Canada’s federal telecommunications regulator set an ambitious target for Internet service expansion on Tuesday that could affect USENET newsgroup subscribers.
Canada’s telecommunications regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, expects all Canadians to have access to broadband internet speeds of at least five megabits per second for downloads and one megabit per second for uploads, the regulator announced late Tuesday. At those speeds, ThunderNews.com USENEt newsgroup subscribers can access at full speed. Those speeds must be actual speeds rather than advertised speeds, the regulator said.
Meeting the target will depend on a combination of private investments, targeted government funding and public-private partnerships, the CRTC said.
This all comes out of a review of basic telecommunication services across the country and rather than make access to the internet a basic service the CRTC is going to rely on market forces and that regulatory intervention wasn’t needed at this point.
The review looked at what role the commission should have in boosting high-speed internet access, whether it should be considered part of basic telecommunications service and whether it should be subsidized.
“The industry is actively responding to market demands and we have every confidence in its ability to meet the target,” CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said.
So far, about $152.2-million has been spent on Broadband Canada projects. Last September, the CRTC ordered a $421.9-million expansion of broadband service to hundreds of rural and remote communities within four years.
