There are encouraging signs for the imminent release of Canada’s national digital strategy found in elements of the 2014 Budget tabled today by the Government.

Some may have thought that the digital strategy would be released either within or concurrent to the Budget. I didn’t subscribe to this view. Such a move would result in too little attention being given to the digital strategy, given the focus on so many other elements of the budget.

Instead, it is possible – maybe even likely – that the Budget lays the groundwork for elements of a digital strategy that could be released during the coming fiscal year.

As I wrote earlier this week, the original consultation asked 24 questions under 6 broad headings, perhaps creating the table of contents for what could guide activities under the responsibilities of 3 ministers (Industry; Heritage; and, Employment and Social Development):

• Innovation Using Digital Technologies
• Digital Infrastructure
• Growing the ICT Industry
• Canada’s Digital Content
• Building Digital Skills
• Improving Canada’s Digital Advantage

Reading the Budget through such a lens, one can see pieces of the Digital Strategy starting to come together.

For example, here is a different way of reading the budget, aligned with these headings:

• A number of relevant programs are found in a section of the Budget that looks at “Fostering Job Creation, Innovation and Trade” [Innovation Using Digital Technologies]
• There is $305M ear-marked for a renewed rural and northern broadband infrastructure program [Digital Infrastructure]
• An Open Data Institute being established through the Canadian Digital Media Network [Canada’s Digital Content]
• Computers for Schools is getting renewed, with $36M in funding over 4 years, enabling it to get more computers into the hands of students and providing digital skills internships for hundreds of kids each year as equipment is refurbished for re-use. An entire section of the Budget is called “Training the Workforce of Tomorrow” [Building Digital Skills]
• Over the next 5 years, the government expects to see nearly universal access to internet speeds of 5 Mbps, indicating the first of many targets for a made-in-Canada digital strategy [Improving Canada’s Digital Advantage]

The framework for a national digital strategy is taking shape.

At The 2014 Canadian Telecom Summit (June 16-18 at Toronto Congress Centre), we will be looking at “The Digitization of Canada’s Economy: A report card on progress, a prescription for the future.” Have you registered yet?

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Update: [February 12, 9:00 am]
Michael Geist shares a similar perspective in his post today.

At long last, signs seem to be pointing toward the imminent release of Canada’s digital strategy. On Tuesday, we’ll be checking the budget to see if there is funding being identified to implement elements of a strategy that is long overdue.

Recall that the public consultation for input into the strategy was launched in May 2010. We were first told to expect the release in the Spring of 2011, but that was been delayed by an election and subsequent cabinet shuffles.

Minister James Moore has now had more than 200 days to settle into his role at the helm of Industry Canada and the timing seems to be right for the government to set out a cohesive and comprehensive plan to guide Canada’s participation in a global digital economy. Minister Moore was part of the original consultation launch in his role as Heritage Minister, so this is file with which he has familiarity.

Recall that the original consultation asked 24 questions under 6 broad headings, creating a table of contents for a document that should guide activities under the responsibilities of 3 ministers (Minister Moore at Industry; Minister Shelly Glover at Heritage; and, Minister Jason Kenney at Employment and Social Development):

• Innovation Using Digital Technologies
• Digital Infrastructure
• Growing the ICT Industry
• Canada’s Digital Content
• Building Digital Skills
• Improving Canada’s Digital Advantage

Five years ago, more than 15 months before the government consultation was launched, I wrote:

It seems that there are lots of studies, but it is harder to find a clear statement of vision for Canada’s digital future. As we invest in measures to jump start job creation, what concrete measures will affirm Canadian leadership in a global digital economy.

Nearly 6 years ago, in my opening remarks at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, I talked about the need to look at universal broadband from the perspective of stimulating consumer demand, not carrier supply. Broadband adoption has stagnated at around the 80% level. For 6 years, too many government programs have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the supply side of the equation, without focusing on targeting those in need of assistance.

What should we be looking for?

In March 2010, I wrote about some principles that Verizon set out to stimulate broadband deployment and increase consumer choice:

1. encourage demand by increasing computer ownership, computer skills, digital literacy, and online education;
2. incent new uses of the Internet that serve societal needs, such as energy savings, improved education, public safety and better and less expensive healthcare;
3. encourage continued innovation and investment to increase the options in networks, services, devices and applications;
4. recognize and encourage wireless broadband platforms as important in reaching unserved and rural areas through more efficient tower-siting processes and the identification of additional spectrum;
5. government intervention must be technology-neutral and must put choice in the hands of consumers, rather than subsidizing providers directly, targeted precisely to the needed effort.

As we have seen with programs like Rogers’ “Connected for Success“, not all elements of a digital strategy need massive investments by government. Instead, we should be looking for signs of outreach, building partnerships to leverage activities already underway.

In Canada’s strategy for the digital economy, we should be looking for signs of leadership, setting out policies that create the right conditions for investment in digital infrastructure and innovation, encourage expansion in knowledge-based jobs and digital content and ensuring skills development for Canadians to remain competitive as the job market continues to transform.

The 2014 Canadian Telecom Summit, taking place June 16-18 at Toronto Congress Centre, will be looking at “The Digitization of Canada’s Economy: A report card on progress, a prescription for the future”, with a panel hosted by Namir Anani, the president of Canada’s Information & Communications Technology Council. The overall conference theme this year is “Future-proofing Our Place in a Digital World.” Early bird rates for the event are available through the end of February. Have you registered yet?

Although the Public Notice for a modification in the conditions for broadcast distributors to carry Al Jazeera was issued last Thursday, Financial Post’s story came out today.

Ten years ago, the CRTC set an unusual condition for any broadcast distributor that wanted to carry Al Jazeera:

1. to retain and provide a clear and intelligible audio-visual recording of each Al Jazeera Arabic program distributed on its undertaking for a period of
   1. four weeks after the date of distribution of the program; or
   2. eight weeks after the date of distribution of the program, if the Commission receives a complaint about abusive comment from a person regarding the program or for any other reason wishes to investigate abusive programming and so notifies the licensee before the end of the period referred to in paragraph (i); and
2. not to distribute, as part of the Al Jazeera Arabic programming service, any abusive comment or abusive pictorial representation that, when taken in context, tends to or is likely to expose an individual or group or class of individuals to hatred or contempt on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age or mental or physical disability.

The CRTC observed at the time “No licensee of a BDU is actually required to alter or curtail the Al Jazeera signal as a result of this notice.” However, it was clear that the Commission would hold the distributor accountable for violations of the conditions.

In its application filed by the Washington office, Al Jazeera has asked the CRTC to delete these conditions, claiming that “The intervenors’ concerns outlined in BPN 2004-51 have not materialized.”

The Al Jazeera application does not address an actual finding of fact by the CRTC “that there is sufficient credible evidence to establish that future Al Jazeera programming, taken in context, could include abusive comment that could be contrary to Canadian law and be inconsistent with the section 15 Charter value of equality that underlies Canadian broadcasting policy.”

The Commission also notes the submissions of a number of supporting parties that it is important to distinguish between the statements of Al Jazeera hosts and statements made by guests or viewers. In the view of these parties, if there was hate in some of the statements, it was hate that Al Jazeera “reported on” rather than expressed, condoned or adopted, and this distinction is meaningful. The Commission notes that relatively few of the statements included in the opposing submissions appear to have been made by employees of Al Jazeera, and that most occurred when Al Jazeera reported the controversial views of others or broadcast views provided by viewers or guests. However, the Commission also notes that the policy that it employs with its licensees, a policy most frequently used in terms of open line programming, is based on the principle that the licensee chooses its guests and the viewers or listeners calling in that it puts on the air. The licensee is therefore responsible for the statements made by such guests, viewers or listeners. Supporting parties also submitted that the reporting of news is vitally important to a free and democratic society. However, the Commission considers that there is a line between reporting on hate as news in newscasts or news coverage, as opposed to facilitating its expression or directly expressing, condoning or adopting it. In this case, it does not appear that any of the statements in the appendix were news reports.

In its new application, Al Jazeera points to the fact that its service is available in Israel. The application claims that Al Jazeera’s Arabic language service “has continued to expand its global reach without encountering any credible complaints relating to its journalistic principles or its news and information programming in the countries where it has been readily available.”

Of course, Al Jazeera must have forgotten the incident in 2008 that led the network to apologize to Israel for its coverage celebrating the release of a convicted terrorist who had murdered Israeli children, acknowledging the coverage had violated its own code of ethics.

In a 2011 article in American Journalism Review, Erik Nisbet, an Ohio State University professor who studies Arab media and anti-Americanism, is cited saying “anti-Semitism is woven into the fabric of Al Jazeera’s Arabic reporting.”

We’ll see if Al Jazeera is able to successfully counter the CRTC’s earlier finding as a matter of fact.

Comments are due March 17.

Yesterday, Statistics Canada released data from the 2012 Survey of Household Spending providing a glimpse of what kind of equipment is in the homes of Canadians and how we spend our money each month.

It didn’t take long for some to misunderstand some of the data on communications services spending. “Cellphone costs hit historical high: Statistics Canada” read one of the headlines, leading Open Media to tweet out a call to action by its followers.

Monthly cellphone spending is different from costs.

Prices are lower, so more households have more phones, as the detailed Statistics Canada data shows:

• Households with at least one cellphone increased to 81.4% in 2012 (up from 79.4% in 2011);
• Households with exactly one cellphone declined to 35.5% from 36.5%;
• Households with exactly 2 cellphones increased to 29.2% from 28.0%; and,
• Households with 3 or more cellphones jumped to 16.7% from 14.9%.

The monthly bills went up because there are more devices in the average household.

There was other data that I found interesting in the release, despite the numbers being a year old.

• Households with a home computer declined year over year to 84.1% from 84.5%. While this is a statistic on person ownership of computers (as contrasted with a device provided by an employer), the number is headed in the wrong direction.
• Computer ownership is the denominator that should be used to measure penetration of internet access. Households with internet access increased to 81.5% in 2012 from 80.5% in 2011. That represents 96.9% of households with a computer, up from 95.3%. Only 3.7% of households used dial-up connections in 2012, down from 5.2%.
• Despite all of the talk of cord-cutting for TV services, Statistics Canada found 88.3% of us had a wired or satellite TV service in 2012, up from 87.4%.

We will be looking at all of these trends at The 2014 Canadian Telecom Summit, taking place June 16-18 in Toronto.

Here is a look at just one of the panels, that will discuss the continuing evolution of TV, from a wide variety of perspectives.

Have you registered yet^

Scotia Capital released a report earlier today called: “Embrace the Evolution: Analyzing the Financial Impact of Changes in Pay TV, Broadband, and Home Phone Services.”

Among its findings, Scotia says the business rationale for cable consolidation is increasing. “In Canada, we believe the combination of Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications makes more business sense than ever before.”

Some of the highlights include:

• Cable and telco wireline revenue growth will remain positive, at approximately 1.0%-1.5% over the next 10 years, as the industry’s focus shifts from traditional pay TV and home phone to broadband Internet;
• Over the next 10 years, cable and telco wireline EBITDA growth will be approximately 2.5%-3.0%;
• Cable and telco wireline cash flow (cash EBIT) growth will be in the range of 4.5%-5.0% over the next 10 years, primarily driven by EBITDA growth;
• Cablecos will show higher growth than telco wireline segments over the next 10 years;
• Although the long term view is growth over a 10 year period, there remain challenges over the next few years;
• Canadian pay TV segment is about to experience more revenue and margin pressure than ever before;
• To protect the TV business and to enhance the user interface and experience, pay TV operators will shift capex toward cloud architecture and IP video delivery;

Scotia Capital observed that telephone companies have been experiencing residential phone decline (driven by wireless substitution) for many years and cable companies are now seeing it, too. “We estimate that, in 2013, over 500K lines were cut because of wireless substitution – the highest annual figure ever for this metric in Canada.”

It is worth the time to read the analysis, led by Jeff Fan.

Jeff will be moderating a session at The 2014 Canadian Telecom Summit called “The Continuing Evolution of TV.”

Have you registered yet?