MTS Allstream was quick to trash the report of the Telecom Policy Review panel, calling it “Hopelessly Complicated and Impractical.”
In the near term, we see no practical effect on our business. Longer term, the recommendations appear hopelessly complicated and impractical. They appear based on the rather implausible notion that greater bureaucracy will result in greater efficiency for Canadian consumers and businesses.
Let’s look at this statement and parse it.
“In the near term, we see no practical effect on our business. ” Correct. Of course, even if MTS Allstream loved the report, it would have no effect on anybody in the near term. It is a report, not a CRTC Decision, not a new Telecom Act, etc.
“Longer term, the recommendations appear hopelessly complicated and impractical.” To start with, let’s remember that this is a panel whose mandate was:
…to make recommendations on how to move Canada toward a modern telecommunications framework in a manner that benefits Canadian industry and consumers.
The government’s objective is to ensure that Canada has a strong, internationally competitive telecommunications industry, which delivers world-class affordable services and products for the economic and social benefit of all Canadians in all regions of Canada.
The panel is asked to make recommendations that will help achieve this objective.
With these objectives, we had to be expecting something more substantial than a weekend school report!
The report is 400 pages long and it uses detailed technical language. Not just geek technical terms, but economist terms, lawyer terms and social policy terminology. Of course the report is complicated. Hopelessly though?
After you get past the first look, you realize that the report contains step-by-step instructions on how to do it. How to build a 21st century policy and regulatory framework.
There are precise wording changes recommended for various sections of the Telecom Act. Details on how to open up foreign ownership. Recommendations for follow-up work to cover the issues that were beyond the scope of this panel. Complicated? Yes. Impractical? Hardly.
“They appear based on the rather implausible notion that greater bureaucracy will result in greater efficiency for Canadian consumers and businesses.” My initial read of the report led me to a similar set of thoughts. Why create new arms of government if we are trying to streamline regulation and paperwork? How is the creation of bureaucracy consistent with migration to market forces?
More than most companies, MTS Allstream should be familiar with the disruptive benefits of reorganization once in a while. Could the Telecommunications Consumer Agency exist within today’s CRTC. I think so. But those are not the major issues.
I am certain that the heartburn being felt at MTS Allstream has little to do with overall complexity and bureaucracy. Their pain is summarized in the opening statement from the panel:
One significant proposal will phase out the regulation of the wholesale prices and conditions on which the major telecom companies make their networks available to competitors. Our goal here is to provide incentives for telecom companies to invest in new advanced infrastructure – and not just to buy it from the major companies at low regulated rates.
In other words, the panel believes in facilities-based competition, just like the CRTC has been saying. MTS is heavily reliant on its competitors for access. It has been relying on regulated wholesale rates rather than build its own access. In fact, it sold off its holdings in Inukshuk, the one opportunity to economically control its own destiny.
MTS Allstream: Be grateful for the recommendations to relax foreign ownership restrictions. It may be just the thing to get you back on your feet.