A Federal Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunication

Lines of communication are the fundamental infrastructure of our economies, communities and societies. Broadband technologies have revolutionized the economic and social utility of lines of telecommunication, and government's goal should be to enable all Canadians to fully exploit this expanded utility.

To expedite policy/regulatory development, the simplest and most effective strategy will be to capitalize on the strong structural and functional parallels between telecommunication infrastructure and transportation infrastructure, especially public road networks.

To optimize the economic and social utility of a broadband network, the network must be open, capable and reliable. A fully open network can be accessed by any person or enterprise, using whatever broadband–enabled device is available to them.

An open access operating policy will optimize network utility by optimizing person–to–person, person–to–business and business–to–business connectivity. It will also optimize competition and innovation in services, boost economic and community development, and create jobs.

This is exactly how we govern our public road, street and highway systems, and governance models for broadband infrastructure are already migrating in this direction. The Government of Alberta has built the equivalent of a provincial primary/secondary digital highway network in the form of the Alberta SuperNet. The community of Olds, Alberta is building the equivalent of a municipal street system, in the form of an open access fibre–to–the–home (FTTH) network. Community broadband networks (especially FTTH) are an exploding trend in the U.S. (visit Communities for Broadband).

Digital devices are the equivalent of automobiles. They greatly expand our ability to create and capitalize on economic, social, educational, recreational and other opportunities, especially if we have capable, reliable and open networks that connect us all together.

Our current business paradigm in telecom penalizes people for using networks too much, because the networks have insufficient capacity. We need networks, but we also need a new business paradigm that incentivizes people to use networks as much as possible. Again, this is how we govern our road and highway systems. The more we use them, the more economic and social value we create.

A federal Ministry that governs telecommunication the same way we govern transportation (for the greater good) is essential. There are examples elsewhere in the world already, e.g., Finland, where broadband access has just been made a legal right.

Comment

javanl — 2010–07–07 16:33:11 EDT wrote

I neglected to mention that the issue of net neutrality disappears completely in the new telecom paradigm.

If networks are engineered and governed around an open access model, there is no need to shape traffic on the network. Just get out of the way, and encourage people to make the fullest possible use of networks.

Suggested URL: Fibre–to–the–Home project in Olds, Alberta