On Tuesday, Conservative leadership hopeful Maxime Bernier said the CRTC only took the Policy Direction seriously for a few years before reverting back to its old ways. Yesterday, CRTC staff issued a letter that seems to prove him right.

Bernier said “Canadian consumers are best served when telecom providers are free to compete and invest, not when bureaucrats tell them what to do.”

On Wednesday, CRTC staff sent a letter to Iristel and NetTalk, admonishing the companies for holding Canadian consumers “hostage”.

NetTalk was buying wholesale telecom services from Iristel to offer deeply discounted home phone service. Iristel disconnected NetTalk customers after a prolonged commercial dispute.

Commission staff notes that Iristel informed netTALK in advance that it would cease providing telecommunications services and traffic to netTALK as a result of an ongoing dispute. Despite that information, it does not appear that netTALK immediately took measures to port its numbers to a new underlying carrier. Commission staff believes that netTALK could have minimized the chances of disconnection, and impacting tens of thousands of Canadians, if it had taken actions more quickly and followed the progress more closely.

The CRTC goes on to provide the two companies with “reminders”:

• Commission staff reminds both parties that any dispute, commercial or otherwise, is never a legitimate reason to not abide by any of the Commission’s regulatory requirements.
• Parties are reminded that the Commission provides services to help parties resolve disputes related to the Broadcasting Act or the Telecommunications Act.

As to the latter point, keep in mind that the CRTC has not shown any sense of urgency in resolving a customer impacting commercial dispute between Sugar Mobile and Rogers. That file (8620-J106-201601633) has been in front of the CRTC since mid February. So, it might be reasonable to ask if the CRTC can deal with resolution of commercial disputes in a timely manner.

As to the former point, it is unclear that any of the CRTC’s regulatory requirements were violated, so what exactly are the regulatory requirements of which the parties needed to be reminded? The CRTC’s letter was written and signed by staff, not Commissioners, although the CRTC’s Twitter stream gives the appearance that the letter carried the weight of an official CRTC order.

One might question what the recipients of the letter are expected (or required) to do.

At the end of the day, keep in mind NetTalk offers consumer services that cost about one-tenth the price charged by incumbent carriers, with basic plans starting at about $50 per year.

I bought a hammer last summer at a local dollar store. I paid a dollar for it. It worked just fine for putting up a picture hook into dry wall, but when I tried to drive a nail into my deck, the head of the hammer broke off the handle. I didn’t go running to a regulator because the dollar store product didn’t perform the same way a hardware store hammer works. At a certain point, consumers should take responsibility for their own choices. If you buy a phone service that only costs a couple bucks per month, that might be a clue that might not perform the same way as a service that costs 10 times as much.

Bernier said “As the industry evolves, the CRTC finds new reasons to continue to regulate it, in order to justify its existence. In doing so, it is not protecting consumers, it is only protecting its own power.” Yesterday’s letter from CRTC staff shows that he may be absolutely correct.

The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit wrapped up yesterday. Here are more stories that we found about the proceedings:

• Feature Interview: With incumbents who “want to kill us” Brouillette explains why her company needs help: Cartt.ca
• CTS 2016: Spectrum must be allocated on an equitable basis, says Videotron’s Brouillette: Cartt.ca
• CTS 2016: Be vigilant when cops ask for subscriber data, privacy commissioner tells network owners: Cartt.ca
• CTS 2016: Change ongoing with too many empty TV calories, but linear will live on: Cartt.ca
• Privacy commish warns telecoms about transparency reporting, metadata: The Wire Report
• Videotron’s Brouillette asks Liberals to keep 4th player policy for 600 MHz: The Wire Report
• Videotron Wants Trudeau to Maintain Harper’s Telecom Policies: Bloomberg
• Terence Corcoran: Maxime Bernier joins the battle to end the CRTC’s uselessness: Financial Post
• Videotron pleads for more bandwidth to compete with Big Three: The Globe and Mail
• CRTC has wrong focus on digital divide, carriers complain: IT World Canada
• More Canadian telcos should detail police data requests: Privacy commissioner: IT World Canada
• Some Canadian firms still think they won’t be targets of cyber attacks, conference told: IT World Canada

The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit will take place June 5-7, 2017 in Toronto, marking 25 years of communications competition in Canada. Plan to join us!

Stories from day 2 of The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit:

• Bernier calls for end of ‘control-freak’ CRTC’s role as telecom regulator: The Wire Report
• Industry execs blast Quebec Internet-blocking, call for CRTC involvement: The Wire Report
• Xplornet goes national with VoIP home phone service: The Wire Report
• CTS 2016: Industry needs informal, amicable, communications with the Commission again: Cartt.ca
• CTS 2016: Bernier calls for deregulation of telecom industry: Cartt.ca
• Manitobans worry BCE/MTS deal will mean price hikes, data caps: Cartt.ca
• Xplornet launches national VoIP home phone service: Cartt.ca
• Maxime Bernier calls to phase out CRTC as telecom regulator, open sector to foreign investment: National Post
• Unlimited data plans could sweeten MTS-Bell deal for Manitobans: poll: Financial Post
• Telus mulled Manitoba Telecom Services bid prior to BCE deal: The Globe and Mail
• CRTC should be phased out as telecom czar, Bernier says: The Globe and Mail
• Conservative party leader hopeful wants to get the CRTC out of telecom regulation: MobileSyrup.com
• Canadian CSPs embracing new ideas, technologies: expertIP
• A new approach to cybersecurity: expertIP
• PCC: Bernier veut déréglementer et supprimer le rôle du CRTC: La Presse
• Former Harper Minister Calls Telecom Policy a Waste of Money: Bloomberg
• Bernier says CRTC should get out of telecom business; Toronto Star

Great first day of action at The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit, from start to finish. Dan Caruso, CEO of Zayo Group opened the conference and we wrapped up with a panel consisting of FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and CRTC Commissioner Raj Shoan, moderated by Globe and Mail reporter Christine Dobby, before getting down to serious socializing and networking over drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

I’ll try to capture the news coverage in this post. Let me know if I am missing any links:

• Mobile data and bandwidth demand to skyrocket by 2021, requiring 5G network: telecom execs; Financial Post
• Carriers still pay lip service to customer experience: Cartt
• Patch quickly to check ransomware, Canadian telecom industry warned: IT World Canada
• Telecom CEO: “Empower the right person with the right skillset to step up at the right time”: IT World Canada
• CTS 2016: “Carriers still pay lip service to customer experience”: Cartt.ca

The panels covering regulatory issues may be too late in the day for news coverage.

CPAC is recording these sessions and plans to release the programs later this summer.

The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit opened this morning at the Toronto Congress Centre.

Here is what my co-chair, Michael Sone, and I said earlier today in our opening remarks. [I have Michael’s words in italics.]

Mark and I thank you and all our speakers and sponsors for the support that you have provided in bringing us to this 15th edition of our conference. GST Conferences was created to produce our inaugural conference in 2002, “Celebrating 10 Years of Long Distance Competition in Canada.”

Next year, Canada will mark 25 years of competitive telecommunications and today’s landscape of services, of providers, of modalities of communication looks nothing like it did in 1992.

• In 1992, Television was analogue and monopolistic.
• Wireless connectivity was an ogopolistic luxury used with the cellular equivalent of the black rotary dial phone.
• Data was best known as the Android character on Start Trek TNG played by Brent Spiner.
• And speaking of Android – there’s another term that’s undergone a complete metamorphosis.
• As recently as a decade ago the phenomenon of social media didn’t exist – Twitter and Youtube were novelties, and Google was still vying with other search engines to see which would emerge dominant.
• An app? What’s an app?
• A cap? What’s a cap other than something worn on the baseball diamond. Actually baseball caps have more to do with Information and Communications Technology than you may think. After all, who ever thought that a Canadian ICT provider would end up as an owner of a major league baseball team?
• Half a decade ago Big Data wasn’t so big, more like Little Data. Well, that’s not exactly true, because of course it isn’t the existence of the data that’s new. Service Providers have, for decades, been repositories of mountains of invaluable information and were always sitting on Fort Knox. Today companies are falling over themselves in trying to harness the power of Big Data. It’s trying to figure out how to sift through it, exploit it, leverage its capabilities that’s new.

These represent just a few of the changes that raise substantive policy issues as service providers try to stay ahead of demand and seek to invest in newer, faster, higher capacity technologies to compete. And competition continues to evolve as consumers shift their methods of connecting with each other and finding new applications, and in many cases, new suppliers for exchanging information and accessing entertainment.

Among the subjects we will examine over the next 3 days is creating the right policy framework to attract and incent continued investment in Canadian telecommunications and how to balance the often conflicting demands of national security and personal privacy.

During the recent hearing looking at Basic Services, I smiled when the CRTC chair gave his unusual mid-hearing address. As many of you know, for the past 7 years, I have used these opening remarks to call for the industry to provide the policy leadership to get computers and connectivity into low income households. On April 18, Chairman Blais asked “Should we wait for others to act?” He continued, saying “Every day that goes by without a more robust Canadian broadband strategy means a Canadian who is socially and economically vulnerable continues to be profoundly disadvantaged.”

I have talked about this issue from this stage every year since 2008. Every day that went by meant that thousands of Canadians continued to be profoundly disadvantaged.

Even before Chairman Blais joined my call to action, the private sector stepped up. Rogers and TELUS have made announcements in the past few months that could result in hundreds of thousands of homes being offered affordable connections.

And it isn’t simply policy that’s making headlines. Our sector continues to generate blockbuster news and business deals. In the past year (less, in fact) we’ve seen Allstream become Zayo; WIND Mobile join Shaw and Bell propose to acquire MTS. We are pleased that a number of the new Presidents and CEOs are joining us over the next 3 days. We are, indeed, grateful for their time and insights.

Companies are continuing to push the limits, risking billions of dollars in private sector capital, testing new business models for the digital age, to deliver new services to consumers and gain competitive advantages.

A number of our speakers have returned for several Summits – and we thank them for their support and for the confidence they continue to show in us. As always, we also attempt to feature new speakers and exciting, hot issues.

You can follow what is happening at The Canadian Telecom Summit on Twitter, using #CTS16. Or, you can hurry on over to The Toronto Congress Centre and register on-site.