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.
As we get to the end of the year, I like to reflect on the past as part of my planning for the year ahead.
I noticed that I have clearly not been as prolific on this blog. Last year, I observed that I wrote 132 posts, down from 139 in 2012. I wrote just 109 posts in 2014, but the reduction was likely due to three factors in play: I am spending considerably more time on Twitter [follow me: @mark_goldberg]; there is a difference in the political climate; and, I did my best to spend much of the summer and parts of the past month focused on family.
Still, my creative juices were stimulated by continuing intervention in the marketplace by legislators and the extremely active CRTC agenda, especially in the last third of the year.
As frequent readers know, I continue to believe that Canada is overdue for a comprehensive review of our overall communications policy framework. The last Telecom Policy Review delivered its report in 2006 and at the time, recommended that its work should be refreshed every 5 years. The next panel should look at overall communications policy, including broadcasting.
Would a government strike such a panel in an election year? Consider that the last Telecom Policy Review Panel was created by a Liberal government and it delivered its report to the new Conservative minority government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, about 3 months after he took office.
I am carrying forward a number of resolutions from year to year.
My wish list for 2015 continues to seek support for a national program to increase the adoption of computers and broadband in low income households with school-aged children. Computers for Schools is a great program, but kids do their homework at home. And kids can’t compete with their classmates if they don’t have access to a connected computer at home. In any case, our schools are going to need significant upgrades as well if we want to keep up with our neighbours to the south. As I have written in the past, “almost half of all households in Canada’s lowest income quintile lack a home computer. Affordability is keeping a million households from digital connectivity.”
Our national digital agenda needs to move forward more aggressively. Although Canada hopes to incent service providers to offer 5 Mbps service by the year 2017, the US has doubled its target speed to require 10 Mbps service for service providers that seek funding from the Connect America Fund. Canada needs to do better.
While I am setting objectives for next year, I guess I still wouldn’t mind losing 20 pounds, but I don’t mind having a soft landing spot for my grandson to rest when we take naps “watching the games” together on Sunday afternoons.
Let me wish all of you the best in the year ahead. I look forward to engaging with you in 2015.
Have a safe, healthy and peaceful holiday season. Together, next year we can hopefully exceed all of our targets.
At the close of the financial markets, Industry Minister James Moore released a series of rulings on wireless telecommunications spectrum, making more airwaves available for Canada’s fixed and mobile wireless communications services providers.
Two months ago, in the wake of Minister Moore’s response to submissions filed in the 3500MHz process, I wrote “The consultative process works“. Today, Minister Moore followed through with his October 9 commitment: “Under no circumstances will our government take spectrum licences away from any local Internet service provider that is providing Internet service to rural Canadians.”
It is gratifying to see Industry Canada responsive to the appeals by rural municipalities and service providers focusing on low density communities.
More mobile spectrum, being made available for service providers to try to stay ahead of consumer demand for broadband wireless access.
Minister Moore has overseen spectrum management actions that have significantly increased the amount of spectrum accessible for deployment by competitive service providers.
On Twitter, he released a graphic just prior to the announcement, claiming that competitors share of spectrum has grown from 2% in 2006 to 25% in 2015.
The US wireless association, CTIA, released an infographic last week that shows why service providers need more spectrum. Consumers are upgrading their devices, watching more video and continuing to download more bits at faster speeds – driving a continual need for carriers to invest in network capacity.
Still, should we be concerned about how spectrum is managed in Canada?
Canada is one of the few OECD countries where a politically appointed minister remains responsible for spectrum licensing and management.
…
The key benefits of having an independent regulator include:
The Panel believes the increased convergence of wireless and wireline telecommunications and broadcasting technologies calls for a more consistent and unified regulatory approach. Such an approach could be facilitated by moving the current spectrum regulatory and licensing functions of the Minister of Industry to the CRTC. This move would be consistent with international practice. A recent OECD report recommends that Canada should adopt the same approach. This would increase the transparency of spectrum regulation and provide the CRTC with a better overview and insights into the wireless developments.
The Industry Minister has substantial discretion in spectrum policy, as recently affirmed by the Federal Court in its rejection of an application by TELUS to overturn the Minister’s repeated refusals to approve TELUS acquiring Mobility’s wireless licenses. However, such power can create concerns for the reasons set out by the OECD and echoed by the 2006 Telecom Policy Review Panel.
Spectrum management is not getting any easier.
Canada’s arbitrary division of responsibility based on broadcast versus telecommunications use may complicate the availability of frequency blocks with propagation characteristics that are extremely attractive for mobile communications. Just as the Canadian industry itself has seen broadcast and telecommunications convergence, we have increasing pressure to migrate more broadcast spectrum for telecommunications use.
At a recent investor conference, executives from CBS and Fox said they would consider migrating off the airwaves to sell their broadcast spectrum.
It is another reason why we need a new review of our converged communications policy. As I have written so many times, we are long overdue for a fresh look.
Perhaps the Minister could consider creating a new expert panel – even before an election – to make recommendations that can be reviewed for implementation by the next government.
Should Fortune 500 firms be looking to add cyber security expertise to their boards?
That is a question raised by Alec Ross, a Senior Fellow at the Columbia University School of International & Public Affairs. In an interesting piece “Sony Hack Attacks Presage New Warfare: The Weaponization of Code“, Ross observes that “Any big company can be brought to its knees by an aggrieved party.”
One thing that needs to go on every Fortune 500 board chairman’s to do list is to start a search for a board member with cyber expertise. About 10 years ago it became near-mandatory for every board of directors to have a member with expertise in the audit function. In five years, any board of directors without a board director with expertise in cyber will be perceived as a shortcoming of corporate governance.
At The 2015 Canadian Telecom Summit [June 1-3, Toronto], there will be a special session looking at “Cyber Security” moderated by Radware’s VP of Security Solutions, Carl Herberger.
As Ross wrote, “every large company needs to recognize that cyber offense is easier than cyber defense.” Policy makers and corporate leaders need to understand what can be done – indeed, what needs to be done – to bolster cyber defense capabilities.
There are many voices calling for increased initiatives by municipalities to build and operate broadband internet infrastructure as a public utility, but until this week, very little in the way of economic analysis to fully examine whether the benefits justify the costs.
A paper [pdf] released this week finds that local efforts produce small economic benefits, but cause a notable increase in the size of local government.
In “Community Broadband, Community Benefits? An economic analysis of local government broadband initiatives“, Brian Deignan of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University found that “publicly supported broadband networks lead to over 3 percent more business establishments, while reducing worker income by 1.3 percent, all else being equal. The networks have no discernible effect on private sector employment, but they increase local government employment by around 6 percent.”
He recommends fostering private sector investment:
In light of the financial difficulties some public networks experience and the limited economic benefits they offer, public involvement is more wisely directed toward fostering private sector innovation as opposed to maintaining a more active role. Local initiatives that maintain an active role for local government can lead to a misallocation of resources if they ignore market signals and cause taxpayers to bear the uncertainty of the broadband market as opposed to private shareholders.
According to the paper, “the private sector impact of [public broadband] infrastructure investment is not large enough to ignore the growth in local government and the financial stress that publicly supported broadband puts on a community.”
