In the fourth edition of its annual trend report, Ericsson ConsumerLab says that consumers want technology and connectivity to be integrated into all facets of daily life.

These are the ten trends for 2015 and beyond:

1. The streamed future. 2015 will be historic as more people will watch streamed video on a weekly basis than broadcast TV.
2. Helpful homes. Consumers show high interest in having home sensors that alert them to water and electricity issues, or when family members come and go.
3. Mind sharing. Smartphone owners would like to use a wearable device to communicate with others directly through thought – and believe this will be mainstream by 2020.
4. Smart citizens. Consumers believe traffic volume maps, energy use comparison apps and real-time water quality checkers will be mainstream by 2020.
5. The sharing economy. Smartphone owners are open to renting out their spare rooms, household appliances and leisure equipment as it is convenient and can save money.
6. The digital purse. 80 percent of smartphone owners believe the smartphone will replace their entire purse by 2020.
7. My information. 56 percent of smartphone owners would like all internet communication to be encrypted.
8. Longer life. Smartphone owners see cloud-based services of various kinds giving them the potential to live healthier and longer lives.
9. Domestic robots. Consumers are welcoming the idea of having domestic robots that could help with everyday chores and believe this will be common in households by 2020.
10. Children connect everything. 46 percent of smartphone owners say that children will expect all objects to be connected when they are older.

I liked seeing what Ericsson said about smart cities. You may recall that earlier this year, I wrote a post “A little smarter every day“, saying “Building a smart city means creating a culture that works to make the community a little bit smarter every day.”

Ericsson wrote:

The idea of smart cities is intriguing – but a lot of that smartness will emerge as a side effect of the changing everyday behaviors of citizens. As the internet makes us more informed, we are in turn making better informed decisions. When citizens turn smart, so will the cities they inhabit.

Check out the full report.

Roslyn Layton has an article [Measuring the digital economy: Progress across the board] that provides links to important new reports from the ITU and the OECD.

As Roslyn writes:

Too often in the press and policymaking, cherry-picked statistics are used to justify any number of proposals and positions. Single metrics are taken out of context and used to create artificial hierarchies among countries, as if a single data point like broadband speed can convey all you need to know about the health of a country’s networks.

The ITU report, Measuring the Information Society Report 2014 [pdf], is a 270 page report filled with global access, use and skills indicators from 166 countries. Chapter 4 is particularly interesting, examining “ICT prices and the role of competition,” with its concluding section 4.5: “The impact of competition and regulation on telecommunication prices.”

The OECD report, Measuring the Digital Economy: A New Perspective [online], looks at a range of metrics across the 34 OECD member countries. The report is structured with “A Measurement Agenda for the Digital Economy”, a snapshot of the state of “The Digital Economy Today”, and four thematic chapters, covering topics such as infrastructure availability, openness and participation in the Internet economy, security and privacy. The thematic chapters are:

• Investing in smart infrastructure
• Empowering society
• Unleashing creativity and innovation
• Delivering growth and jobs

There are interesting comparisons on productivity in the digital sector contrasted between countries and with the general national economy. Canada’s information industries are found to be operating at 2.5 times the productivity levels of the general economy, well above the OECD average of 60% higher productivity in the information sector.

This chart is expanded upon in section 5.4 of the OECD report.

In another chart [Section 2.9], the OECD found that Canadians had the lowest level of concerns about privacy among all OECD nations when asked main reason for not buying online.

The reports should make for interesting reading over the holidays.

It is interesting to look at the latest internet speed rankings from Netflix, especially comparing month-to-month results.

There isn’t a huge difference between the speeds being observed by Netflix on most Canadian ISPs. Most are tightly clustered in the range of 3 Mbps, whether the measurements are looking at fibre, cable or DSL.

Between October and November, observed speeds increased, up to more than 100 Kbps – from 1% to 3% month over month – possibly due to consumers upgrading their internet access services.

It is too bad that quantitative data such as this was not part of the testimony during the wholesale wireline proceeding.

Perhaps we need to make a concerted effort to encourage the return of global new media companies to participate and share their perspectives in Canada’s major policy fora.

I have written too many times [such as here and here] that the 2006 Telecom Policy Review Panel called for a fresh review every five years, meaning that Canada is more than 3 years overdue for such a study.

As Michael Geist writes this week:

There is a growing sense that the twin governing statutes – the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act – should be reformed into a single Communications Act that better reflects today’s Internet environment.

The post speaks of the challenge faced by regulations and legislation that still treats telecom and broadcast as independent silos. The challenge of dealing with integrated business plans emerged during the CRTC’s recent set of 3 major policy hearings: Talk TV; wireless wholesale; and, wireline wholesale. At least one intervenor, VMedia, found itself caught with issues that bridged two proceedings, as we heard in this interaction:

6434   COMMISSIONER PENTEFOUNTAS: At the end of the day, I want you to perhaps expand — this is not a BDU hearing. You would agree with me?

6435   MR. BURGER: Absolutely.

6436   COMMISSIONER PENTEFOUNTAS: I understand your frustration, you came to Let’s Talk and you got sort of bumped.

6437   So it’s not a BDU hearing?

6438   MR. BURGER: This is not, no.

6439   COMMISSIONER PENTEFOUNTAS: Okay. And your white label or unbundled IPTV, wouldn’t that be, clearly, sort of a broadcasting issue and not within the confines of this hearing?

Canada sorely needs a comprehensive communications policy review. Maybe we can add it to our holiday wish lists?

While travelling overseas, I have been trying to follow the CRTC’s wireline wholesale hearing taking place in the National Capital. The hearing moves into its reply phase today and CPAC is streaming the action from gavel to gavel.

On Monday afternoon, I was listening to Open Media’s testimony when I heard a reference to nationalizing internet and tweeted a question:

A colleague replied “I do believe that is what I heard – but I am remote so perhaps it was lost in the medium.”

Rather than clarify, Open Media’s executive director responded with a personal attack:

Looking beyond the personal swipes, I took this to mean that Open Media chose to distance its own views from those of its member who was quoted in their opening statement [transcript line 8346]:

In fact some, as David B. of Rockaway, New Brunswick go as far to suggest: “The Internet is rapidly becoming an essential public service. It should be nationalized or rather internationalized as a non-profit service.”

Open Media claims to “work toward informed and participatory digital policy”.

Why is its executive director unwilling to engage in civil discourse to clarify its position – informing us about a key point of digital policy?