As I have explained before, Calvinball is a game that has rules, but the rules keep changing.

Here is how Wikipedia describes the game, which was introduced about 20 years ago in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes:

The only consistent rule is that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice. Scoring is also arbitrary, with Hobbes reporting scores of “Q to 12″ and “oogy to boogy.” The only recognizable sports Calvinball is similar to are the ones that it emulates (i.e., a cross between croquet, polo, badminton, capture the flag, and volleyball.) Equipment includes a volleyball (the eponymous “Calvinball”), a soccer ball, a croquet set, a badminton set, assorted flags, bags, signs, and a hobby horse. Other things are included as needed, such as a bucket of ice-cold water, a water balloon, and various songs and poetry. Players also wear masks that resemble blindfolds with holes for the eyes. When Rosalyn asked Calvin what the reason for the requirement was, Calvin responded, “Sorry, no one’s allowed to question the masks.”

For the past 4 years, I have used Calvinball to describe Canada’s communications policy, such as here, here, here and here.

The government has been advertising that it welcomes foreign investment in telecommunications; foreign investment apparently forms a key part of the government’s strategy to encourage competition in the sector. Yet, this evening, the government turned down the sale by Manitoba Telecom (MTS) of Allstream to Accelero Capital for “national security reasons,” having taken four and a half months to make a decision. According to MTS, the government “rejected an offer from MTS and Accelero to take whatever actions are necessary to address the government’s concerns.”

Keep in mind that the principals of Accelero are well known to the government. These are the same people that were permitted to buy spectrum and operate WIND Mobile. Indeed, the government seemed to bend over backwards to approve their entry into the market, overturning a CRTC decision that denied WIND Mobile’s right to operate (prior to the liberalization of foreign investment rules).

The Government says:

The Government of Canada has concluded its review of Accelero Capital Holdings’ proposed acquisition of the Allstream division of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. (MTS) under the national security provisions of the Investment Canada Act. The result of this review is that the transaction will not proceed.

MTS Allstream operates a national fibre optic network that provides critical telecommunications services to businesses and governments, including the Government of Canada.

Just last December, Allstream announced that it had been awarded a multi-year contract to manage theMPLS network, for Shared Services Canada, the Government of Canada department responsible for providing telecommunication services, email and data centres. Allstream also appears to be a major supplier to Canada’s civil aviation navigation services provider, NAV Canada, among other government sector clients.

This evening’s government press release seems to be saying that foreign companies will not be permitted to acquire telecom companies that are providing services to the Government of Canada.

As MTS states,

the transaction would have, among other things:

• contributed to increased competition in Canada’s telecommunications sector;
• sent a strong message that Canada’s telecommunications sector is, in fact, open to foreign investment;
• enabled Allstream to accelerate the introduction of innovative products to increase the productivity of Canadian businesses;
• provided MTS the capital necessary to increase its investment in Manitoba’s telecom infrastructure, such as fibre-to-the-home for rural Manitobans; and
• resulted in $165 million of funding for MTS pension plans benefitting more than 10,000 Plan members.

Will MTS still be in a financial position to bid in the 700 MHz auction? Will it be able to continue its FTTH program, introducing some of the world’s most advanced services and competitive TV distribution in small rural Manitoba communities? What will become of Allstream and its need for continued capital investment? Accelero said that it had planned to inject an additional $300M into Allstream “to increase Allstream’s competitiveness and accelerate the introduction of innovative new products to increase the productivity of Canadian small, medium and enterprise businesses”.

The government’s “Fact versus Fiction” page talks about concerns that Canadians might have dealing with foreign owned telecommunications companies. One of its “Fictions” is “Your privacy is at risk if you choose a foreign cell phone provider” with a response “FACT: Canada has strong privacy laws to ensure our citizens’ personal information is safeguarded. These laws apply equally to all organizations that collect such information in Canada. The laws prevent any provider from disclosing personal information except with consent or when permissible by Canadian law.”

Maybe the government doesn’t have as much faith in dealing with foreign owned telecom service providers as it wants you to have.

Later this morning we will see the launch of the TELUS WISE initiative today, a program available to Canadians free of charge to help advance “Wise Internet and Smartphone Education”.

TELUS WISE will offer seminars and online resources that will help keep all members of Canadian families safer online. It is not just an online resource; TELUS WISE ambassadors will come out to any local community group to conduct in-person seminars on Internet and smartphone safety – a workplace, community centre, school, parenting group or senior’s centre, for example. Individuals can also book a one-on-one session with trained staff at more than 200 TELUS stores. Educational materials will also be available on a secure portal, available to anyone who wants to educate themselves on the safe use of smartphones, tablets and computers.

It is a two tiered program, both of which are free, with TELUS WISE, targeting education for adults and TELUS WISE Footprint, aimed at kids aged 8-18. The TELUS WISE Footprint program is a secure online portal, offering interactive challenges for kids to learn how to stay safe online. There are comic-strip scenarios, identifying common mistakes children often make online with key topics like cyberbullying and predators. School-age children can earn money for their school’s cyberbullying and digital citizenship programs by completing interactive challenges.

Over the past 11 years, Cybertip.ca has received over 94,000 reports from the public, which have led to over 125 known arrests, and more than 62 children removed from abusive environments. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has some interesting and disturbing statistics on cyberbullying in Canada. Any participation in bullying increases risk of suicidal ideas in youth.

Jane Tallim, co-executive director of MediaSmarts.ca said “Our belief is that children and youth need critical thinking skills to engage with media as active and informed digital citizens.”

I applaud the private sector leadership in developing and promoting this national digital literacy and cyber-safety program. It is the first of its kind in Canada. The TELUS WISE program promises to not only assists parents in the education of their children of any age, but it also wants to help start a dialogue with aging parents about identity theft and how to stay protected against scam artists and other exploiters.

It is great to see TELUS working to improve Canada’s digital literacy, so wisely.

A number of articles appeared today that seem to tie together as a partial list of reference materials for students of Canadian telecom policy:

• Carmi Levy’s article on Yahoo’s Dashboard: Mobilicity shows why wireless competition rules need to change, fast
• A story from Reuters: Analysis: Spanish telecom firms show peril of pinning hopes on 4G
• An OpEd in the Globe and Mail by Martha Hall Findlay: Our cellphone woes are real, but forcing in competitors isn’t the answer
• Canadian Press coverage of a new report from The Convergence Consulting Group: New wireless players’ low prices not sustainable over long term: report

I found a common theme in the articles. Do you get the same sense?

Mobilicity has not said who the proposed buyer is, but the Globe and Mail is reporting “that Mobilicity and Telus are in talks to rekindle a sale that the federal government publicly killed in early June”. It is not known what the value is for a new deal, or how such an arrangement would be structured to get around the restrictions in Mobilicity’s licenses [see Appendix 2 of this license, as an example] that preclude transfer prior to February 10, 2014. Mobilicity acquired its wireless spectrum in 2008 for $243M.

Why was there so little interest by others in acquiring Mobilicity, for its customers or its spectrum?

What lessons can we learn?

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Update: The court documents for the CCAA [Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act] proceeding can be found on the Ernst & Young website. In particular, the Affidavit in the Initial Application Record [pdf, 41MB] has interesting insights for those who are voyeuristically inclined.

Let me start by saying that all of my lines are registered on the national Do Not Call List (DNCL) and have been since its launch five years ago.

That said, I am not sure I agree with a plan to make registrations permanent.

In its new release celebrating the fifth anniversary of the DNCL, the Commission said:

The CRTC is of the view that it would be too cumbersome to establish a procedure to remove numbers that have been disconnected or reassigned. It has therefore launched a consultation to find out whether registrations could be made permanent without such a procedure.

Mathematically, this effectively means that every Canadian phone number will be on the list eventually, unless people actively de-register their numbers. Ultimately, the only way to receive calls – other than from those duct cleaners who just don’t seem to care about the rules – would be to effectively opt-in.

I’d like to know what kind of person would do that.

The CRTC Public Notice details the evolution of the list from a 3 year registration period, to five years and now the CRTC’s proposal to make it permanent.

In Telecom Public Notice 2008-14, the Commission requested comments from interested persons as to whether registrations of telecommunications numbers on the National DNCL should be made permanent. In Telecom Regulatory Policy 2009-200, the Commission concluded that, if registrations on the National DNCL were made permanent, an efficient and cost-effective process would need to be established to remove disconnected and reassigned numbers from the National DNCL.

A CISC group determined that “the necessary processes and procedures for permanent number registration would be extremely time consuming, costly to implement, and unnecessary.” The CRTC engaged a US consultancy to assess the processes and concluded “that permanent number registration with a process to remove disconnected and reassigned numbers is not feasible on an efficient and cost-effective basis.”

But, the CRTC says that the National DNCL is popular with Canadians, citing a 2011 Privacy Commissioner survey that indicates 7 out of 8 Canadians surveyed “were concerned or somewhat concerned about organizations sending unwanted emails, faxes, letters, or telephone calls.” So, the CRTC is of the preliminary view that we should make DNCL registration permanent anyway.

I understand the attraction, but have to wonder if there should be more understanding about how such measures fit with a national digital economy strategy.

After all, sales people can knock on your door; companies can buy mailing lists and sent unsolicited addressed paper mail or drop flyers off at your door (or thrown on our driveways and lawns). Why are these forms of unsolicited old-media communications not being banned, but we seem to have no trouble erecting barriers to similar forms of communications using electronic media?

Has there been sufficient exploration of the impact of such measures on the development of Canada’s digital economy?

Ever since I lived in Denver 25 years ago, I have been a Broncos fan.

The NFL season so far this year has been a treat for me, with Peyton Manning providing weekly clinics in quaterbacking skills. One of the benefits of his no-huddle offense is the ability to get the next play started before the opposing coach has a chance to throw a “challenge flag” on the previous play.

More than once, the Broncos have benefited from blown calls on the field that would have been overturned by the replay official if given the chance.

For a couple months now, I have been suggesting that we need to take a deep breath, and take stock of where we are before rushing ahead with more intervention in Canada’s wireless market. Michael Geist, alluded to my posts, but apparently he wants us to go no-huddle:

we can expect calls to delay any further policy action until there are further studies or opportunities take stock [sic] of recent developments.

In this case, the government need not hand the incumbents another victory by delaying much-needed policy reforms.

But last night, I spotted flawed data in the CRTC’s Communications Monitoring Report. The data makes it appear that Canada’s mobile data networks are among the world’s slowest, when the truth is that they are among the world’s fastest. What kind of flawed policy can emerge if we follow his recommendation to run the next play before checking with the replay official.

We need to get wireless policy right, not rush ahead based on incomplete and incorrect information.

I’m throwing the challenge flag.