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.

Some of the most influential leaders of the Canadian & International ICT industry will gather in Toronto, June 6-8, at The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit.

No other event matches The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit for the depth and breadth of topics covered and issues debated.

No other event presents as complete a picture of current and expected trends & developments.

Download the brochure and check out the program. You will see why The Canadian Telecom Summit has become the only must-attend conference.

With more opportunities than ever to learn, network and do business, if you are involved with or impacted by Canadian telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology, you need to be at The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit.

Join your colleagues for 3 days of spirited discussion and networking, including our Monday evening Cocktail Reception sponsored by Rogers.

Register today for The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit. What are you waiting for?

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Continuing Professional Development: The time spent attending substantive sessions at The Canadian Telecom Summit can be claimed as “Substantive Hours” toward the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements.

As my regular readers know, for eight years, since my opening remarks at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, I have been highlighting the need to develop programs to increase broadband adoption by targeting affordability, looking beyond the traditional geographic based subsidies. In a speech at the Empire Club in late April, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains Minister Bains acknowledged that “social factors still mean that in many of our largest urban centres, including Toronto, low-income people are left out of the digital economy.”

The Minister’s speech was delivered just a week and a half after CRTC Chair JP Blais delivered his unusual mid-hearing address [beginning at line 7559 of the transcript].

Chairman Blais also made reference to “Economic access to broadband connectivity, including, in its most extreme form, issues of unaffordability.” It took a while, but at long last, the message got through. Every day that went by meant Canadians who are socially and economically vulnerable, continue to be profoundly disadvantaged.

Those were his own words, from the Chair’s mid-hearing call to use the basic services proceeding as “the last best chance to get [a national broadband strategy] right.” Yes, the CRTC Chair was correct in saying that Digital Canada 150 was more like a promotional brochure than a digital strategy.

But 11 days later, Minister Bains told the Empire Club “we don’t need any more studies!”

We understand the challenges. Now it’s clear we need to take some bold steps. That’s what the Prime Minister has challenged me to do. That’s what I’m going to do.

The Minister gets it. It’s time for bold steps.

Two years ago, I said it has been “too easy for the government to focus on programs to stimulate the supply of internet”; we need programs that increase computer ownership and broadband adoption among low income households, especially in homes with school aged children.

In the past month or so, both the Minister and CRTC chair have publicly acknowledged we have a problem.

That is the first step.

Where do we go from here?

In 2003, Britain’s Better Regulation Task Force issued a document describing “Principles of Good Regulation“.

It is worth a fresh look.

Back in 1997, the Task Force suggested that policy intervention and enforcement, should meet these five principles:

• Proportionality
• Accountability
• Consistency
• Transparency
• Targeting

The 2003 document reminded policy makers that they have a wide range of options available for implementing their policy objectives, and encouraged the leaders to “consider them all, rather than automatically assume prescriptive regulation is
required.”

• Do nothing
• Advertising campaigns and education
• Using the market
• Financial incentives
• Self-regulation and voluntary codes of practice
• Prescriptive regulation

Although some suggest that markets aren’t working, the Task Force suggested that regulation is not necessarily the cure.

Government can remove problems preventing markets from working effectively or can introduce a market where none exists.

Often markets do not function effectively if participants do not have all the information necessary to make an informed decision. Industries can adopt codes of practice, regulating the provision of information themselves or Government can require producers of goods or services to provide relevant information or provide the information itself.

On the subject of prescriptive regulation, the Task Force warns:

There are areas where this is the best means of achieving a policy objective. However, prescriptive regulation, like many other means of government intervention, may have unintended consequences… It will often be less flexible and less sympathetic to the way markets work than other tools.

What characteristics do Canadians expect from its regulatory authorities?

The 2003 document from Britain’s Task Force includes a section entitled: “Tests of good regulation, and pitfalls to be avoided”. In it, the Task Force states “Regulations must: Be balanced and avoid knee-jerk reactions; Seek to reconcile contradictory policy objectives; Balance risks, costs and benefits; Avoid unintended consequences; Be easy to understand; Have broad public support; Be enforceable; Identify accountability; Be relevant to current conditions.”

Using the Task Force tests, how would Canadian regulators and regulations be scored?

Something to discuss at The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit, coming up in less than 2 weeks. Have you registered yet?