The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit, June 5-7, is pleased to announce that The Honourable Navdeep Singh Bains, Minister, Innovation, Science and Economic Development, will deliver the opening keynote address on June 5.

He joins 60 industry leaders speaking at Canada’s most important gathering of the information and communications technology industry. These senior executives and thought influencers will share their big-picture visions of where we are and where we are headed.

What role will they play in shaping how Canadian information and communications technology and services transform our business and personal lives?

You will have a chance to ask questions, share your thoughts and engage in give-and-take with our speakers and the other attendees. The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit is all about:

• Networking and Learning;
• Forming Relationships and Exchanging Views;
• Challenging and Listening.

All of this and more is what makes The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit the must-attend event of the year.

Service providers, equipment & solutions vendors, application providers, professional services organizations, end-users, financial analysts, government and investors. All will be present at The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit.

And so should you!

Register today for The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit.

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Continuing Professional Development: For lawyers, The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit can be claimed as “Substantive Hours” toward the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements.

My management philosophy was greatly influenced by some experiences I had working at Bell Labs 30 years ago. There were some exceptionally bright people there and I had a chance to work with some really great leaders. More than 10 years ago, I wrote about “Doing well by doing good,” where a corporation gets involved in community activities, doing the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do.

At the time, I was writing about TELUS launching its Toronto Community Board, noting that “In addition to funding various community initiatives, TELUS plans to have a national community activity day – a day of volunteerism for its employees. Congratulations to those involved.”

I was thinking back on the past 10 years of TELUS community leadership as I flipped through the latest TELUS Sustainability Report. TELUS applies a very broad definition of “sustainability,” connecting to all areas of its business: increasing digital inclusion; transforming healthcare; environmental stewardship; advancing education; and, community investment. TELUS tries to find a role for every one of its employees team member to play in this initiative.

We believe in the harmonious relationship between our team and the health and prosperity of our communities. For this reason, we take a balanced approach to our sustainability strategy development, focusing on:

• Digital Economy: connecting customers with the information and people that matter most to them
• Health: empowering better health knowledge, management and outcomes
• Environment: addressing climate change and improving resource productivity
• Education: providing opportunities for our future leaders
• Privacy and Trust: committing to respect individual privacy and maintaining transparency about how we handle data
• Community: fostering more inclusive and equitable communities.

The print version of the report is 165 pages [14.2MB, pdf], and it is worth a look, or go to the interactive site.

It can be inspirational.

As my frequent readers might expect, I turned immediately to the section on digital inclusion, looking at a number of initiatives beyond TELUS’ “Internet for good,” and activities to help settle refugees as part of its version of “Connecting Canadians.”

Its strategy is plainly stated: “By harnessing the power of our technology, the reach of our brand and the hearts of our team, we are driving business value and addressing pressing social challenges in Canada.”

Or more plainly stated, they are doing the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do.

This commentary appears on CARTT.ca

It is almost a defining characteristic for Canadians to distinguish ourselves from our neighbors to the south. The untrained ear may think we speak English somewhat similarly, but Canadians emphatically define ourselves as “not American” while we roll-up-the-rim-to-win.

That doesn’t keep us from wishing we had American prices for gasoline, milk, eggs, airfares, clothing and alcohol. It is springtime, and it is natural for us to look wistfully at greener grass growing on the other side of the border. We can add the USA’s unlimited mobile data plans to the list, prompted by one of the first acts by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Ajit Pai of dropping an investigation into zero rating practices by US carriers. The removal of that regulation resulted in every major carrier launching an offering of unlimited data plans.

Now, Chairman Pai has teed up the restoration of the free and open internet as he recently announced his plan to restore the light touch regulatory approach that helped make the Internet great.  Not a moment too soon. New research indicates that the misguided Title II regulation in the United States and the general pro-regulatory black cloud that has hung over the FCC in recent years, has deterred some $30-40 billion of internet investment annually in the US.

Canada’s current regulatory environment is reminiscent of the Obama administration’s FCC in which the Orwellian euphemisms of “openness” and “choice” characterized greater government control. Currently, there is an official telecom policy direction requiring the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to “rely on market forces to the maximum extent feasible” and “when relying on regulation, use measures that are efficient and proportionate to their purpose and that interfere with the operation of competitive market forces to the minimum extent necessary.”  Still, a growing number of CRTC regulations (including price controls on internet access and regulating the internet) have served to reduce differentiation between service providers, such as with mobile video services, such as NFL Mobile and Bell Mobility.

The CRTC claims that its increasingly heavy hand “relies on market forces to the maximum extent feasible, seeks to remove barriers to entry, and is a measure that is efficient and proportionate to its purpose.” But it is unclear that the CRTC’s policy would survive an independent audit of compliance to certify whether its direction is consistent with market-based policy. I have written before about the cost of regulation in Canada [here and here] and have often asked, how will we measure success? We don’t know. The CRTC offers no measurement.

As one long-time observer of the Canadian regulatory scene recently asked, should we expect capital to migrate to Canada because of our improved rules? If we look at the rate of startups in Canada versus the rate in the US, should we expect that rate improve in Canada relative to US? I think not. Investment is pouring into the US as a result of a return to its pro-competition and pro-consumer approach. In spite of the net neutrality policies meant to improve innovation in Canada, Canadian entrepreneurs continue to flock the US.

In general, the world is siding with the US, not Canada, on this issue. Courts in Netherlands, Sweden, and Slovenia have struck down heavy handed net neutrality regulation and price controls that restrict zero-rating and free data policies. With any luck, the bold and much-needed moves from the FCC in the US will provide the needed example to the CRTC in Canada and help us restore internet freedom again.

Internet Freedom is certain to be among the topics discussed at The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit on June 5-7 in Toronto.

Join in the discussion.

Have you registered yet?

June 12, 1992 marked the release of the CRTC’s landmark decision to open up facilities-based competition in telecommunications markets. I remember the day like it was yesterday.

The Canadian Telecom Summit was launched to celebrate the 10th anniversary of that decision; it was a kind of reunion for many of us who had been so involved in transforming the market dynamics of this sector. This year’s event marks 25 years of competitive communications in Canada. And for the past 15 years, we continue to meet each year to discuss the trends and issues that influence development in this critical sector of the digital economy.

What is the state of competition in Canada’s telecommunications industry 25 years later? That is the subject of a report being released today by the Montreal Economic Institute [6.9MB, pdf].

This year’s edition, the fourth annual report, surveys where Canada stands and finds:

• Canadians continue to enjoy competitive, quality telecommunications services, and are among the biggest consumers of telecommunications services in the world;
• Penetration and usage rates for tablets, smartphones, and LTE connections are among the highest for industrialized countries;
• Canadians continue to enjoy some of the most advanced and efficient wireless and broadband Internet services in the world;
• The prices Canadians pay for wireless services remain generally higher than in Europe and in Australia, but comparable to or lower than in the United States and Japan. However, Canada ranks first in terms of affordability when taking into account income per capita and the state of competition in the market;
• Considering the additional costs associated with the Canadian market’s low density of users per km², Canada fares relatively well both in terms of prices and in terms of the quality of services offered.

The report also examines policies that may be inhibiting the kinds of investments necessary to enable the Internet of Things (IoT). As I have recently pointed out, the report says “the CRTC too often merely pays lip service to the principles of the Policy Direction, and has largely gone back to its old interventionist ways.” The report does not entirely blame the CRTC “for the lax enforcement of the principles enshrined in the Policy Direction.” The report authors say that the Harper Government, which had introduced the Policy Direction in 2006, later “embraced a more interventionist telecom policy agenda,” with “its reaction to the CRTC’s 2011 decision on usage-based billing” serving as the most blatant example.

The report says we may need “to recognize that the Policy Direction was a good initial compromise between regulatory discretion and direct government involvement in the policy-making process, but that more is needed to counter the regulator’s documented tendency to undermine its principles.”

Looking forward, the report is concerned that bad policies will become even worse.

In the first three annual editions of this Research Paper, we made the case that the best policies to bring about an optimal level of competition in the telecommunications sector were policies that let markets decide how many players, and which ones, should offer services.

The authors reiterate their concerns given “the rising importance of the Internet of Things,” which is facilitated by investment in the next generation of wireless networks, 5G, requiring billions of dollars of further investment. The report’s conclusion warns that “policies embraced by Industry Canada and the CRTC over the past decade aimed at propping up undercapitalized wireless players and broadband resellers” could discourage investment in IoT architectures and thereby harm the economy.

A key component of the federal government’s priorities is the so-called “Innovation Agenda.” If it wants to “walk the walk” when it comes to innovation, it should stop fighting yesterday’s regulatory battles. Instead, Ottawa should adapt its policies to the new IoT reality, so as not to hamper the tremendous positive impact it will have on Canada’s economy.

The report is certain to contribute to themes being explored at The Canadian Telecom Summit, taking place June 5-7 in Toronto.

Join in the discussion.

Have you registered yet?

In 2015, the government of Canada released what it called its digital strategy, a pamphlet called Digital Canada 150 [3MB, pdf]. It set a vision:

By Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017, our vision is for a thriving digital Canada, underscored by five key pillars: connecting Canadians, protecting Canadians, economic opportunities, digital government and Canadian content.

Five pillars, each with different objectives and each promising a variety of actions to achieve those goals.

How have we been doing? In “Measuring success,” I wrote, “Set clear objectives. Align activities with the achievement of those objectives. Stop doing things that are contrary to the objectives.”

In “Canada’s innovation scorecard, I asked “How should Canadians measure our innovation agenda? How do we define and measure success? How do we know that we are heading in the right direction?”

We are just 2 months away from Canada’s 150th birthday. How well have we achieved the vision for “a thriving digital Canada?”

A month from now, we’ll look at these issues at The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit, June 5-7 in Toronto. Have you registered yet?