Originally featured in The Hill Times Policy Briefing on Telecommunications on October 23, 2025. Reproduced with permission from the author on November 17, 2025.
The current changes in geopolitical debates, trade policies and climate disasters invite reflections on what matters for telecommunications and the national interest.
Traditionally, telecommunications have played a minor role, even insignificant role, in typical geopolitical analysis, and vice versa for research papers on telecommunications policy. The national interest has surfaced as restrictions of foreign ownership and an emphasis on competition in telecommunication markets, since the start of telecom liberalization decades ago. For the national defense, trusted telecommunications operators were given confidential contracts to support military communications.
The question now is whether there is a need to formulate new concepts that go beyond the traditional telecommunications policy discourse, grounded in the national interest. Challenges are compelling: data sovereignty; reliance on hyper-scalers; AI giants emerging; 5G; increased financial burdens, etc.
Here it is proposed that the national interest in telecommunications is a viable, secure and resilient infrastructure that delivers services with leading technological capabilities. For several generations, telecommunications have served as a backbone of communications for advanced societies, and once upon a time the main problem was to expand it quickly enough to reach all citizens. The advent of mobile communications pushed telecommunications into an additional build-out phase, and with smartphones, mobile internet and all the new services were there as well. A seemingly never-ending growth trajectory seemed to be there, allowing governments to ponder the most profitable ways to tap the carriers of the highest fees for spectrum, and hundreds of billions have been paid by private industry, perhaps a trillion dollars, in the global aggregate. This success story is increasingly coming to an end, and while the public debate has not identified that the fundamental infrastructure runs a long-term risk in being deficient because of under-investments, analysts are worried.
If a new concept should be pursued, how will that concept balance with the goals of competition, continued investment roll-out, and affordable rates, but without new fiscal burdens for government?
The first step would be to clearly identify an issue of clear mutual interest for both private industry and government, even if this comes with a price tag for both parties. One such issue is resilient networks, offering new partnership opportunities.
Resilient networks are certainly one important issue for Canada. With the constant threat of wildfires, and other climate-related natural calamities, with huge costs for society, it is vital to have networks that support functional communication and withstanding breakdowns and outages.
Currently, the Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission (CRTC) is carrying out a consultation on “Development of a Regulatory Policy on Measures to Improve the Resiliency of Telecommunications Networks and the Reliability of Telecommunications Services”. It is an unusually open-ended proceeding, with the stated aim of gathering views on the development of a resiliency regulatory policy. This step is laudable and provides an interesting opportunity for industry and government to explore fundamental questions and seek new solutions.
While CRTC has several constraints in setting up this proceeding, such as the Telecommunications Act and the government’s policy direction for telecommunications, issued in 2023, it seems a safe assumption that principles guiding these two documents will be addressed in responses by the industry. Among others, Canada's existing inventory of regulatory measures -- including spectrum set-aside policies, roaming policies, MVNO measures and more – may need to be questioned whether they may run counter to broader resilience goals. Among others, what are the resilience impacts of network-based competition vs. service competition?
More questions can be raised. While inward foreign direct investments provide potential new funding for infrastructures, currently investments are going outward. Why is not the Canadian market profitable enough? An example is Bell Canada choosing to build fiber networks in the USA with the support of Canadian pension funds. How can policy principles for a Canadian “copper switch-off” be developed to support fiber build out, furthering network resiliency? What should government do to facilitate the integration of non-terrestrial networks with terrestrial networks for resiliency?
The questions can go on for “hot” topics in this unusual opportunity to consider the Canadian telecom landscape from a new angle, under the auspices of resiliency. Industry and government have a chance to provide new solutions together for pressing questions on the national interest.
Reference: Erik Bohlin,“Telecom and the National Interest”, Policy Briefing Telecom, The Hill Times, Wednesday 23 October, 2025, page 23.