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Nunanet cool to NorthwesTel’s subsidy plea

ISP owner says CRTC should be wary of phone giant’s proposal to offer Internet in small communities

JIM BELL

The owner of a Nunavut-based Internet service provider says NorthwesTel shouldn’t get a subsidy for extending dial-up Internet service to smaller, high-cost Nunavut communities that don’t have it.

Adamie Itorcheak, the owner of Nunanet Worldwide Communications, says giving preferential treatment to NorthwesTel is a bad way to bring dial-up Internet service to small communities.

He says a better way would be for government and private business to work together with local and regional ISPs.

"The only way it’s going to be doable is to have the private sector and government work together," Itorcheak said. "In each community if you had a couple of local ‘anchor tenants,’ you could offer subsidized dial-up. You’ve got the health centres, you’ve got the hamlet, you’ve got the HTO."

But Itorcheak said that Nunanet will move into four Baffin communities later this year — Igloolik, Cape Dorset, Pangnirtung, and Pond Inlet — and four more next year.

As for NorthwesTel, Itorcheak calls them "the evil meanie-greenies."

"They’re spin doctors," he said.

For example, he says he believes the Hamlet of Coral Harbour made an unwise deal recently when it agreed to give NorthwesTel $25,000 to facilitate the installation of an Internet service that provides the community with only four dial-up lines.

"They got taken to cleaners," Itorcheak said.

NorthwesTel is asking the CRTC for permission to offer dial-up Internet access in unserved communities as part of a two-year-old service improvement plan that the CRTC is now reviewing.

Members of the public may make written submissions "on any matters within the scope of the proceeding," to any CRTC office in Canada by July 19.

In 2000, the CRTC allowed NorthwesTel to draw $15 million a year from a national telecommunications fund to replace the revenue the company was expected to lose with its new 10-cent a minute long-distance plan.

But because of the objections of small ISP businesses such as Nunanet, the CRTC wouldn’t let NorthwesTel offer dial-up Internet in smaller communities.

Now the company wants permission to draw more money from the fund to defray the costs of offering dial-up Internet in small northern communities not served by local or regional ISPs. NorthwesTel estimates that it would need to invest $200 million in new equipment to provide such service to all unserved communities in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and northern B.C.

At least two small Baffin region ISPs, in Hall Beach and Arctic Bay, have gone belly-up recently — because they were unable to find enough paying customers to support the costs of doing business, especially the high cost of satellite access.

"It was sad to see Sanirayak and Ikpiarjuit go under," Itorcheak said.

But he said that those companies could have made it if the government and the private sector had worked together.

"There’s small businesses in town, there’s individuals, there’s the HTOs, there’s the hamlet. If everyone had gotten together, it would have been doable."

Itorcheak said the only government help that his business has received is a $3,000 start-up grant. And like all other new small businesses, it’s been a tough haul for Nunanet.

"We’ve been in existence since August of 1995, and it’s been a constant struggle because we’re having to go up against companies who own the infrastructure too," Itorcheak said.

Companies controlled directly or indirectly by the giant Bell Canada Enterprises conglomerate totally dominate telecommunications in northern Canada.

BCE now holds 100 per cent of the shares of Telesat Canada, a former Crown corporation that was privatized a few years ago. Telesat is the only provider of satellite bandwidth for telephone, Internet or cable television service for communities off the road system.

Through Bell Canada, BCE also controls NorthwesTel, which buys satellite time from Telesat. NorthwesTel is a partner in Ardicom, which supplies the Nunavut and Northwest Territories governments with bandwidth for their in-house computer networks.

Like NorthwesTel, Ardicom gets its bandwidth from the BCE-owned Telesat Canada.

Itorcheak said he’s encouraged that the Nunavut government is starting to talk to the small ISPs.

"Before it was a toy for a lot of people. Now they’re realizing that it’s become a necessity," Itorcheak said.

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