As early as 1994, Canada not only had a clear federal policy advocating community involvement in establishing communications networks, but the federal government’s leadership, particularly from the Communications Minister, had encouraged the diverse policy communities to ‘buy-in to the Minister’s vision’.^[14] The federal government’s leadership in communications policy encouraged the involvement and subsequent education of a diverse group of policy actors, representing a plurality of interests, who helped to shape communications policy at various levels of government and civil society. This particular group of policy actors remains influential today, with many of the community leaders involved in Canada’s Information Superhighway conferences of the early 1990s occupying leadership roles including First Nation communications network developers, industry and public advocates, communications infrastructure entrepreneurs, and academics. Indeed, many of the original conference attendees were active participants in the recent Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) review of telecommunications regulation. Others conducted an alternative telecommunications review panel to enable citizen voices to be heard through media coverage. This alternative review panel was particularly important, ensuring community issues were included alongside the lengthy and expensive submissions put forward by the large telecommunications carriers, particularly Bell Canada.

Particularly in areas of market failure, Canadian communities have been able to work with businesses and governments at various levels to facilitate broadband infrastructure deployment. The extraordinary extent of government cooperation, at federal, provincial and municipal levels, and civil society and business involvement in the deployment of broadband infrastructure, facilitates accessibility and take-up of broadband services. For example, governments, businesses and civil society groups in Laurentian Hills, Renfrew County, Ontario, were engaged by Xit Telecom in an innovative approach to bring high-speed broadband services to communities where most other providers are unable to make a profit. Xit Telecom uses a combination of dark fibre and microwave infrastructure and requires (generally) 30 customers in a given area to justify their infrastructure deployment. The technology is cheaper than that provided by the larger telecommunications carriers because the intelligence is in the applications (the boxes at each end), not the network itself.

Xit Telecom claims that consumers will pay CAD$39.95 per month for their broadband connection, a price which is comparable to many Australian broadband plans. Yet the firm’s innovative approach to network deployment was not a result of any particular technological development, but more a case of establishing strong working relationships with governments and communities. In Laurentian Hills, community frustration at the lack of broadband services prompted federal Member of Parliament Cheryl Gallant to initiate the Broadband Renfrew Access Valley Ontario (BRAVO) project (Walker 2007a). Robert Proulx, owner of Xit Telecom, addressed a community meeting, sponsored by the BRAVO project, to put forward his proposal to establish a private network for the community, using Xit Telecom’s business model. The community agreed to a small test to trial the technology’s capabilities. While tests are still in progress at the time of writing, with topographical problems interfering with the line-of-sight microwave infrastructure, it appears that some more investment in infrastructure may be required to bring broadband to the community.

Despite some problems with the early trials, the integrated nature of Canadian broadband policy is likely to enable Xit Telecom to bring broadband services to the Laurentian Hills community as the approach enables local problems to be dealt with by the policy and deployment process. For instance, the local Member of Parliament has negotiated some CAD$30 million funding from the federal, provincial and municipal governments which is available for community infrastructure projects in partnership with private sector investors and infrastructure providers. Further, issues of access to property for locating microwave, satellite and wireless infrastructure and providing access to cable ducts is coordinated by the project leaders; often volunteers from the BRAVO project. Such small scale operations occur throughout Canada regularly, enabling the deployment of private networks using various business models.

An earlier federal policy initiative, run by the Internet Highway Applications Branch (IHAB) at Industry Canada, used market aggregation to improve broadband penetration in communities. Communities were encouraged to submit a Request for Proposal (RFP) for broadband infrastructure deployment. This involved various partnerships between governments, businesses and community groups in the policy process and has helped citizens as users to receive the type of infrastructure they need. For instance, Kuhkenah Network (K-Net) is a community group which has established a private network to service indigenous communities in the remote northern regions. The fibre network enables the provision of e-health services (called tele-health in Canada) to these communities. Medical and education services can be provided remotely via an advanced video conferencing system. The growth of some of the remote northern communities may well be due to the advanced connectivity provided by K-Net.

In comparison to Gungahlin in Canberra, a relatively new suburb to the north of the national capital, Canadian communities do not face the same barriers brought about by the federal system. Telstra is the major provider in Gungahlin, although there are other providers using Telstra’s network or their own wireless networks to service the area. Telstra denies there are problems with broadband in the area but residents have experienced unsatisfactory broadband services which some believe to be a result of insufficient infrastructure development (Frost 2007). Further, alternative providers available elsewhere in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), such as the ACT government-sponsored TransACT fibre network provider, are not available in the Gungahlin area. TransACT has been able to lay fibre cable throughout the ACT on the infrastructure owned by ACTEW, the ACT’s major electricity provider. Gungahlin, however, was built by developers and government joint-ventures which meant that access to the underground conduits for the electricity network did not facilitate access for TransACT’s network. Here local problems favoured Telstra and, in effect, hindered local competition. In the meantime, the Gungahlin Community Council, a community group designed to represent the interests of community members, is limited to media coverage as its major influence on the policy process and the deployment of local infrastructure.