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The Digital Divide: Broadband Connectivity in Inuit Nunangat

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The Digital Divide: Broadband Connectivity in Inuit Nunangat wkw5 bW‰5 vNbu | INUIT TAPIRIIT KANATAMI The Digital Divide: Broadband Connectivity in Inuit Nunangat Our Vision: Canadian Inuit are prospering through unity and self-determination Our Mission: Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami is the national voice for protecting and advancing the rights and interests of Inuit in Canada ITK Quarterly Research Briefing Summer 2021, Issue No. 3 About Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) is the national representative organization for the 65,000 Inuit in Canada, the majority of whom live in Inuit Nunangat, the Inuit home land encompassing 51 communities across the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (Northwest Territories), Nunavut, Nunavik (Northern Québec), and Nunatsiavut (Northern Labrador). Inuit Nunangat makes up nearly one third of Canada’s landmass and more than 50 percent of its coastline. ITK represents the rights and interests of Inuit at the national level through a democratic governance structure that represents all Inuit regions. ITK advocates for policies, programs, and services to address the social, cultural, political, and environmental issues facing our people. ITK’s Board of Directors are as follows: • Chair and CEO, Inuvialuit Regional Corporation • President, Makivik Corporation • President, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated • President, Nunatsiavut Government In addition to voting members, the following non-voting Permanent Participant Representatives also sit on the Board: • President, Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada • President, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada • President, National Inuit Youth Council Vision Canadian Inuit are prospering through unity and self-determination. Mission Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami is the national voice for protecting and advancing the rights and interests of Inuit in Canada. ITK Quarterly Research Briefings ITK Quarterly Research Briefings provide analysis of timely policy matters that are of direct relevance to Inuit. Briefings are prepared by Inuit Qaujisarvingat, ITK’s research department, consistent with the department's mandate to produce research and analysis that can be used to support the advancement of Inuit priorities. ITK Quarterly Research Briefings are a deliverable of ITK’s 2020-2023 Strategy and Action Plan. © Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, August 2021 Cover image: © Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. Satellite artwork by Sheree McLeod. Introduction The availability of high-speed broadband internet in Inuit Nunangat lags behind the rest of Canada as well as behind many other Arctic jurisdictions. Affordable, high-speed broadband is imperative for Inuit to be able to participate equitably in society and the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the digital divide between Inuit Nunangat and the rest of Canada into sharper focus. The experiences of people in Inuit Nunangat whose education and livelihoods became more reliant on the internet during the pandemic further underscore how the lack of high-speed broadband in the region puts our people at a disadvantage. Broadband connectivity supports educational attainment, spurs economic development, and can improve access to services such as health care, in a region where service delivery is challenging. The limited availability of high-speed broadband in Inuit Nunangat places the region at a competitive disadvantage and limits or precludes the use of technologies that rely on high-speed broadband. Canadian federal policy and investments that are intended to improve broadband connectivity in Inuit Nunangat have tended to prioritize satellite dependence, contributing to the widening digital divide between Inuit Nunangat and the rest of the country. The service provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Inuit Nunangat consequently tends to be slow, unreliable, and prohibitively expensive. In recent years, the federal government has pledged to improve access to high-speed broadband for all Canadians and invested in broadband connectivity. In 2019, the Canadian federal government released its national broadband connectivity strategy and announced major new investments for improving broadband connectivity throughout the country, including through the Universal Broadband Fund. However, it is unclear what impacts these initiatives will have on Inuit Nunangat. This quarterly research brief provides an overview of the reality of internet access in Inuit Nunangat and also evaluates future infrastructure required to bridge the digital divide between Inuit Nunangat and the rest of Canada. Promising international practices are highlighted and compared with Canada’s current connectivity strategy. Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami The Digital Divide: Broadband Connectivity in Inuit Nunangat 1 Broadband Connectivity in Inuit Nunangat Canada is ranked relatively high among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations in terms of the proportion of the population connected to broadband internet, as well as the broadband speeds available to them. Approximately 41% of the Canadian population is connected to broadband through either Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), cable, fibre, or fixed wireless.1 Canada ranks eighth among OECD nations for fixed broadband subscriptions per capita, with 37inhabitants out of every 100 having access to download speeds greater than 25 megabits per second (Mbps).2 Broadband in Inuit Nunangat is, by contrast, inaccessible for many Inuit due in large part to high costs. The cost to private households of accessing the fastest service levels available range from $95 per month in Nunatsiavut3 to $150 per month in Nunavik and Nunavut.4 None of the fastest service levels available in these regions come close to the 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload, commonly written as 50/10 Mpbs, universal target speed called for by the federal government. According to the 2017 Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 68% of Inuit households in Inuit Nunangat have access to internet at home compared to 91% of Inuit households outside of Inuit Nunangat.5 Of the Inuit households in Inuit Nunangat that do not have internet at home, 54.5% identify cost, 10.2% identify lack of equipment, and 2.9% identify unavailability of service as contributing factors for their lack of access.6 As a comparison, in 2018, 94% of all Canadians had home internet access, and among those who did not, 28% identified cost, 19% identified equipment, and 8% identified unavailability of internet service as the main factors prohibiting internet access in their homes.7 Broadband connectivity throughout Inuit Nunangat tends to be slow and unreliable, and is frequently jeopardized by weather and technical difficulties. The community of Ulukhaktok in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR), Northwest Territories lost internet connection for eight days straight following a power outage in late February 2021. This outage affected banking and credit transactions, jeopardizing residents’ ability to pay for groceries and gas.8 Across Inuit Nunangat only Inuvik in the ISR is connected to Canada’s fibre optic network via the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link built in 2017. Access to fibre enabled New North Networks, a local service provider that serves Inuvik, to provide unlimited internet plans in 2020 for the first time in that community. Service providers serving the other 50 communities in Inuit Nunangat rely almost exclusively on bandwidth rented from third-party satellite providers. 2 Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami The Digital Divide: Broadband Connectivity in Inuit Nunangat Telecommunications services are regulated by the federal government as public utilities in Canada. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is the federal agency responsible for regulating telecommuni- cations services under the Telecommunications Act. In 2016, CRTC established the universal service objective of ensuring that fixed broadband internet service subscribers should be able to access speeds of at least 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload, and to subscribe to a service offering with an unlimited data al- lowance.9 However, at this time, Inuvik is the only community in Inuit Nunangat that has access to these service levels. Excluding Inuvik and those communities for which data are unavailable, 18 communities in Inuit Nunangat have maximum download/upload speeds of 5/1 Mbps or less and 27 have maximum download speeds of 15 Mbps.10 Download and upload speeds vary between communities and between regions. Excluding Inuvik (ISR), the maximum download/upload speed available in the ISR and Nunatsiavut is 5/1 Mbps. Maximum download/upload speeds in Nunavik are less than 5/1 Mbps.11 It is notable that the CRTC’s now decade-old universal service objective from 2011 of 5/1 Mbps is only just being met in Nunavik and in some ISR and Nunavut communities, let alone the current 50/10 Mbps objective. A summary of maximum download/upload speeds by region is provided in Table 1. Table 1. Maximum download/upload speeds and type of connection by Inuit Nunangat region.12 Note that the below speeds are not necessarily available in every community within a given region, but rather reflect the maximum speed commonly available across each region. Region Maximum Type of Download/Upload Speed Connection Available in Region (Mbps) Inuvialuit Settlement Region 15/1* DSL Nunavut 25/1† Direct-to-home Satellite Nunatsiavut 5/1† Anik Satellite Nunavik 15/2 Fixed Wireless * Note that this maximum excludes the outlier of Inuvik, which is the only community in Inuit Nunangat to reach 50/1 Mbps download/upload speeds † Note that this speed is the maximum theoretical speed available from
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