All Canadian households will receive access to high-speed internet by 2030, the federal government says.

“Investments continue to roll out, and we are on track to reach our target of 100 per cent coverage by 2030,” Rural Development Secretary of State Buckley Belanger said in response to a report released by the Public Accounts committee.

He added that the government’s Connectivity Strategy has closed three-quarters of the gap in household broadband access.

Belanger was responding to the Public Accounts committee’s report, Connectivity in Rural and Remote Areas. It made 12 recommendations and cited concerns around coverage reporting and the timely response to applications for funding from the Universal Broadband Fund (UBF). The UBF was launched in 2020 to facilitate the development of high-speed internet areas that lacked access. The government committed to providing all Canadian households access to networks with a 50 megabits/second download rate and a 10 megabits/second upload rate.

Belanger tabled the government’s response on April 13. In the intervening time, Belanger said that the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) has cleared any backlogs of applications and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is developing a new standard for reporting mobile coverage.

50/10 still adequate

Although experts have raised concerns about the ability to satisfy current network needs with the 50/10 target, the government said there was currently no need to adjust it, since 76 per cent of UBF projects include fiber optics, which are scalable to 1 gigabits/second. This flexibility may become increasingly important with the new AI for All strategy, which encourages individuals, students and businesses to use generative AI applications more frequently.

According to industry experts, the surge in AI use not only demands better network bandwidth, but also lower latency times. “Today, reliability, predictability and latency are just as critical. AI-driven applications don’t tolerate inconsistency well. When networks become congested or unpredictable, the impact shows up quickly in delayed analytics, degraded customer experiences and frustrated employees,” wrote Jason Baroff, Managing Partner at Ascend Technologies Group and MiBA Analytics.

Network latency is the time it takes for data to move from one point to another in a network. This metric becomes especially important for services that involve frequently moving lots of data back and forth – like chatbots.

New technology being leveraged to help Canadians while travelling

Broadband connectivity on roadways is essential for drivers to access emergency services and receive emergency alerts. “Broadband connectivity at home is no longer sufficient on its own and that new ways of using technologies mean that Canadians also need access to mobile wireless connectivity when they are on the go,” said the government’s response.

Despite this recognition, the CRTC reported that 14 per cent of Canada’s major roadways and highways lacked mobile coverage.

As part of its solution to these gaps, the government plans to use direct to device (D2D) technology. D2D allows mobile devices to connect directly to satellites without terrestrial network infrastructure. This technology is especially useful to Canadians because of the country’s geographic size.

By 2027, ISED expects D2D connectivity to allow mobile text messaging across 49 per cent of Canada’s landmass. By contrast, traditional networks only cover 17 per cent of the nation’s area. Canada is “one of the first countries with access to this exciting new technology,” said the response.