The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced early this month that they have set minimum broadband targets for all Canadians to receive by 2015.
Their target goal is for all Canadians to have speeds of at least five megabits per second for downloads and one megabit per second for uploads. This would be the equivalent of downloading a 3.5 minute song in less than 12 seconds and having stable, high-definition Internet streaming.
The commission hopes to push the spread of high-speed Internet past urban centres and into rural areas which, in some cases, are still stuck with barely better than dial-up. The CRTC claims that over 80% of households have access to 5 Mbps download speeds already, and over 95% of households have access to 1.5 Mbps download speeds. They hope bring more access to the 20% of households still without 5 Mbps download Internet access.
In addition to their targets for broadband adoption, the CRTC also had comments on local phone service and competition. The previous basic service objective that the CRTC had required is now lifted in 80% of residential phone markets. However, companies are required to keep their basic residential phone line services at a maximum of $30 per month. This may make it more expensive for rural consumers, but will reduce the need for subsidies since many companies were offering their services cheaper in rural areas than it costs to implement them.
The CRTC’s statement on competition included new measures to help smaller phone companies provide access to home phone service. Smaller phone companies receive subsidies until competitors can offer service to 75% of the market. They also can claim half the subsidy they would receive for subscribers that switch to a competitor during the first three years of competition and new entrants are required to pay start-up costs in markets where a smaller phone company has less than 3000 subscribers.
What does this mean for you? If you live out in the boonies and your Internet connection sucks, the CRTC is hoping to get you up to par with what most people get now within the next five years. This might be good for users in cities as well, since when rural Internet is improved, they may be able to speed up improvements on city networks as well. It’s good to see that the commission is trying to help citizens get more reasonable Internet download and upload speeds, and has focused less on trying to cap our monthly usage.
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