The 700 MHz auction is over at last. In the next 6 weeks, 8 Canadian carriers will be scraping together five and a quarter billion dollars to pay for their spectrum. Some were quick to compare this to the $4.25 B raised in the 2008 AWS auction, without realizing that the license being issued this time around are 20 years, not 10 years.

The final bids varied widely between carriers and comparative analysis is challenging without considering which blocks were acquired, whether the spectrum was adjacent to a block that can be aggregated to provide better performance, the demographics of the geography and the compatibility with existing networks for handsets and partnerships.

Not all spectrum is alike.

For example, SaskTel issued a press release expressing its concerns with the outcome. SaskTel paid just $7.5M for the C1 block in its home province, covering about 10.4 million megahertz pops (population times the bandwidth). But SaskTel said “device options are not available for the C1 band”, so its “rural customers will not see a benefit for some time”. As it has consistently claimed for a couple years (since the auction framework was announced), SaskTel said “This incredibly complex auction format is clearly biased against regional carriers, in addition to having a number of other systemic flaws.” It called for the Federal Government to continue to focus efforts on ensuring no spectrum remains unused in rural Canada.

Rogers acquired dual blocks in most of the most populous regions of the country, gaining the A and B blocks everywhere but Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Northern Ontario, Northern Quebec and the Northern Territories. As Minister James Moore said in the press briefing, Rogers paid the most ($3.3B), but they got the highest quality spectrum that was being offered. With aggregation possible across the two blocks, the purchase should allow Rogers to get higher performance from its network, and many of its existing customers already have compatible handsets.

I won’t begin to speculate on Videotron’s spectrum strategy. I will just observe that in 2008, the company spent $555M to acquire AWS spectrum, mainly in Quebec, and on a 10 year license. Today, the company spent 60% less, just $233M for a 20 year license on Quebec, Southern and Eastern Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. It picked up spectrum in the most populous and most valuable markets in the country, with spectrum that has far better performance characteristics than its current inventory. Videotron spent less for its 20 year 700 MHz spectrum than Mobilicity spent for less coverage with its 10 year AWS purchase ($243M). Allocated on a population basis, Videotron’s “out-of-territory” 700 MHz spectrum cost about $150M of the $233M that they spent.

Does this set an upper bound for the value of Mobilicity’s spectrum?

The CRTC announced the second phase of its “Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians”, inviting Canadians to complete Choicebook, a 30 slide interactive questionnaire with a series of scenarios that reflect the realities of the television system.

Some of the questions appear to indicate the CRTC testing whether Canadians might accept taxing internet access, certifying online services or other forms of regulation of the internet.

For example, Slide 27 asks “Should online services be required to provide closed-captioning and adhere to programming standards?” As a follow-up, the CRTC asks if Canadians would be willing to pay a few additional cents per month for online services to meet these requirements. In the preamble to these questions, Netflix and YouTube are cited as examples of online programming.

The CRTC asks if respondents agree with a perspective that “online services like Netflix are getting a free ride by not contributing to the production of Canadian-made programming”, enabling more jobs to be created and allowing Canadian stories to be told on all platforms. If respondents agree with this perspective, they are asked if they would be willing to pay an additional $0.50 per month.

Another question in that section asks:

If streaming content from online services that meet the above requirements didn’t count against your Internet access data cap, would you be willing to pay a small flat fee of $5 per month to cover increased usage costs?

There are a lot of issues raised by this particular question. Exactly which “requirements” are meant? Is it all three of the requirements described two pages earlier in the Choicebook [closed captioning, adhere to broadcast standards, contribute to Canadian content production]? Is $5 really a “small flat fee”? Would this be mandatory for all internet access providers, or would it be a cap on excess data charges for “conforming” content providers.

The CRTC appears to be testing the concept of not all internet content being treated alike: streaming content that conforms to Canadian broadcast standards could be exempt from data metering; non-conforming streaming content would be charged. Is the CRTC considering a licensing process to certify internet content providers as conforming?

How might this work? Could the CRTC identify all internet service providers in Canada and impose a flat fee per subscriber to fund a streaming media fund? Content providers would be under no obligation to get licensed, but those that do might be able to draw from the fund. Still, there is a question of developing a good definition of who is an ISP, let alone identifying which subscribers would contribute. Does it include coffee shops? Internet cafes? Hotels? Airports? University dorms? Do smartphones with dataplans count as subscribers? What about data sticks and mobile hotspots? Business versus residence?

It will be interesting to see what emerges from this consultation. For the next three and a half weeks, through March 14, Canadians are invited to complete the CRTC’s questionnaire.

It’s about more than just TV.

The 2014 Canadian Telecom Summit, taking place June 16-18 in Toronto, will be looking at “The Continuing Evolution of TV: Content Anywhere, Any Screen, Anytime” in a panel discussion. Early Bird discounts are available for the next 10 days, through February 28. Have you registered yet?

In my Family Day reading, I came across a couple of different articles that struck me as somewhat related.

First was a news release from last week announcing the expansion of the Verizon Financial Network to reach more new markets, services and data centers in Europe and North America. The Verizon Financial Network is designed to provide dedicated infrastructure for many of the world’s largest financial institutions with enhanced security, resilience and low-latency.

Then I read an analysis in European Voice, warning that “Europe must beware of a Balkanised internet“. The article warns that it would be a mistake to heed the calls by some to force protectionist measures to keep European data within EU boundaries. “Isolating Europe’s data behind a protectionist wall will not only harm Europe’s economy as a whole.”

How will networks evolve to enable service providers and CIOs to provide their clients secure, responsive, reliable service level guarantees? Will we see the return to tiered, specialized networks for different classes of applications and customers?

A couple sessions will be looking at related issues at The 2014 Canadian Telecom Summit. A Cyber Security panel, with speakers such as Ron Deibert, Director of University of Toronto’s Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and Carl Herberger, VP of Security Solutions for Radware. There is also a session looking at Cloud, Big Data and the Transformative Power of the Network with a range of speakers from Ciena, Broadsoft, Blackberry and Zimory.

The 2014 Canadian Telecom Summit takes place June 16-18 at Toronto Congress Centre. Early Bird prices are available through February 28. Have you registered yet?

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?