Notwithstanding the Globe and Mail’s preliminary headline, it may not be fair to call it a win for consumers, but it is certainly a start. When the Federal Court granted the Consumers groups leave to appeal the CRTC’s February 16 Deferral Account Decision, it represented another set-back for a Commission that has fielded a number of Cabinet and Court appeals this year.

This was a Decision that didn’t seem to make anyone happy, other than a few provincial governments. Even Bell appealed the Decision, despite the apparent $650M windfall to offset their capital programs.

The consumers’ groups are arguing that the money (around $50 per subscriber) rightfully belongs to the subscribers that overpaid for services; don’t use their money to fund a rural broadband program that should be administered out of tax revenues.

Barrett Xplore felt that the CRTC’s rural broadband program distorted the economics of private sector investment.

Back in June, the Court denied a Stay application, ruling that consumers would not suffer irreparable harm should the stay not be granted. However, the landscape has now changed. The phone companies would be wise to look at asking the CRTC or the Courts for a Stay of their Decision.

The phone companies are spending time engineering rural broadband plans based on a presumption that the program will be funded by the Deferral Account. They will likely seek authorization to stop all work on the projects, now that the source of funds has been put at risk.

Update: [Sept 26 9:50 am]
Mark Evans has a blog posting about rural broadband as well as a story in today’s National Post.

Not sure where one of my colleagues buys his beer, but he is quoted in the Post story as trivializing the rebate, saying that it wouldn’t buy a beer or two. I think it was great for the Consumers’ groups to recognize that $50 is fifty bucks – that’s two beers, movie tickets and a baby sitter – and it is worth fighting for.

I hate the term ‘system access fee’. It sounds so official. The cellular industry wants consumers to think that it is a government mandated charge. ‘System access fee’ sounds better than ‘profit fee’ or ‘our way to increase prices even though you have a 3-year contract fee’. But that is all it is.

I say, if you want to raise prices – do it. It’s your business. Hiding behind an add-on like ‘system access fees’ is just plain misleading. It’s unfair and inappropriate to raise prices on consumers who have a contract.

The ability to raise the ‘system access fee’ from $6.95 to $8.95 is more evidence of what the investment industry calls ‘rational competition’ in Canada – the avoidance of a price war. Good for investors, lousy for consumers.

It isn’t clear that wireless number portability (coming in March 2007) is going to bring pricing benefits to consumers. The signals being sent from the carriers seems to trending prices upwards. One carrier is raising domestic long distance rates to an astounding 30 cents per minute plus air time (we note that their cost is around a penny). Now this other carrier is signalling higher system access fees.

If a carrier raises the system access fee for people under contract, what was the value for the consumer of the agreement itself?

Postscript: [8:20am]
A month ago, the CRTC issued its Consumer Bill of Rights decision. That Decision doesn’t help in the case of System Access Fees for two reasons: first, wireless carriers are not covered – the Bill of Rights applies to ILECs only; second, there is nothing that prohibits such add-on charges.

Perhaps another reason why the Telecom Policy Review Panel called for the establishment of a body with a greater focus on consumer issues.

It seems that every few months, we write that Israel continues to be a hotbed for telecom technology development, especially photonics and IP. We observed that Om Malik noticed Israel in June.

We believe that there is much that can be learned from such a small country that has been such fertile ground for technology development.

A little over a week ago, Lucent acquired another Israeli telecom technology company, Mobilitec, which offers a platform for managing streaming content services over 3G cellular networks.

Let me again encourage readers to think about attending the Israel Telecom conference and exhibition taking place November 6-9 in Tel Aviv. Over 200 of Israel’s leading ICT players, developers and service providers will be participating, along with a professional interdisciplinary conference with world leaders in the telecommunications community. There is an interesting executive level tour of Israel being organized to coincide with the timing of the trade show. Let me know if you’re interested in joining.

International Trade Canada will have a significant presence at Israel Telecom and it is offering to co-share space at the Canadian booth for Canadian companies (at reduced cost). In addition to booth space, companies will be able to meet the leading Israel ICT players at a number of value-added activities including one-on-one meetings, site visits, and hospitality events. For information on costs and registration, contact: Jessica Nachlas, Business Development Officer, Canadian Embassy, Tel Aviv.

By the way, I’m going to be taking this weekend off, in recognition of Rosh Hashana. I’ll be back on Monday.