Contradicting the popular narrative, a recent set of reports from PwC Canada puts Canadian unlimited mobile wireless plans atop affordability rankings among the G7 countries.

In December, PwC released “Understanding wireless affordability in Canada” [pdf, 4MB] and last week, it released an addendum, “Impact of unlimited data plans on affordability” [pdf, 1.6MB]. According to the reports, “unlimited plans represent a significant increase in value for the average Canadian consumer. By 2020, the price paid per GB of data is estimated to decline by 50% compared to 2018 levels, and by 38% compared to 2019 levels.”

PwC says that Canadian consumers are getting access to the top ranked unlimited data plans among the G7 countries, based on four key dimensions measuring user experience: speed; latency; price per GB; and, access. According to PwC, “Canada performs consistently well across these key dimensions, and performs particularly well on speed.”

PwC’s December affordability study was motivated by consideration of the 7.7% annual growth in Canadian household expenditures on wireless devices and services (between 2010 and 2017) versus much lower increases in disposable income.

To provide a holistic view of wireless affordability in Canada, this report examined a number of aspects related to the overall affordability of consumer wireless in Canada, including:

1. The changing pattern of household expenditures, as wireless data use is enabling a different delivery of products and services – including the substitution of select historic spend categories by wireless.
2. The assessment of wireless affordability in Canada, as measured by recognized affordability metrics.
3. The affordability of wireless services for Canadians in proportion to their income relative to other jurisdictions.

Among the results, PwC found that wireless expenditures have reduced spending on such items as landline phone, postal, and photo products and services, as well as audio, video and printed reading materials. In addition, citing ride sharing and alternative accommodation services, PwC says wireless services have “been instrumental in the growth of a number of new businesses that have directly or indirectly improved access, reduced search costs and enhanced choices for the Canadian consumer.”

PwC found that, as mobile video and social media usage increased, the average spend per gigabyte of data consumed dropped at a compound annual rate of nearly 26% between 2014 and 2017. “These trends indicate that value for money from the wireless expenditure increased.” PwC forecasts that the unlimited data plans will reduce the price per GB by a further 50%, between 2018 and 2020.

As evidence that wireless expenditures did not impose an unreasonable burden, PwC observed that across every income quintile, recreational expenditures increased faster than the total expenditures (non-discretionary, wireless, and discretionary expenditures). “It is evident that wireless expenditure did not impose an unreasonable burden on the average Canadian household’s non-discretionary expenditure across income quintiles”. Further, PwC measured affordability against the target threshold from the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) and found the threshold was met across all income quintiles in 2018.

Quoted in an opinion piece by Rita Trichur in the Globe and Mail, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada says “Cellphone and wireless bills are putting too much pressure on Canadian household budgets.” Statistics Canada data simply does not support that assertion. If household budgets were under “too much pressure,” how could recreational spending be increasing across every income quintile?

For the purpose of international benchmarking, PwC compared Canada to the US, Australia and the UK. It found that an average Canadian household spent 1.6% of its disposable income on wireless, less that what was spent by an average US household or Australian household. PwC said that UK households spent 1.3% of disposable income. Looking at the data by income quintile, wireless service was more affordable in the UK across all income quintiles; compared to Australia, wireless was more affordable in Canada across every income quintile except the lowest.

In my year-end wrap-up, I wrote that there are indeed some Canadians unable to find an affordable device or service plan that they may need to participate in today’s economy. We know these technologies can help find a job, maintain health, be in touch with families and friends. In late October, we learned that nearly 1 in 5 Canadians in the lowest income quartile still doesn’t have broadband connection at home.

But, we also know that in many cases, it isn’t just an issue of affordability; the experience learned from targeted programs that deliver low-cost connected computers have helped us to understand that there are a number of factors – not just lower prices – that inhibit adoption of communications technologies among certain demographics.

As I have written in the past, most government programs continue to target increasing “supply”, extending the geographic reach of services.

We need to focus on strategies to drive “demand”: increasing adoption rates among groups that could subscribe, but have not. That is a problem across all geographies, and perhaps more pronounced in urban markets. That should start with developing a greater understanding of those individuals and households on the wrong side of the digital divide.

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An earlier version of this article appeared last week on National Newswatch.

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In an article in the Financial Post this past Friday, an economist calculates that Canadians’ mobile bills include a hidden tax of 12-16% to cover the fees paid by carriers to the government for spectrum.

Robert Crandall calculates the spectrum fees paid by Canadian carriers to be 4 times what European carriers are paying, adding more than $4 billion per year to Canadians’ mobile services bills. According to Crandall, “If spectrum costs were as low as those paid by European wireless carriers, Canadian wireless rates could be as much as 12 percent lower.”

Crandall is a Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute and he has authored or co-authored 8 books and more than 40 articles on communications policy. He is currently a consultant to TELUS and has served as a consultant to Canada’s Competition Bureau, the FCC, the FTC, and the Department of Justice in the US.

So, we have an interesting tension: We want carriers to invest in state-of-the-art networks and offer leading edge services to all Canadians throughout this country, which requires capital for hard assets and for acquisition of spectrum. The government is calling for more competition and lower prices, but has handed the Minister a mandate that could continue to inflate spectrum prices through scarcity caused by new-entrant set-asides.

Over the past few months, I have written a number of pieces looking at Canadian spectrum policy, including:

• “The cost of spectrum policy”,
• “Spectrum policy and auctions”, and
• “Spectrum policy in the race for 5G”.

As I warned 2 weeks ago, “There is a cost associated with spectrum policy.” Crandall’s article shows how costly Canada’s spectrum policy has been for carriers and ultimately, for consumers.

Crandall measures some of the financial costs being paid by consumers for spectrum policies of the past, which have inflated our monthly bills by as much as 12% with what National Post columnist Terence Corcoran called “taxes that are paid by consumers.” Corcoran also published a commentary on Friday, “The biggest cellphone price gouger is Ottawa”.

There isn’t much we can do about spectrum policies of the past, but we need to acknowledge how Ottawa’s own spectrum policies continue to contribute so substantially to the prices Canadians are paying for mobile services. For example, the Canadian wireless industry pays nearly $200 million per year in annual spectrum licence fees – on top of the billions of dollars in fees paid to acquire spectrum rights at auction. Compare these annual fees to the US industry paying about half that amount (approximately US$80 million), despite 10 times the market size. As a result, on a per user basis, Canada’s service providers are paying spectrum fees that are 20 times the levels in the US.

After reading the Crandall and Corcoran articles, I couldn’t help thinking that the government could easily achieve the 25% mobile price reduction it wants by taking matters into its own hands, or rather, by taking its own hands out of mobile consumers’ pockets. Consumers are paying 13% in harmonized sales taxes (HST) on top of a hidden and embedded spectrum tax of 12%. That could produce the 25% reduction in consumer prices the government is seeking. Mission accomplished.

We need to get spectrum policy right going forward.

In his remarks to the National White House Conference on Small Business in 1986, Ronald Reagan said “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

“Tax it, regulate it, subsidize it” comes to mind when I look at how we seem to be approaching too many elements of Canada’s digital economy.

Last Friday, I read an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal written by former FCC Chief Economist (and current professor of Economics at Clemson) Thomas Hazlett, “A Lesson for Today’s Tech Trustbusters”. In it, he writes of the angst caused by the $183B acquisition of Time Warner by AOL in 2000.

Regulators feared AOL’s acquisition of Time Warner would stifle innovation. University of Michigan economist Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, who wrote the Federal Trade Commission’s report, said that the combination “will horizontally and vertically increase AOL’s power in the market for internet online services,” which would have anticompetitive effects and harm consumers.

As Hazlett notes, executive mismanagement and clashing corporate cultures are generally cited as reasons for the failure of the merged companies, “But the episode holds lessons for politicians and antitrust regulators, who too often view market rivalry too narrowly.” His article describes the regulatory measures to force AOL to open up its instant messaging platform and how it was quickly superseded by technology. “Texting, Skype, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Twitter and Instagram displaced AOL’s chatting program. None of these new entrants connected with Instant Messenger, or one another, and it didn’t seem to matter.”

Hazlett also notes that this example was hardly isolated. “In 2005 the Bush administration prevented Blockbuster from acquiring Hollywood Video on antitrust grounds: The merger would threaten to monopolize video rentals.”

Consider what is happening in Canada. Recall the CRTC’s interventions into how streaming services Crave TV and Shomi should be offered to consumers? Was regulatory action required or couldn’t the marketplace figure it out?

Why is the CRTC continuing to interfere with service providers seeking to lower monthly device payments for consumers? As I have written before, some aspects of the Wireless Code raised the monthly cost of mobile and removed an important choice from consumers.

What purpose is actually served by limiting device amortization to 2 years?

Customers can still switch at will anytime during the contract period. They just have to pay off the balance owing. With higher device costs, people have hefty balances owing anyway, whether it is a two or three year contract.

Eliminating the regulatory restriction on longer contracts could lead to carriers offering direct consumer incentives to switch: “Come to us and we will pay up to $600 of your remaining balance.”

Once the Commission allowed consumers the right to leave a carrier by simply paying off the remaining balance, what purpose is served by the further regulation of how long the amortization period could be?

If the CRTC gets out of the way, surely the marketplace can solve the challenge of consumers wanting to switch service providers before their payments are complete. If new entrants find it tough to lure customers away, they can always pay off the device balance for the new customer and take over the loan. Was there sufficient evidence of a failure in the marketplace to develop a solution before the CRTC intervened so dramatically to remove the choice of a longer amortization period?

Last week, I wrote “Hindsight may be 20/20, but as so many investment prospectuses warn, past performance is no guarantee of future results.”

When we develop policies, we need to resist politically expedient routes and think 3 moves ahead, playing the game more like a chess master than a novice. Communications policy issues are complex and often benefit from looking at secondary and tertiary impacts, trying to contemplate unintended consequences.

As Hazlett has written, there are lessons to be learned from looking at market rivalry or defining the market too narrowly.

“Tax it, regulate it, subsidize it.”

You don’t need to look very hard to see how so many elements of Canada’s digital economy strategy fall into one or more of these categories.

Can we consider a better approach?

Twice before, I have written posts entitled “Getting out of the way” [July 9, 2012 | April 6, 2016]. I wrote another entitled “Keeping out of the way”.

I continue to think “the future will be brighter for Canadian innovation if the government would try harder to get out of the way.”

What does it mean for Canadians to have the ability to be free from online discrimination including bias and harassment?

In the mandate letter for Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains, he is told to “Work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and the Minister of Canadian Heritage” to deliver that as part of advancing Canada’s Digital Charter. There is a similar section in the mandate letters for the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and for the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and the Minister of Canadian Heritage to advance Canada’s Digital Charter and enhanced powers for the Privacy Commissioner, in order to establish a new set of online rights, including: data portability; the ability to withdraw, remove and erase basic personal data from a platform; the knowledge of how personal data is being used, including with a national advertising registry and the ability to withdraw consent for the sharing or sale of data; the ability to review and challenge the amount of personal data that a company or government has collected; proactive data security requirements; the ability to be informed when personal data is breached with appropriate compensation; and the ability to be free from online discrimination including bias and harassment.

There is a lot packed into that paragraph. For now, let’s look at just the last clause: “the ability to be free from online discrimination including bias and harassment.”

The Criminal Code has a section that deals with Criminal Harassment. Is that what is being considered here? Is it the removal of content subsequent to a judicial finding of harassment? If so, then it is understandable that Canadians should have an ability to be free from online criminal harassment.

The idea of an ability to be free from online bias is more troubling.

What does it mean “to be free from online discrimination including bias”? Simply having a bias isn’t illegal and it should not be. We all have certain biases, frequently expressed through the newspapers we read or the political parties we favour. Commission of a criminal offence motivated by bias is a consideration for sentencing, but do we (or should we) have an “ability to be free from online … bias”?

If the mandate letters’ intent is to protect people from being defamed online, there is already a body of law that affords protections. A defamatory publication remains defamatory whether it is published in print, broadcast, or online. Republishing a defamatory statement, even online republishing, is in essence a new publication, and in most cases, the republisher becomes liable.

Will someone’s right to be free of online bias interfere with my right to express my thoughts, my beliefs, my opinions, despite my accumulated biases? As the Supreme Court of Canada found in 2008 in WIC Radio v Simpson,

“Chilling” false and defamatory speech is not a bad thing in itself, but chilling debate on matters of legitimate public interest raises issues of inappropriate censorship and self‑censorship. Public controversy can be a rough trade, and the law needs to accommodate its requirements.
…
A society that seeks to promote healthy debate should require evidence of a malicious motive before restricting the expression of opinions based on true facts that concern matters of public interest. It would protect spirited — but not mean-spirited — speech.

About a year ago, there was an article that called for the creation of a “Moderation Standards Council” to address how social media platforms deal with and moderate what is termed as “harmful content.” At the time, I expressed concerned about the proposal for such a body:

we need to take a look at whether a democratic country like Canada should be or even could be involved in creating a legislative framework to assert such authority over what might be termed ‘merely’ harmful content, as distinguished from illegal content. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: …

2. 2. freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

I noticed that the mandate letters are silent on the issue of “hate”. The Criminal Code has defined Hate Propaganda. Is there a reason that “bias” is explicitly included as an example of discrimination while “hate” is left out? It might have been easier to understand this part of the Ministers’ shared mandate had the examples been online speech that can be adjudicated by the Courts.

Aaron Sorkin wrote a line in An American President that I have quoted a number of times on Twitter and on these pages:

You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.

As I wrote last year, we need to set a very high bar in defining what forms of speech are illegal, as contrasted with speech that someone merely feels is biased.

We need to protect spirited — but not mean-spirited — speech as we continue to promote healthy debate on issues.