The CRTC issued its Public Notice on the reconsideration of VoIP regulation this afternoon.

Interesting accelerated timetable in the PN, driven by the requirement to report back to Cabinet within 120 days (ie. around Labour Day). Comments are due on June 5 and reply comments are due June 15.

The Public Notice is especially interesting in revealing the text of the actual Order of the Governor in Council. The recitals in the Order reveal that Sending VoIP back to the CRTC was ordered in part out of a recognition of the recommendations of the TPR (no surprise), but also considering the recent Local Forbearance decision. Despite the fact that there has not yet been a Cabinet appeal, it looks like Cabinet is expecting it any day now:

Cabinet is going to be busy with telecom issues. The deadline for appealing the Deferral Account decision is coming up on Monday. We expect at least one party to file by then. Local forbearance has about 6 weeks more to go on its timer, but Bell has already announced its intent to appeal.

The Order indicates that the Governor in Council is contemplating what changes to implement in the wake of the TPR panel report.

June 15 is a great day to close off the CRTC’s public process. It just happens to be the day after The Canadian Telecom Summit closes. June 13 will see the regulatory department heads from all the phone companies square off. It will be a tag team event, cablecos versus telco incumbents with MTS Allstream as the spoiler!

That session immediately precedes the keynote address by Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, who is expected to talk about the implementation plans for the TPR. He’ll be followed by keynote addresses from TELUS CEO Darren Entwistle speaking at lunch on on Tuesday and Bell CEO Michael Sabia on Wednesday.

Videotron Chief Robert Depatie speaks on Wednesday afternoon and the final word belongs to CRTC Chair Charles Dalfen, who closes the conference.

Twenty years ago, I worked for a guy at AT&T Bell Labs who told us not burn ourselves out by working crazy R&D hours. He told us to take time out to go to the theatre, get involved with little league, various community groups, family things. In his view, it was good business. After all, he wanted employees who would still have energy in 5 years; he knew that all of our neighbours were potential AT&T customers. Doing good for employees and the community was doing good for AT&T. There was a time that the ‘telephone company’ was held in such esteem across the country. In the monopoly and early competitive days, there was always a lot of community involvement, from the employee and pensioners’ association, the Telephone Pioneers and corporate giving.

Tuesday evening, Darren Entwistle was in town as TELUS launched its Toronto Community Board. TELUS has set a goal for itself to become Canada’s premier corporate citizen. I think it is a symbol of TELUS’ commitment to be a permanent force across the country, not just in their home base: the western ILEC region. In addition to funding various community initiatives, TELUS plans to have a national community activity day – a day of volunteerism for its employees. Congratulations to those involved.

We hope that Rogers, Shaw and Bell will feel competitive pressures to match and ‘up the ante’. Such involvement by the industry will hopefully return a little lustre to our industry that has seen reputations tarnished by accounting problems, stock market losses and controversy over internet access issues.

Our communities will benefit and the goodwill will be returned many times over.

Joe Natale cited Margaret Mead in his introductory remarks: “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

At the cocktail reception at The Canadian Telecom Summit on Monday June 12, we will be featuring a silent auction to benefit the alliance of Big Brothers / Big Sisters and Boys & Girls Clubs of Canada. It’s got a high tech twist to it – bidding will done by SMS text messaging using a software application being developed just for this event.

TELUS’ launch on Tuesday evening was a good reminder for all of us. You do the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do.

Sunday’s Toronto Star had a front page feature describing software called Psiphon, from the so-called Citizen Lab at University of Toronto. The software is designed, in theory, to help people in oppressive regimes circumvent national restrictions on free access to content by more easily offering proxy servers on the outside.

It is an interesting piece of ‘hack’-tivism. Not really news (the Globe and Mail carried a story about Psiphon in February). In some ways, I suppose that the intent of the software is a modern day equivalent of Radio Free Europe – spreading the word of democracy by opening up communications.

I’d like to look at an unintended consequences of this initiatives. Will Psiphon help spread child exploitation images? Do folks at the Citizen Lab believe that images of children should also be free of any restrictions in their transmittal on the internet or does the Citizen Lab agree with the concept that freedom to communicate can have some restrictions?

Michael Geist is quoted in the Star article saying “There are international instruments that override even sovereign governments, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Let’s not forget there are also international instruments that restrict freedoms, such as the Convention on Rights of the Child statements on child exploitation images.

As a father of young children, perhaps the director of the Citizen Lab, Ronald Deibert will turn some attention to the issue of reasonable limits on internet freedoms.

Illegal Content on the Internet isn’t clearly defined. We’ll be examining the issue in a special session at The Canadian Telecom Summit next month.

Other than the post office, is there another government institution that consistently attracts such public attention as the CRTC? In fact, only the Toronto Maple Leafs are subjected to more arm-chair coaching, although the Leafs are far more likely to benefit from wisdom-juice inspired commentary.

As many readers know, I have not always agreed with the CRTC’s outcomes, but it is unfair to characterize the decisions with the type of mean-spirited attacks that have become popular by some of the harshest critics. In particular, it doesn’t help the debate to be name-calling in refering to decisions as coming from “illiterates” and I think it is naive to believe that “it is impractical to regulate Internet-based services.”

Internet-based services can be regulated and should be regulated, where the public interested is best served by doing so.

It is far too easy to dismiss the fact that considerable thought and analysis goes into CRTC decisions. The Commission has operated without the kind of policy direction from the Government that is called for in the new post-TPR environment; in the meantime, the CRTC has adopted a policy of supporting choice as means to achieve the greatest consumer benefits.

The cabinet direction to the CRTC for a review of the VoIP decision is a signal that we are going to see changes – and likely a signal that many of the TPR recommendations for structural changes are coming soon. We’ll be listening to the Minister provide the direction at The Canadian Telecom Summit next month. Until then, go ahead and be critical. Complain, moan and whine.

But remember, there are at least 3 sides to every issue in front of the CRTC. It is pretty rare that the right answer is as obvious as some of the partison commentators would have you believe.