The Alexander Radio Act of PEI & CB

The Alexander Radio Act of PEI and Cape Breton, NS needs to be introduced to the houses of parliament in Ottawa, Halifax and Charlottetown.

Alexander is for Alexander Graham Bell, CB summer resident and the father of telecom.

Calling it the Bell Act is so already done, it's time for act two.

The act proposes to sub-license certain channels in FM (88.1-89.9Mhz), VHF (Channels 2,3,4), and UHF (Channels 52-69) to a local authority in these two rural islands.

The driving force behind this is that UHF channels 52-69 are being converted to HDTV broadcast soon. How many of those 27 channels do Islanders need? Four if SRC, CBC, Global and CTV convert. Then, maybe four more, at most?

So, let Aliant, Eastlink, Rogers, Route2, ISN, IMAC, UPEI, CBU, Holland College, and say five other local business's have a license to innovate on one UHF channel each - that still leaves 14 HDTV channels for this fair isle.

An agency will be established with offices in Charlottetown and Sydney to regulate the uses of these radio frequencies, and be subject to the authority of the CRTC, in fact be granted a license to administer these frequencies. The normal broadcast standards will be actively enforced by these agencies to reduce interference or misuse. Revenue will be generated by license fees.

The agency's goal will be innovative use of the airwaves both in technical use and conventional production for TV & Radio.

Some frequencies will be assigned for a high speed point-point data backbone network between villages and towns within the islands; some frequencies will be assigned for mobile telecommunication development to Aliant, Eastlink, Rogers, and any partners they may invite to use them; Radio and television broadcast stations wil be established for community productions and non commercial uses.

Ya, that's right. I proposed legislation on my blog.