The schedule is starting to take shape; the first major email blast of the year is going out today for The 2015 Canadian Telecom Summit, which will take place June 1-3 at the Toronto Congress Centre.

For three full days, The 2015 Canadian Telecom Summit will again deliver thought-provoking insights from the prime movers of the industry. The Canadian Telecom Summit gives you the chance to hear from and talk with them in both a structured atmosphere of frank discussion and high-octane idea exchange and schmooze in a more relaxed social setting over espresso or cocktails.

Join your colleagues participating in executive presentations from those who have the greatest influence on the direction of Canadian telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology. Hear from global leaders and local trend-setters. Meet with your suppliers, customers and partners. Challenge your competition.

Attracting the senior-most professionals from around the globe, The Canadian Telecom Summit is the forum for the broad cross-section of stakeholders to meet, exchange views, share ideas, challenge assumptions and plan for the future.

If you haven’t received our email blast, check your spam folders and be sure to include “gstconferences.com” on your email white list. Sign up for our conference mailing list here.

Early bird rates are in effect until the end of February. Register now for the best savings. You can view (or download) the brochure at Scribd.

Should cities be in the business of running telecommunications networks?

Some say yes, to address gaps in service being delivered by major national and regional carriers. Others, perhaps recalling the history of government telecom monopolies, are far less supportive.

Leverett, Massachusetts [population 2,000] is in the western part of the state, near the Five College area of Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, Mt. Holyoke and the University of Massachusetts. In 2011, the community began planning for municipally owned fibre to the home (FTTH) project.

A case study on Leverettnet was released by Susan Crawford at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society a little over a year ago. Although the project was supposed to be fully operational by December, 2014, a call into the town administrator’s office confirmed that they are still about 6 months away. Construction is said to be only 80% complete.

Strand Consult, based in Copenhagen, released a research note this morning with comments on the case for municipal FTTH in Leverett. The research note challenges the benefits that the community will receive.

In addition to challenging the specifics about the Leverett project, the note makes some important observations, highlighting that the “academic evidence between FTTH and economic growth is neither clear nor conclusive.”

Strand Consult observes that in “Denmark, a country that perennially scores high on the OECD’s study of broadband deployment, speed, adoption, and price that while 70% of the population have access to ultra-fast broadband, less than 2% subscribe.”

I noticed a tweet from the Economic Development office in Gravenhurst, Ontario that spoke of plans to deliver FTTH in 2015. Industry Canada is evaluating submissions for federal government support of rural and remote broadband projects and political parties are starting to develop their digital agendas to be included in campaign materials later this year.

These groups should all carefully – and critically – explore the case for municipal broadband.

As Strand Consult states, “Rather than consider FTTH as a magic bullet to save ailing communities, broadband should be evaluated as one variable in a complex equation for economic growth.”

Should service providers be allowed to offer access to certain applications for a flat rate – or free?

That is a question receiving considerable attention, thanks in part to a piece written by Harvard visiting professor Susan Crawford, who said “On the surface, it sounds great for carriers to exempt popular apps from data charges. But it’s anti-competitive, patronizing, and counter-productive.”

Uh, oh.

“Anti-competitive, patronizing, and counter-productive” sounds pretty bad. But there’s more. Professor Crawford goes on to say “Zero-rating is pernicious; it’s dangerous; it’s malignant.”

Wow. Who would even consider offering such services?

Actually, there are a lot of consumer benefits that could accrue from such services. For example, 7 years ago I suggested that Netflix might want to enter into an arrangement that is effectively the same as toll-free (1-800) calling, to reverse the charges for data usage.

Boston College law professor Dan Lyons says “Professor Crawford’s argument is premised on the notion that consumers need access to all Internet content at all times on all devices at the same price.”

He writes that offerings such as social media packages or a streaming media service help consumers. Some customers may be willing to pay $12/month for mobile Facebook access but would not pay $60/month for a broader wireless broadband plan. “Eliminating [such options] forces those customers to choose between two suboptimal choices: either pay a higher price to get services the customer is uninterested in purchasing, or go without the service the customer wants to buy.”

What about data consumption for Video Relay Services? As I wrote last January, “Could such a “toll-free” data model enable more equitable treatment of data use by Video Relay Service consumers?”

Seniors are among the least likely demographic to have a smartphone (and therefore, a data plan), but these are the people that could be among the most attractive targets for health monitoring apps. Do we really want regulations that preclude targeted pricing strategies? Should carriers be able to offer restricted flat-rate, zero-rated or sponsored data plans to encourage more widespread adoption of health monitoring applications and devices?

More than 7 years ago, I asked a similar question in relation to a toll-free model for home internet:

Are there some applications that might lend themselves to a toll-free model in order to reach the rest of the market?

For example, would home health care warrant installing a broadband connection as part of a monitoring service? The broadband access would be enabling underlying service, but the costs would be incurred by the health care agency, not the infirmed. Like toll-free calling, the application provider would pay the charges.

Your aging grandmother may have no idea that she would have a broadband connection coming into her apartment – perhaps complete with a wireless router. All she would know is that she can stay at home for routine monitoring check-ups.

Besides health care and elder-care, what other applications might “reverse-the-charges” for broadband access? Security services? Gaming? Entertainment? Energy management?

As Professor Lyons wrote,

Ultimately, it is consumers who should command policymakers’ attention – not the hypothetical “next Facebook”

Consumers can benefit greatly from creative, competitive, targeted pricing plans. Regulators need to be careful imposing restrictions on the evolution of business models.

Over the holidays, a cover story in Toronto’s Metro newspaper caught my eye: “Cleric spreading ‘hate’ on local TV”. The story says “Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Canada filed a complaint with the CRTC this week over comments aired on the Pakistani network Geo TV, which is carried by both Bell and Rogers.”

According to the news story, the complaint was filed in respect of content aired during a program broadcast on December 22.

The paper sought comment from the CRTC:

The CRTC told Metro it has received six complaints about the program and that it would respond to each individually. But a spokeswoman also said foreign broadcasters operate “under the laws and regulations in place in their respective countries of origin,” adding that Canadian service providers are “not generally involved in any programming decisions.”

A little over 10 years ago, the CRTC imposed special conditions of license when it approved Al Jazeera’s Arabic language network to be added to Canadian TV distribution systems [Al Jazeera applied in October 2013 to have those conditions removed; the CRTC has not yet issued a decision on that application].

However, just because the CRTC only imposed special conditions on Al Jazeera does not mean that Canadians must rely on foreign regulators to safeguard our airwaves.

The Broadcast Act is pretty clear on this point. As the CRTC highlighted in paragraph 79 of the Al Jazeera decision:

… the Commission’s statutory responsibility to regulate and supervise all aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system with a view to implementing the broadcasting policy set out in section 3(1) of the Act. The policies that are most relevant to such a requirement are found in sections 3(1)(d)(i) and (iii) and section 3(1)(h) and are paraphrased as follows:

1. The Canadian broadcasting system should serve to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political and social fabric of Canada;
2. The Canadian broadcasting system should, through its programming serve the needs and interests, and reflect the circumstances and aspirations, of Canadians, including equal rights and the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society; and
3. All persons who are licensed to carry on broadcasting undertakings have a responsibility for the programs they broadcast.

Under the Broadcast Act, “broadcasting undertakings” include TV distributors, including those companies that are carrying Geo TV.

Under the Broadcasting Act, the CRTC and the TV distributors have a responsibility for the programs being broadcast into Canadian homes. Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Canada’s complaints need to be investigated and given full consideration by the CRTC and Canadian law enforcement authorities.

If foreign content violates Canadian law, Canadians do not need to rely on “the laws and regulations in place in their respective countries of origin.”

I thought it might be interesting to see what caught my readers’ eyes this year.

Looking at the analytics, these 5 days stood out in driving traffic spikes:

1. September 23, the day after I wrote “Nobody wins in challenge of CRTC authority” about the Netflix – CRTC showdown
2. April 24, when I asked “Did Privacy Commissioner lose private information?“
3. January 14, when I posted a summary of Deloitte’s “Predictions for 2014“
4. March 18, when I posted “In case of emergency” about text with 9-1-1
5. February 19, when I posted a “Differential analysis” on the 700MHz auction

Interestingly, these were not necessarily the most viewed blog posts over the course of the year. These 5 had the most individual page views:

1. “Nobody wins in challenge of CRTC authority” [September 22]
2. “In case of emergency” [March 18]
3. “CRTC takes to Twitter to #TalkTV” [February 21]
4. “Did Privacy Commissioner lose private information?” [April 24]
5. “Driving down domestic roaming” [March 31]

The “CRTC takes to Twitter to #TalkTV” post starts with an observation about one of the February 19 Twitter interactions between CRTC Chair JP Blais and a citizen who asked if the Commission has the jurisdiction to regulate Netflix. The Chair responded “I don’t want to debate jurisdiction online. See section 4(2) of the Broadcasting Act.”

As I wrote at the time “It would seem reasonable for a “conversation with Canadians” to be able to get a straight answer to a pretty basic question: In the view of the Chairman of the CRTC, does the Commission have the jurisdiction to regulate Netflix?”

In hindsight, that interaction foreshadowed one of the most memorable CRTC appearances – an appearance that has been struck from the record.

Thank you for following and engaging. As I wrote last week, let me wish all of you the best in the year ahead.