Month: January 2009

January 27, 2009

It is a day of reckoning for the Canadian Government.

A couple months ago, the minority government was on the verge of collapse in its first week of sitting. A creative constitutional manoeuvre was used to prorogue parliament, buying time until yesterday’s throne speech and today’s budget.

For the past month or so, companies, unions, provinces, municipalities and other interest groups have been appearing at town hall meetings and writing letters, asking for consideration for the budget to provide funding for their economic stimulus projects.

What makes for an effective fiscal stimulus plan? The government’s website defines a good project as:

It should boost the economy when needed, not when it has already recovered.

Each dollar of stimulus should deliver the maximum impact here in Canada.

If the recession is longer or deeper than anticipated, the stimulus will need to be larger and longer in duration.

An effective stimulus should also balance our short term needs with our long term economic plan for prosperity.

I have been calling for investment in a national broadband strategy since our opening remarks at at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit.

Since then, we have seen a number of people join the call to raise Canada’s DQ – our digital quotient.

How will the government respond? Watch the coverage of today’s budget for stimulus of information infrastructure.

Much chatter has surrounded potential policy changes on the horizon impacting network operators south of the border. With a new president and a new FCC chair, some Canadian observers are speculating that it is only a matter of time before a spill-over effect drives law-makers in Canada to impose regulation on the internet.

I don’t think it is going to work that way. I think that the FCC and US industry observers should be looking northward for guidance on how to govern the behaviours of internet service providers.

We’ll have a public hearing on network management practices in early July and a final decision out before the end of the year, if all goes according to schedule.

Some of the loudest voices in Canada keep ignoring the fact that we already have legislation and regulatory precedents that provide protections that are missing from the toolkit available to the FCC in disciplining abuse in the United States.

To start with, the FCC has an internet policy statement that serves as a proxy for formal regulation of carrier behaviours; Canada has in place some key legislation, such as the non-discrimination provisions of Section 27(2) and the non-blocking provisions of Section 36.

Will the FCC significantly vary or backtrack on the views expressed [ pdf, 88KB] by outgoing Chair Kevin Martin at a conference in Denmark in September:

Our action was not about regulating the Internet. Instead, we took a cautious approach that merely requires operators to use an even and fair hand as they control the flow of traffic on their networks. Adopting broader regulations in this area could have unintended consequences that could stifle innovation.

We have our network management proceeding underway. Responses to CRTC interrogatories are already available on the CRTC website. Written comments will be due on February 16.

Based on the comments that are received, the Commission may ask an additional round of questions, or address questions to any of the other parties who submitted comments. The Commission asked parties to respond to specific questions in the Public Notice.

There is a lot of noise about net neutrality among the unaffiliated technophile community. Will there be sufficient focus in their submissions to permit a meaningful discussion of the issues?

We have a special session planned to explore the issues at The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit in June. We expect that people will be testing their arguments in advance of the CRTC proceeding a few weeks later. Have you registered yet?

Technorati Tags:
ISP, net neutrality, Canada, CRTC

I am delivering an interesting talk this weekend, speaking in Tel Aviv on Sunday afternoon at the invitation of the Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute, looking at opportunities in the Canadian telecom sector. Israeli technology firms have been leaders in messaging, VoIP, wireless and operations systems, among other areas.

As I have written recently, there is a lot of investment activity underway by our service providers. Many of the companies that are coming to the session are going to be looking for agents to act on their behalf

A number of the Israeli companies will be coming to The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit in June to meet with potential partners, distributors, clients and competitors. Have you registered yet?

Technorati Tags:
Canadian Telecom Summit, Israel

How much competition counts as “enough” for data access services? I am using the term “data access service”, because I don’t think that we need to limit ourselves to internet access services.

The internet is the interconnection of all these disparate access and backbone networks. Some parts are open; some parts are closed; some parts are public; some parts are private; some parts are managed; some parts are more of a free-for-all. The internet even interconnects to non-IP networks, such as for the purpose of VoIP calls or connecting to legacy financial data networks.

Remember early internet access services from AOL and other commercial services? They provided a special user interface to simplify service for the uninitiated. Those services were tightly managed and controlled, but they were internet access all the same, weren’t they?

So how much competition is enough?

I think this could be a relevant question in discussions on net neutrality.

I keep hearing some folks whining about monopolies in internet access, even as people talk about their cable company and phone company offerings. Monopoly, duopoly. Let’s not get too fussed about accuracy when whipping up the masses.

Let’s not forget about the wireless industry. All of the mobile carriers are offering choice in data access services. Not a real substitute? Recall that the OECD considers mobile wireless in its broadband connectivity figures – that is why Korea has 20% of their households enjoying with no computer!

And there are more mobile wireless choices coming to Canadians later this year or early in 2010.

Most of us can select satellite service and many areas have fixed wireless alternatives as well. This is all on the side of facilities-based competition in retail internet services. We haven’t started to look at resellers yet.

There aren’t a lot of barriers to entry. So, how many competitors does it take to satisfy regulators that consumers have choice? If consumers are deemed to have adequate choice, then why is the CRTC even looking at the network management practices of a competitive industry?

We are looking at Building Broadband and Net Neutrality in two of the sessions among other topical issues being explored at The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit in June.

Have you registered yet? Early bird rates expire at the end of February!

Today’s posting comes from a loyal reader who was inspired by our recent comments [such as here and here] on the potential for the government to stimulate broadband accessibility as part of next week’s budget.

Next week, we are expecting that the Finance and Industry departments will likely announce some sort of funding program for universal broadband. The real challenge will be to implement it in a rational way.

My reader suggests that the CRTC has a lot of experience examining and approving individual projects (recall the Deferral Account program). That experience and the relevant staff might be put to good use rather than watching Industry Canada design a new system and training new people.

At the same time, he points out that the CRTC might want to revisit and revise their Basic Service Objective.

Currently, the CRTC’s definition of Basic Service refers to low speed (dial up) access to the Internet. With a national broadband stimulus program, we can no longer think of dial-up as basic.

Basic Service is defined in Decision 99-16:

• Individual line local service with touch-tone dialling, provided by a digital switch with capability to connect via low speed data transmission to the Internet at local rates;
• Enhanced calling features, including access to emergency services, Voice Message Relay service, and privacy protection features;
• Access to operator and directory assistance services;
• Access to the long distance network; and
• A copy of a current local telephone directory.

Memories of an era that gave us polyester leisure suits.

Much of the current definition of the Basic Service Objective has been rendered, arguably, if not clearly, out of date, by technology and market changes.

It is time for a review.