Canadian Government Executive - Volume 25 - Issue 03

August/September 2019 // Canadian Government Executive / 19 DIGITAL those states, the improvement is even more stark: cell signal is 30 per cent bet- ter for T-Mobile subscribers in rural Kan- sas and Missouri, compared to Indiana and Ohio customers. Achieving that kind of coverage improvement typically takes a long-term infrastructure investment, but it’s been less than two years since T-Mobile first bought its 600 MHz spec- trum, which demonstrates the immedi- ate impact that low-band spectrum can have on rural communications. A deepening digital divide If the sole result of the 600 MHz deploy- ment is bringing expensive data plans to rural areas, however, Ottawa will have missed a rare opportunity to take a slice out of the digital divide. Research sug- gests that Canada has the costliest data plans (per gigabyte) in the developed world, which means that even if rural customers have great coverage, they can’t use mobile data for their home broad- band. The federal government has made some effort to address this problem with the format of the 600 MHz auction: over 40% of the spectrum licenses have been set aside for bidders other than the big three national networks, which Ottawa hopes will give regional carriers a fair chance to compete. It’s a similar strategy to one that has been employed in previous spectrum auctions, and one that Innovation Min- ister Navdeep Bains has credited with “gradually driving price decreases in mobile wireless.” However, the strategy naturally promotes the development of regional carriers focused on a handful of cities, such as Shaw’s Freedom Mo- bile or Quebec’s Videotron. The govern- ment’s own price comparison report only samples pricing from six Canadian cities, and doesn’t capture how rural areas are left behind by promoting urban-centric regional carriers. The CRTC’s current flagship project for closing the digital divide sets a target that 90% of Canadians will have 50 Mbps download/10 Mbps upload unlimited broadband by 2021. Achieving this target using wireline internet will prove tre- mendously expensive, thanks to the cost of building out last-mile infrastructure to every single house. Thanks to improve- ments in wireless technology – both cur- rent LTE-Advanced and the coming 5G standard – the targeted unlimited 50/10 service is easily achievable wirelessly, provided that sufficient spectrum is made available, and wireless companies are in- centivized to build out the infrastructure. Plans for closing the digital divide typi- cally focus on improving the penetration of wireline home broadband services, while efforts to improve wireless compe- tition are exclusively measured by moni- toring prices in urban areas. A more ho- listic approach to these two policy planks would provide new options for connect- ing rural areas, while simultaneously helping address the cost of Canadian telecoms plans. With the 600 MHz spectrum auction itself now complete, it’s too late for the government to try novel solutions to the decades-old digital divide. However, pro- viders now have the tools in their hands to deploy this new spectrum in the most impactful way. Meanwhile, with more spectrum auctions and the 5G rollout – which has enormous potential for wireless home internet – looming in the next year, the time is right for a frank assessment of how Ottawa can help cure one of Canada’s starkest geographical inequalities. Absent a magic wand, spectrum auc- tions remain the government’s best op- portunity to steer the telecoms industry down a more consumer-friendly (read: cheaper) path. Previous governments have tried soft-touch incentives; howev- er, an examination of the more stringent policy and regulatory models of other countries, with similar geographic chal- lenges but more accessible telecoms, sug- gests an alternative path forwards. Finn- ish operators, for example, offer cheap unlimited wireless data plans which, thanks to conditions attached to spec- trum licenses, cover 99 per cent of Fin- land’s citizens and are popular for rural connectivity. Some segments of the telecoms indus- try are likely to cry foul over firmer con- ditions on spectrum licenses. Don’t forget that as for any other scarce national re- source, the government has a duty to en- sure that our airwaves are optimally used for the greatest public benefit – not the greatest private profit. Hunter Macdonald is co-founder and CEO of Tutela. A born entrepreneur, Hunter is passionate about challeng- ing and innovating the mobile industry to provide outstanding network expe- riences for users. ad_shure_MXC_CGE.qxp_Layout 1 2019-08-06 2:4