Bell Canada Submission
Theme(s): Digital Infrastructure
Executive Summary
Bell Canada welcomes the Government's consultation regarding its digital economy strategy. A key issue to be addressed by the strategy is that Canada's productivity growth lags other countries, particularly the United States. Differences in national spending on information and communications technologies (ICTs) account for much of the gap in productivity growth. To understand this gap, the digital economy strategy must consider two perspectives: digital, or ICT, infrastructure (supply) and ICT usage (demand).
Canada's digital infrastructure, and particularly communications networks and services, is clearly not an obstacle to ICT adoption and growth. It is world-class today and a key component to creating a successful digital economy strategy. There is an ongoing need for investment, however, so that Canada's digital infrastructure can continue to be world class in the years to come and as technology evolves. The pace and extent of these investments by network providers depend, in large part, on Canada having an encouraging policy and regulatory environment. Absent this, investments will be at risk, particular in rural areas where the potential for network providers to realize an acceptable return on investment is marginal.
While Canada does very well on digital infrastructure, ICT usage by Canadian businesses, particularly small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), is below levels found in other countries. Stimulating ICT usage among Canadian businesses, therefore, presents the most promising approach to improving Canada's productivity growth.
Bell Canada's submission addresses each of the discussion themes in the Government's Consultation Paper and makes a number of recommendations in support of the digital economy strategy.
Key recommendations designed to encourage additional and accelerated investments in digital infrastructure, especially communications networks, include:
- Reducing the almost $1 billion in annual Government-mandated fees paid by communications service providers;
- Allowing infrastructure owners to negotiate access to their next generation networks by competitors on a commercial, rather than regulated, basis;
- Modifying policies related to wireless spectrum auctions and spectrum management;
- Raising the foreign ownership limit to 49% for all telecommunications and broadcasting operators and applying the rules symmetrically;
- Increasing the CCA rate to 50% for broadband network assets and 100% for those assets deployed in rural areas; and
- Ensuring that software and applications development activities are recognized as eligible expenditures under the Government's SR&ED tax credit program.
Additional recommendations designed to stimulate ICT usage and address the ICT skills shortage issue and other digital economy priorities include:
- Building ICT career awareness among students and bolstering the ICT components of school curricula, recruiting more international university students and providing incentives for graduates to remain in Canada, and broadening the accreditation of skilled internationally educated workers;
- Levering Government's position as one of Canada's largest ICT purchasers to stimulate innovation, grow the ICT industry and improve Government operations and services in the process;
- Modernizing current Canadian content funding mechanisms and eliminating the associated investment drag on fee-payers, i.e., cable and satellite television companies; and
- Monitoring the inputs, outputs and outcomes of the Government's digital economy strategy and adapting public policies as necessary.
Submission
Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Building a world-class digital infrastructure
- 3. Building digital skills for tomorrow
- 4. Capacity to innovate using digital technologies and growing the information and communications technology industry
- 5. Digital media: Creating Canada's digital content advantage
- 6. Monitoring and setting targets for the digital economy strategy
- 7. Summary of recommendations
- Appendix 1: Canadian Wireline Broadband Market Facts
- Appendix 2: Canadian Wireline Broadband Market Facts
- Appendix 3: Telecommunications and Broadcasting Industry Regulatory Fees
- Appendix 4: BCE News release
If the following document is not accessible to you, please contact the person below for assistance in obtaining the documents in the appropriate format.
Guylaine Verner
Industry Canada | Industrie Canada
300 Slater Street, Ottawa ON K1A 0C8 | 300, rue Slater, Ottawa ON K1A 0C8
Guylaine.Verner@ic.gc.ca
Telephone | Téléphone 613-990-6456
Facsimile | Télécopieur 613-952-2718
Teletypewriter | Téléimprimeur 1-866-694-8389
This document is better viewed and printed in PDF format:
Bell Canada Submission (PDF, 1,541 KB)
Information on Downloading a Word Reader
To access the Microsoft Word Format (DOC) version you must have a Word Viewer installed. If you do not already have such a viewer, a Word viewer is available for free download or for purchase on the Internet:
