[Advisors] Fwd from National Capital Freenet --Join us tomorrow for the Affordable Internet Day of Action!

[Marita Moll]

Again on the Affordable Internet Day of Action, I just received this 
excellent summary of why this issue is important to us -- part of a 
mailing sent to members by Shelley Robinson, Executive Director of the 
National Capital Freenet and also a TC member

Marita


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National Capital FreeNet


      1) Affordable Internet Day of Action: Tuesday, March 16th

Tomorrow we are joining a coalition of other community groups, advocates 
and service providers to ask the CRTC and federal government to make 
concrete changes towards affordable internet.

There are a series of talks throughout the day that touch on different 
elements of the affordability problem and how best to solve it. I’ll be 
moderating the panel on the human cost of high internet prices at 1:15pm.

You can check out the virtual day of action and register for the event 
here: affordable-internet.ca <https://affordable-internet.ca/>

We are also joining a number of groups, including ACORN Canada, Open 
Media and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic 
(CIPPIC), in sending an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 
the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Phillippe 
Champagne, and the Chairperson of the CRTC, Ian Scott.

In the past, a number of you have asked what you can do. We have a 
template of a letter you can send your local MP, the Minister of the 
Department of Canadian Heritage, or the CRTC to ask for change: 
ncf.ca/affordableinternet <https://www.ncf.ca/affordableinternet>.

There is strength in numbers, but there is also strength in stories: 
feel free to add why internet affordability matters to you. And please 
feel free to cc me on the letter at execdir at ncf.ca 
<mailto:execdir at ncf.ca> or forward us a copy of your letter.

You can also amplify our work tomorrow by re-tweeting and sharing our 
social media posts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, using the hashtag 
#AffordableInternetNow.

We’re proud to be part of this work. NCF has been committed to 
affordable internet for everyone in our community since 1992. But it 
isn’t always easy, as reflected in the fact that we recently had to 
raise prices.

The structure of Canada’s internet system has made for some of the 
highest internet prices in the world. This includes the wholesale rates 
set by the Canadian Radio and Television-Telecommunications Commission 
(CRTC), as well as the policy decisions made by the federal government.

As we have discussed before, the CRTC decided in 2016 to examine the 
wholesale internet rates and spent the next three years reviewing them 
in detail. Based on their findings, they mandated a drop the wholesale 
rates we pay Bell in August 2019, back-dated to 2016.

A month later, before the new rates had taken effect, Bell and the other 
incumbents including Rogers and Videotron filed three appeals of the new 
rates: with the Federal Court of Appeal, to the federal government, and 
back to the CRTC.

The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the original CRTC rate drop. And then 
just recently, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals: 
mobilesyrup.com/2021/02/25/supreme-court-dismisses-incumbents-appeal-crtcs-lowered-wholesale-rates/ 
<https://mobilesyrup.com/2021/02/25/supreme-court-dismisses-incumbents-appeal-crtcs-lowered-wholesale-rates/> 


The government didn’t overturn the pricing decision but cautioned that 
the investments of the big telecom companies like Bell and Rogers (who 
regularly post huge profits), must be protected.

The CRTC is currently re-reviewing the decision it originally took them 
three years to make. We are now entering the fifth year of waiting for 
the wholesale rates to drop, still paying the same high prices.

We are also waiting for the CRTC to release details of how NCF and other 
independent ISPs can gain access to Fibre to the Home (FTTH) technology, 
instead of Fibre to the Node (FTTN), which is what we currently offer.

This is a complicated issue but it doesn’t need to be. We need the CRTC 
and the government to make it easier for NCF to offer affordable rates.

Please join us tomorrow if you can. We’ll keep you posted as things move 
forward. And know that we will continue our work on this issue.


National Capital FreeNet is a local, not-for-profit alternative to 
commercial internet service

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