I have always had jobs that allowed me to put my family first.

That was a priority for me in choosing a career path. I was fortunate to have bosses who understood and who made accommodations to help me keep family first.

Of course, a few times, work priorities meant making compromises. There were a few months that I was working out of the Washington DC area on a proposal to the US Government, so my employer flew my young family to the Detroit area to stay with my mother-in-law to be an extra set of hands. I flew in for my daughter’s second birthday party and then flew back to DC to continue work on the proposal.

A few years later, in the midst of preparing for the hearings that led to the introduction of competition in Canadian telecom, the lawyers were put on hold while I popped back into Toronto for a couple hours to go to a special kindergarten presentation. The teacher commented to my wife that she thought it was great that I had the kind of job that allowed me to come to school in the middle of the day.

I was somewhat surprised to see a tweet from CBC that appears to mock a decision by Joe Natale to put his family priorities first:

Putting family first may not be the path for everyone, but I have no regrets about having chosen that for myself. When I started consulting, I was able to choose projects based on whether they allowed me to maintain the kind of work-life balance that was important to me. I am grateful for that.

We often see women put their careers on pause for family reasons; maybe it is unusual for people to see a man make a similar choice. That is too bad, but I don’t think it is really that unusual.

TELUS is a better company because Joe Natale was a part of the senior leadership for the past dozen years.

CBC shouldn’t be asking if you would choose to move to Vancouver to be CEO of TELUS. The right question to ask is whether you would put your career ahead of your family. Would you choose family responsibilities over a job…. even if the job is CEO of a major company?

How would you choose?

In the US, about 15% of Americans don’t use the internet. The Washington Post had an article last week by Brian Fung entitled “37 million Americans don’t use the Web. Here’s why you should care.”

As Fung describes, that 15% slice of the population are mostly “poorer, older and undereducated”.

A fifth of black Americans are disconnected. Same goes for the 25 percent of Americans who make less than $30,000 a year and a quarter of all adults who live in rural areas. And among those who’ve never finished high school, a third never use the Web.

In Canada, more than 15% of households still lack an internet connection according to Statistics Canada. At 85%, households in metropolitan areas had better adoption rates than the 75% adoption rate among those outside census metropolitan areas or census agglomerations. The most marked differences in adoption is based on income:

Almost all households in the top income quartile (98%), or those with household incomes of $94,000 or more, had home Internet access, compared with 58% of households in the lowest income quartile, or those with household incomes of $30,000 or less.

According to Statistics Canada, “Of those households that did not have home Internet access in 2012, 61% reported they had no need for or interest in it. About 20% of households reported having no access because of the cost of the service or equipment.”

In my view, if you are having trouble making ends meet, it is likely that concerns about putting food on the table would lead you to say that you have “no need for or interest in it.” Both responses indicate an affordability issue.

As the Washington Post article says, “As the rest of us use the Internet to do homework, find jobs, make friends, get the news, earn a living, learn new skills, buy groceries, organize politically and do a seemingly endless range of other activities, encouraging the disconnected to hop online has become a national priority.”

… for these folks, simply building out the Internet isn’t enough; convincing them that the Web could help them grow is crucial to getting them online.

In Canada, our sole national focus has been on massive subsidies based on geography, not based on income. Government programs have targeted rural and remote regions without concern for a million low income households in urban centres. As I have written before, the CRTC’s “Review of basic telecommunications services” addresses the question of broadband affordability based on geography. As I wrote in May, “The CRTC is starting with an examination of what areas might be underserved when it might be more useful to start by trying to understand ‘who in Canada is underserved or unserved’?”

As the Washington Post article concludes: “there are real structural challenges (poverty and inequality) that are keeping younger, less socially mobile populations from becoming America’s next great inventors or scientists or civil servants. And those people matter, too.”

Election season has officially started and it is time to be on the look-out for parties to lay out their digital strategies.

Digital Canada 150 was the official plan of our current government, but I am not certain that it is the last word from the Conservatives on how they plan to move forward with a digital economy.

During the Liberal leadership campaign, Marc Garneau and George Takach had set out views on digital issues. Will any of these find their way into the Liberal platform?

How will the NDP evolve their strategy? In 2011, the NDP had a six-point strategy as well as discussion of furthering the cultural industries; In 2008, the NDP also had strong views on telecom issues clearly set out in its election platform.

Will broadband for low-income households become an issue? Net neutrality?

What about a review of Canada’s Anti-Spam Laws?

Telemarketing continues to bother Canadians – and robo-calls from politicians are not likely going to be a welcome addition to Canadians’ dinner time interuptions. You have to love the idea that politicians exempted themselves from many of the more onerous provisions of the do not call regime.

Will any party commit to studying the impact and cost effectiveness of these laws?

Will digital issues even be a factor in the October 19 election?

What issues would you like to see talked about in this campaign?

To my knowledge, no ISP has imposed a “cap” on internet usage. A “cap” would mean there is an “upper limit“.

Yet the pejorative term found its way into a Globe and Mail headline: “Eastlink plan to cap ‘Rural Connect’ service draws scorn in Nova Scotia“. The article describes Eastlink’s plan to bundle 15 GB of data usage into its $46.95 monthly fee for “Rural Connect” service, with a charge of $2 per GB, up to a maximum of $20 in overage fees.

In other words, Eastlink will offer unlimited internet usage for $66.95.

How is that a cap on Rural Connect service?

Usage tiers allow entry level internet users a lower fee, without restricting their ability to use more internet services if they choose. Having a cap on overage fees, especially a low $20 fee cap, provides unlimited access at an affordable price.

Price tiers aren’t usage caps.

The CRTC has “launched a public consultation to better understand the technical solutions that are currently offered to help Canadians manage unsolicited telecommunications and illegitimate telemarketing calls.”

Recall that last October, the CRTC reported to Industry Minister Moore that it was having a tough time keeping up with ‘miscreants’ placing unwanted telemarketing calls to Canadians.

“A major challenge has emerged in the form of caller identification (ID) “spoofing,” which is the falsification of the phone number that appears on consumers’ caller ID displays.”

In recent months, a Mexican resort company has used caller ID spoofing to launch a barrage of calls to landline and mobile phones that appear to come from a local caller; the call ID matches the area code and exchange of the person being called. The message says that you have been selected based on recent flights or hotel stays, and it claims to be from a major travel partner, such as Marriott, Westjet, Air Canada among others.

So, the press release announces that “The CRTC is also exploring new and innovative solutions that could enhance consumer protections, including those that may reduce illegitimate caller identification (caller ID) spoofing.”

Canadians can participate in this consultation by sharing their views on:

• the technical solutions available to help them manage unsolicited or illegitimate calls
• barriers they may face to adopting or using these solutions, and
• new and innovative solutions that could help them manage unsolicited telecommunications and illegitimate telemarketing calls.

Notice of Consultation 2015-333 has a deadline of September 4 for preliminary information filings and interventions are due by October 16.

So far, the government and the CRTC have tried to stop spam and unwanted calls by through regulations and legislation that have burdened legitimate businesses with expenses and restrictions on their operations. It is not clear that Canadians have seen a meaningful impact on harmful and malicious calls and emails that justify the costs. Earlier this week, the CRTC announced that its costs of enforcement are going up 20% next year – ten times the rate of inflation – and a further 10% the following year.

A friend of mine told me that she started blocking calls from the numbers that were calling her. The problem with that approach is that the calls aren’t really coming from those numbers. So her blocking will prevent one of her real neighbours from reaching her without really stopping the Mexican resort. Banning Caller ID “spoofing” will serve as an impediment to people working from home.

So how do we stop the bad guys?

The notice of consultation is officially called “Empowering Canadians to protect themselves from unsolicited and illegitimate telemarketing calls”.

In March, I suggested a simple, inexpensive, innovative but distinctly un-Canadian solution to empower us to protect ourselves: Just hang up.