To start with, I don’t believe the press has accurately reported what was said. The Globe and Mail said
Videotron boss Robert Depatie wants the federal government to slap a transmission tariff on providers — like the music and film industry — so they can shoulder part of the burden.
That isn’t what he said, according to the speech I received. He didn’t ask the feds to step in. The Globe’s account would seem to fly in the face of his concurrent press release that called for cable deregulation and his “vibrant plea for free competition.” M. Depatie said:
What is missing in this model is a way for the provider of content to share part of the content revenue stream for the use of the network. If the movie studio, say, were to mail a DVD – not a untypical scenario – they would expect to pay postage or courier fees – why should they not expect a transmission tariff.
He also spoke from his past business experience.
Before I worked at Videotron, I was in the food business – we were a ‘content producer’ in the parlance of today’s communications business. To reach our customers, we dealt with a distribution channel, in our case, grocery stores.
To reach our customers we needed to convince our distribution channels to place our product in advantageous positions (end of aisles, eye-to-shoulder height on shelves – too high, or too low and sales suffered), and to help promote our product. We paid for that service. We compensated the distributor for his ‘help’ in making our product more successful.
Not all producers pay stores for product placement. And I have noticed that my neighbourhood grocery stores and drug stores give preferred placement to their house brands. But I don’t see people shouting about food neutrality. There is no ‘Save the soft drinks’ movement. Although with winter approaching I would like to find Red River cereal more prominently displayed, I shop around until I find it. I’m not calling for a federal inquiry as to why Sugar Zombies are easier to find at every store.
There is limited shelf space next to the cash registers or at the end of each aisle. How do you think the decisions get made as to which products get displayed there?
If we are OK with Sympatico presenting MSN more prominently and Rogers presenting Yahoo because those companies struck appropriate business relationships, what is wrong with a movie distributor doing a deal in order to be able to deliver the goods over a faster pipe to its customers? I don’t see him talking about blocking the other movie distributors.
Instead of movies, let’s say that your business wants you to work at home. But they are concerned because at 3:30 each day, your neighbour’s kid comes home and starts downloading all the TV shows and music his friends were talking about in school. So your connectivity gets spotty. Should you be able to subscribe to ‘Bandwidth Plus’ – a service that prioritizes your connection so you can keep working and getting paid?
Now, if you can subscribe to that Bandwidth Plus service, is there any reason why your office can’t subscribe to that service for all of its telecommuting employees?
What if my internet brokerage wanted to buy the same service for me to make sure that I could trade my telecom stocks the second that I hear about another flip-flop on income trust rules? Shouldn’t they be able to offer their best customers a way to make sure our trades get through?
Why is it any different for any other form of content?
We all want broadband providers to increase the size of the pipes coming into our homes. We want them to take on the multi-billion dollar risks associated with making that possible, trying to sort out how to recover the cost.
A business model that seeks to find ways to keep my monthly bill down to a manageable amount is just fine with me.
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Videotron, Mark Evans, Net Neutrality, Mark Goldberg