Your wireless will cost less! Your Internet will go faster! Across the country! I promise ! Well, these fine words and the desire to cover all of Canada with affordable wired and wireless Internet networks are nothing more than politicians’ promises, if we believe the Auditor General of Canada.
Karen Hogan’s criticism deserves special attention as the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne decided to approve the acquisition of Shaw by Rogers and the transfer of Freedom Mobile to Quebecor. We are likely to see the emergence in the coming months of a national network most likely called Fizz.
Will it lower the average price paid for wireless in Canada? We hope so… but perhaps we will never know for sure.
In one of the four reports she published at the end of March, the Auditor General might as well have quoted the expression “the emperor is naked” when she refers to the position taken by the government of Justin Trudeau in the Canadian telecommunications industry. In any case, it undresses those responsible for the federal strategy of recent years in telecoms.
“Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) have few indicators to measure progress in terms of the quality and affordability of Internet access and cellular mobile telephony,” she writes.
To measure the variation in the cost of telecom services in the country, the government only looks at the price of the services and does not take into account other factors, such as household income. “Price alone does not indicate whether a Canadian household can afford Internet or mobile cellular telephone services,” continues the Auditor General.
On the other hand, it allows the government to believe that it is keeping its promises, even if the reality shows the contrary. For example, in January 2022, Minister François-Philippe Champagne was pleased to have respected his commitment made two years earlier to reduce the cost of wireless services by 25%. However, “the amount paid by the average customer of wireless providers has not decreased” between 2020 and 2022, independent experts noted at the same time.
The reason ? Ottawa only looked at the variation in the price of very specific packages that quickly became obsolete, and therefore inappropriate to determine if Canadian consumers were really paying less, two years later, for their wireless communication services.
Well connected? Maybe not
Better price control is not the only guarantee made by Ottawa in recent years. In all, the government has earmarked just over $3 billion to ensure that all Canadian households will have high-speed internet access by 2030.
The announcement of this investment did not happen all at once: Ottawa notably increased its Universal Broadband Fund by $475 million last November, intended to connect everyone to high speed.
But too much of that money is still sitting in government coffers in Ottawa, says the Auditor General. She writes that she has seen delays in “the implementation of a number of federal connectivity initiatives as well as a low percentage of funding spent on these initiatives”.
The billions of dollars promised to accelerate the deployment of optical fiber or cellular waves to the most remote regions of Canada are not reaching their destination. This means that many households and businesses across the country are still waiting to have access to high-speed Internet and mobile telephony.
“People in remote areas cannot participate in the digital economy or access education, work, medical care and government services online,” explains Karen Hogan in her report. “Unaffordable or poor quality connectivity does not improve the lives of Canadians living on First Nations reserves or in rural and remote areas any more than a complete lack of connectivity,” concludes the auditor general.
Invited by The duty In response to the Auditor General, the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Rural Economic Development recalled that “projects offering services at more affordable prices have been prioritized” by the Universal Broadband Fund. The responsibility for price monitoring rests with the CRTC, which will have to ensure “improvement of measurement activities, competition and affordability”.
A gap to fill
The gap that exists between people who are well connected and those who have less good access to the Internet has a name: the digital divide. Over the past three years, this gap has widened as many public services have become more accessible online. Telehealth, education and training, work…
Already, government targets were rather modest, both in terms of cost and accessibility: high speed everywhere in 2030 is a long way off in the future. Reducing the price of a limited number of wireless plans by 25% did not prevent providers from increasing the revenue they earn on average from each of their customers.
In recent days, the CRTC has said that it intends to tackle two sources of revenue that are very lucrative for the large national providers: the wholesale price they charge independent regional providers who sell residential Internet services, and the cost of roaming charges when a Canadian wireless owner accesses the network from abroad.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue are at stake. These are the same hundreds of millions of dollars that Canadian households pay more than their counterparts in other countries for a service that is not always as accessible. The arrival of the famous fourth national network comes with pricing conditions to lower prices.
Will Ottawa be able to ensure that the objective will be achieved?