Source: StarPhoenix

SaskTel wants the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to enhance the national subsidy for high-cost telecommunications services to rural and remote areas to include high-speed Internet.

SaskTel CEO Ron Styles warned about the growing "digital divide" between urban and rural Canada at the CRTC's stakeholder hearings Wednesday in Ottawa.

"We believe that the CRTC must acknowledge that the differences between rural and urban areas of Canada require very different policy approaches," Styles said in a statement.

While competition and market forces are providing urban areas with advanced telecommunications services, outlying rural areas are being left behind with "slow, unreliable or costly services," Styles said.

"Without a national contribution fund, the digital divide in Canada will grow and rural residents will be increasingly excluded."

SaskTel spokesperson Darcee MacFarlane said the national contribution fund, which telecom companies use to subsidize telecommunications services to rural and remote areas, needs to be not only maintained, but enhanced.

"Right now, the subsidy doesn't include broadband," she said. "Our position is to hopefully convince the commission to include broadband as well."

MacFarlane said customers in rural and remote areas are currently subsidized to the tune of about half of the cost of telephone and telecommunications service.

Many regions of Canada are characterized by low populations, widely dispersed over large geographic areas, SaskTel said in its submission. These areas, by definition, lack the economies of scale needed to substantiate a sound business case for the necessary investment required to deliver advanced, affordable services.

The national contribution fund has been the vehicle used to ensure affordable local phone service to rural residents.

However, for rural and northern people, there is a need for advanced telecommunications services that go beyond traditional telephone service and the limited speeds of residential broadband.

The contribution fund must be maintained and reformed to meet the future needs of rural telecommunications, including the provision of affordable broadband, Styles says.

© StarPhoenix