could be used by service providers to do things like build networks.” A year after Bell’s application, the CRTC rejected it<\/a>. <\/p>\n

More recently, Rogers filed an application<\/a> last month with comments due today. <\/p>\n

when the Commission initiated its review of the Fund in March 2023<\/a>, it modified the Fund\u2019s financial schedule by deciding that TSPs would contribute $150 million per year until the Commission concluded the review. The review is still ongoing over two years later and the level of appropriate annual funding of the Broadband Fund going forward remains unclear. At present, TSPs have no knowledge of how long they will continue to make contributions to the Fund and how much these contributions may be.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At a time when capital for telecom infrastructure investment is so tight, when there is continued pressure for the major carriers to lower rates, the CRTC needs to carefully reconsider how it collects and distributes other people’s money. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago I wrote about a CRTC decision to award more than a quarter billion dollars to the Government of Nunavut to build a 1,300-kilometre fibre connection to four remote Inuit communities in Nunavut. That Decision stated “Through its Broadband Fund, the Commission contributes to a broad effort by federal, provincial, and territorial governments …<\/p>\n

Following up on Nunavut broadband<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFollowing up on Nunavut broadband • Telecom Trends<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A year ago I wrote about a CRTC decision to award more than a quarter billion dollars to the Government of Nunavut to build a 1,300-kilometre fibre • July 30, 2025\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=19207\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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