Broadband service lagging in northern Ontario: report

A new report on the state of high speed internet in northern Ontario says the region continues to lag behind the rest of the province.

The report, prepared by North Bay-based Blue Sky Net, a non-profit technology development corporation, finds that there are still thousands of people in small towns and larger cities that don't have access to broadband internet service.

Susan Church, executive director of Blue Sky Net, said there's still "too much of a digital divide" between northern and southern Ontario.

"When you look at 285 communities in northern Ontario, 74 have access to 50 by 10 service, 50 megabits per second [download] and 10 megabits per second [upload]" Church said.

"That's a very low number and it's one that we struggle with understanding all the time. We have a low population, but that shouldn't stop us from having access to what anyone else does in larger urban centres." 

The key problems, the report suggests, are the region's low population density, which makes it less profitable for Canada's big telecoms to invest in the infrastructure, and an inconsistent topography across the north, which can interfere with service.

In March, Auditor General Karen Hogan told the House of Commons that the federal government's 2019 connectivity strategy had yet to deliver equal access to high-speed Internet for many rural and remote communities and First Nations, compared with services available in urban areas.

While nearly 91 per cent of Canadian households had access to high-speed internet in 2021, just 59.5 per cent of those in rural and remote areas enjoyed the same access, Hogan presented in her report. 

That number drops to 42.9 per cent for households on First Nations reserves.

And Ontario's Financial Accountability Office (FAO) reported that Ontario's government decreased its spending on broadband and cellular infrastructure by $207 million in the third quarter of 2021-2022.

Church said that compounding the problem of access is that most funding programs from the federal and provincial governments to improve broadband infrastructure and deliver service subsidies only benefit southern Ontario. 

"We are the second cousins," Church said. "There's no question. So I think we should be frustrated. And I think we should be voicing our opinion about that."

Church said government programs are tailored to big telecom companies that focus on southern cities where there is more money to be made. They could help smaller providers in northern Ontario more by providing help to filling in large gaps in internet service, Church said.

But it's not just large dead zones.