Strategic market management

The CRTC released its strategic plan last week. It is subtitled “Connecting Canadians through technology and culture”.

To be blunt, the strategic plan is light on details. In my view, it reads more like a preliminary outline than a plan.

There are three broad headings:

  • Promoting competition and investment to deliver reliable, affordable, and high-quality Internet and cellphone services;
  • Modernizing Canada’s broadcasting framework and creating the bargaining framework for the Online News Act; and
  • Investing in the CRTC to better serve Canadians.

Under that first heading, it is interesting that the CRTC only refers to “internet and cellphone services”. Personally, I prefer to refer to “mobile services” in order to better capture the breadth of devices. More importantly, the idea of fixed telephone services is absent. Why wouldn’t the CRTC address a multi-dimensional approach, referring to voice and data, fixed and mobile?

The CRTC will continue to:

  • Implement a renewed approach to Internet and cellphone competition, which includes ensuring the rates that competitors pay to access the networks of the large Internet and cellphone companies are just and reasonable.
  • Monitor the markets for Internet and cellphone services to ensure the right balance between increased competition and continued investment in high-quality networks.
  • Work with government partners to help connect rural, remote and Indigenous communities to high-speed Internet, including by: approving projects as part of the Broadband Fund’s third call for applications; launching a process to create an Indigenous stream of the Broadband Fund; and issuing a decision to help improve the reliability, affordability, and competitiveness of telecommunications services in the Far North.
  • Support and protect consumers, including by: making cellphone use more affordable when Canadians travel internationally and within Canada; making shopping for Internet services easier; enhancing protections for outages; and consulting on new measures to help reduce online spam and nuisance calls.
  • Work with provinces, territories and municipalities to help support the implementation of next-generation 9-1-1.

At least one industry veteran observed “It appears to be essentially doing tomorrow what it was doing yesterday.”

Indeed, the press release for this year’s Strategic Plan links to last year’s Areas of Focus (2023), a document dating back at least 17 months (according to the Internet Archive).

Headlines have been updated, but the three themes remain intact. “Promote competition to deliver reliable and high-quality Internet and cellphone services to Canadians at lower prices” became more balanced with “Promoting competition and investment to deliver reliable, affordable, and high-quality Internet and cellphone services”. “Modernize Canada’s broadcasting system to promote Canadian and Indigenous content” became “Modernizing Canada’s broadcasting framework and creating the bargaining framework for the Online News Act”. “Improve the CRTC to better serve Canadians” changed to “Investing in the CRTC to better serve Canadians”. (That last one sounds like a warning it is going to cost more money.)

In the new plan, “Actions” have become more detailed and the CRTC sets out desired outcomes for each of its areas of focus. It is likely helpful for us to have a clear understanding of the outcomes being sought by the regulator. Perhaps it is precisely the increased details in the plan that gives me pause.

The Commission should resist the temptation to follow a path of centralized management of the communications industry. That is an approach that might have been better suited to what was once called a ‘Soviet-style monopoly’ era.

We have seen an increased level of regulatory micro-management of the telecom sector as I described a few weeks ago. At the beginning of 2024, I had a post asking “Can light touch regulation benefit consumers?”

Last year, we read “The CRTC will make faster and more transparent decisions”. This year, “The CRTC will continue to issue timely and clear decisions; address the historical backlog of Part 1 applications and post new ones as they are received; and inform Broadband Fund applicants of the status of their application once a decision has been made.” It sounds like a wordier way of promising the same thing.

As the CRTC moves to execute its strategic plan, it should consider increased regulatory humility and understand the potential consumer benefits to arise from a lighter hand on the market.

Who knows? Maybe it will be result in making faster and more transparent decisions.

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