Back in April, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics issued its Fifth Report, entitled “Privacy and Social Media in the Age of Big Data“. Among its recommendations was a soft one on Digital Literacy: “The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada continue to provide support to digital literacy programs.”

Last night, I saw the government’s response to the report:

Digital literacy and skills are at the core of what is needed for individuals to succeed in today’s online economy. In this regard, the government makes significant investments in skills development programs, including those that target digital literacy. For example, Budget 2011 announced that Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) would reallocate $60 million to support digital skills and enrolment in key disciplines, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

A number of important initiatives arise from the Budget 2011 reallocation. For example, Skills Link is dedicating up to $10 million annually over three years (2011–14) for projects to support digital skills development among disadvantaged youth. Digital Jobs of Tomorrow has received nearly $1 million for a project carried out by the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow’s ICT Skills, a group of information and communications technology (ICT) industry leaders, in conjunction with the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). In 2011, the project launched the CareerMash website and career awareness activities for schools and students to promote ICT career awareness. HRSDC also provided both core and project-specific funding to the ICTC to contribute to the development of a digitally skilled workforce and improved ICT labour market intelligence.

As well, up to $4 million over two years was committed for a digital skills competition to improve awareness of ICT-related education and training programs, while $9 million of the HRSDC Skills and Partnership Fund is being invested over three years to encourage and support the training and employment of Aboriginal people in the ICT sector.

In its March 28, 2013 Response to the Report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, entitled Labour and Skills Shortages in Canada: Addressing Current and Future Challenges, the Government of Canada stated that ensuring that Canada has the skills and labour force it needs now and in the future is one of the greatest socio-economic challenges facing the country. It further recognized that this will require not only concerted action, but also innovative thinking, approaches and partnerships. In view of this, as announced in Economic Action Plan 2013, the government is taking steps to address these labour market challenges by partnering with provinces and territories, employers and other stakeholders to target skills development investments in high-demand areas.

The Response also recognized the shared responsibility for Canada’s labour market success, which requires multiple stakeholders to play important roles in this respect. Provinces and territories, which are responsible for education, have a central role to play in developing digital literacy and skills. The government will continue to work with its provincial and territorial partners to develop tomorrow’s digital workforce.

The Government of Canada is committed to protecting the privacy of Canadians and fostering an environment that will enable individuals and businesses to participate, innovate and contribute to the growth of the digital economy.

Are we making progress on the release of a comprehensive digital strategy?

When I studied statistics, we were told to look for “outliers” – results that appeared to be inconsistent with the rest of the data. If an observation is a potential outlier, you begin an analysis to determine whether a cause can be identified for the spurious result.

So, in the CRTC Communications Monitoring Report, Figure 7.1.8 has a curious, if not spurious result in its representation of mobile broadband average measured speeds in various countries.

Canada shows a measured speed in 2012 of just 1.1Mbps, a decrease from 2011 that observed 1.2 Mbps. So, despite the expansion of faster networks – the CRTC press release mentioned that LTE was available to 72% of Canadians, up from 45% – Figure 7.1.8 shows observed speeds declining. One might have expected the speeds to be increasing.

That struck me as an outlier meriting further analysis.

I went to the Akamai source document to see what might be the cause. It turns out that Akamai – and therefore, the CRTC – only had one carrier represent Canada for its characterization of mobile broadband speeds. The carrier is identified as CA-2. It may not be one of the major carriers, since Akamai discards results from carriers that mix their fixed broadband and wireless traffic:

Data is included only for networks where Akamai believes that the entire Autonomous System (AS) is mobile—that is, if a network provider mixes traffic from fixed/wireline (DSL, cable, etc.) connections with traffic from mobile connections on a single network identifier, that AS was not included in the source data set.

It appears that the rest of the CRTC table uses the observation from just one carrier from countries that have multiple service providers in the Akamai report, not the average of the observed speeds. For example, Akamai shows the following average kbps for Germany in its 3Q12 report: Germany DE-1 1543; Germany DE-2 4985; Germany DE-3 2094. The CRTC appears to list the result for DE-2 only.

Figure 7.1.8 appears to be an outlier that needs further analysis.

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Update: US Telecom, formerly known as the United States Telephone Association, has just published an analysis of Internet traffic data and it is worth reading as we examine international telecom performance.

Two graphics in particular caught my eye:

The CRTC’s Communications Monitoring Report was released earlier today, providing a good snap shot of where we are standing – or at least where we were standing when the snap shot was taken.

The CRTC provides some information about adoption of communications services based on income, although the data is a year older because of limitations in the information source from Statistics Canada. As I have written continuously on these pages, more attention needs to be placed on how Canada can increase the affordability of information and communications services and technologies in low income households. It is encouraging to see the CRTC tracking this information. In particular, I was interested in Table 2.2.9, showing Monthly household communications expenditures, by service and by income quintile.

That table shows a big jump – an increase of more than 16% – in the spending by low income households on internet services. It is likely driven by an increase in the number of low income households that actually got an internet connection, but unfortunately, we don’t see comparative adoption figures published by income quintile by year.

The CRTC shows additional information about spending levels as a percentage of income. At 8.4% of income, many of Canada’s lowest income households are spending too much, and this is with nearly half of those households not having a broadband connection.

Most initiatives have looked at the rural/urban divide; it is encouraging to see the CRTC gathering data and monitoring affordability in low income households, a key factor limiting ubiquitous participation in a digital economy. Understanding the nature of the problem is an important step in developing solutions.

When companies submitted applications last week to bid in Canada’s upcoming 700 MHz auction, the public didn’t get to see the size of the deposits. That would help understand the possible strategies of each of the companies. So we don’t really know which of the applicants are planning to bid nationally versus regionally; we don’t know which companies will go after which blocks. Four of the five paired blocks are called prime, because they align with AT&T’s B & C blocks or Verizon’s C1 & C2 blocks in the US. The A block is the remaining paired block and there are two unpaired blocks, D & E that are also available. Opening bids for those unpaired blocks is about half the cost per MHz compared to the paired blocks.

A story in Ars Technica reports that AT&T plans to use its D & E blocks for LTE broadcast – video streaming – to help deal with mass viewing events such as the Super Bowl or March Madness.

Those two “non-prime” blocks just got a little more valuable. Will the major carriers seek to add the D & E blocks to their arsenals?

What will be the impact on smaller fixed wireless players that may have hoped to acquire lower cost licensed spectrum?

The Government of Canada has been running a series of ads with the tag line: “Less noise. More facts.”, with directions to readers to get more information on a special Industry Canada website.

I tweeted earlier this week that I think the campaign is unseemly and sophomoric.

On reflection, I think the government needs to take its own advice and provide less noise and more facts.

There are at least two major points that merit scrutiny.

The ad says “The fact is Canadians pay some of the highest wireless rates in the developed world.”

That simply isn’t true, and the government knows it. Industry Canada and the CRTC commissioned a report [html, pdf] that looked at international pricing; less than 3 months ago, then Minister of Industry Christian Paradis welcomed its release, saying:

Based on Wall Communications’ results, wireless prices have decreased 18 percent since 2008. This impressive decline shows that increased competition is keeping prices down while new technologies become available.

We know that the people responsible for the Government ad campaign are aware of the Wall Communications study; the government cites figures from that report when taking credit for prices dropping by 20%. The Wall Communications report doesn’t stand alone. The School of Public Policy at University of Calgary released a report two weeks ago on Parliament Hill. The report was written by economists who found:

wireless prices in Canada are difficult to compare to international prices because Canadians use their mobile devices differently – with a bias toward monthly plans over pay-as-you-go and with fast networks that encourage smartphone usage. This incorrectly leads to the conclusion that Canadians are paying more, when in fact they are demanding more in terms of mobile services.

The authors of the University of Calgary report are experts in competitive markets, both of them having worked at Canada’s Competition Bureau. As I wrote at the time, The paper takes aim at simplistic analysis that has led various critics to have accused the industry of being “woefully uncompetitive” and “dysfunctional and in desperate need of an overhaul.”

According to their report, “there is no evidence that there is a competition problem in wireless services in Canada.” Yet Industry Canada’s More Choice website ignores this finding. Industry Canada says it is a fiction that “There is already enough competition in the wireless market.”

The University of Calgary report is an inconvenient contradiction – one that cannot be ignored.

As I suggested on Monday, it is time to take stock of where we are. How do we create the right policy framework to encourage the continued investment of billions of dollars each year, delivering advanced, affordable services that enable Canada’s participation in a global digital economy?

I agree with one part of the ads that my taxes paid for. We need less noise and more facts. We can then follow up with thoughtful analysis and leadership.