The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association has lost its new entrant members.

In a press release issued earlier this morning, WIND Mobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile have announced they are leaving the national association that, up until today, represented all wireless service providers, whether new entrant or long standing incumbent.

The three mobile service providers say the move is a direct result of their long-standing, mounting frustration with the CWTA’s consistent bias in favour of Rogers, Bell and TELUS on a wide variety of issues. From this point, the CWTA does not, and cannot claim to, speak on behalf of the Canadian mobile wireless sector.

There is often a tension in industry-wide associations.

Despite allegations to the contrary, telecommunications service providers fight for each customer and as a result, the representatives on association boards are often doing battle to improve competitive positioning. While personal camaraderie can sometimes help to overcome the professional competitive tensions, relationships can be strained when common ground cannot be found.

Two years ago, I observed what I called “cracks in the lobby“. where WIND Mobile and Mobilicity disagreed publicly with the CWTA over the issue of Manitoba’s proposed wireless consumer protection legislation. At the time, I asked:

In such groups, is unanimous agreement required or can a majority vote determine whether the association attaches its seal to a position? Where unanimity is not possible, should the association stand down and have members respond on their own?

The break-away from the CWTA creates some interesting challenges for the association, and also for a number of government agencies. The CRTC and Industry Canada have relied on CWTA to act as a gateway to the entire mobile industry on issues that require a common position or industry-wide action. For example, last September, the CRTC tasked CWTA with developing a solution to address handset theft. In its letter dated January 14, 2013, the CRTC asked CWTA to report by November 1:

confirming whether or not 100% participation has been achieved by the industry imposed deadline, and if not, what steps will be taken to achieve 100% participation and in what timeframe.

Without a mandate to represent 100% of the industry, it is not clear whether the CRTC will need to issue an order to all wireless service providers to participate in developing a common solution and response. When Bernard Lord was named head of the CWTA in the fall of 2008, I wrote:

Among the challenges for the new association leader will be recruitment of new members – welcoming the new AWS spectrum holders under the industry’s umbrella. While the new entrants may harbour some resentment for the CWTA’s lobbying during the spectrum consultation, there are many issues for which the common interests of the industry should unite all of the players.

At that time, four-and-a-half years ago, I told the CBC that newcomers would have much to gain by joining the CWTA. There are areas of common ground that merit industry-wide representation. Where a consensus among all of the industry players exists, there is so much more credibility, if presented on an industry-wide basis. The entire wireless sector loses when the industry can’t speak with a single voice.

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[11:25am update] The CWTA issued a statement that pointed to many industry wide initiatives that have been part of the common interests shared across competitive boundaries, including: Recycle My Cell national cell phone recycling program, the upcoming stolen phone database initiative, Wireless AMBER Alerts, the Mobile Giving Foundation, E9-1-1 enhancements, the textED.ca youth education initiative, Common Short Codes, the new FCM-CWTA antenna siting protocol, wireless number portability and anti-spam regulations.

The many contributions of WIND, Mobilicity and Public Mobile will certainly be missed, and CWTA would welcome their return to the Association in the future. CWTA will continue to promote the value of Canada’s wireless sector in bringing the benefits of wireless technology to Canadian consumers, businesses and communities.

The state of TV broadcasting is front of mind, with Cartt.ca reporting from the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas and the release of the CRTC’s latest report on the financial results for Canadian cable and satellite companies.

Various reports indicate increased levels of cord cutting, but the CRTC is indicating a net increase of about 1% in the households subscribing to a TV distribution service. Companies in the US are using various forms of regulatory arbitrage to re-transmit programming over-the-top and some broadcasters are threatening to stop over-the-air transmissions completely if they can’t get appropriate compensation for their signals.

Where is the industry headed?

At The 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit, on Tuesday June 4, we close the day with a panel looking at these issues and more:

For a couple of months, I have been saying that we have put together one of the strongest programs yet for The 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit. The Canadian Telecom Summit takes place June 3-5 in Toronto. Have you registered yet?

The 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit is just 8 weeks away. This is the 12th annual gathering of the leadership of stakeholders in the Canadian Communications sector.

Together with my co-chair, Michael Sone, we think we have assembled our strongest program yet.

This year, in addition to our always popular Regulatory Blockbuster, we are featuring sessions devoted to:

• Customer Focused Business Transformation;
• Devices, Screens & Apps;
• Network Transformation;
• Business Models in a Converged World;
• Consumer Issues;
• The Revolution of TV: Content Anywhere & Anyhow;
• Building an Innovation Economy;
• CIO Roundtable; and
• The Next Generation of Wireless.

The event will also feature keynote addresses from global thought leaders, some of whom participating for the first time in The Canadian Telecom Summit.

The brochure is reproduced below.

Have you registered yet? Prices increase May 1.

 

In 9 weeks, more than 60 industry shaping leaders will converge at the Toronto Congress Centre for The 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit, taking place June 3-5. With more than a dozen keynotes offering insights into the future of Canadian ICT, panels and discussions will be exploring what drives the information economy.

This year, we have assembled some of our strongest panel discussions, including sessions called:

• The Regulatory Blockbuster;
• Customer Focused Business Transformation;
• Devices, Screens & Apps;
• Network Transformation;
• Business Models in a Converged World;
• Consumer Issues;
• The Revolution of TV: Content Anywhere & Anyhow;
• Building an Innovation Economy;
• CIO Roundtable; and
• The Next Generation of Wireless.

No other event is quite like The 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit in covering the industry from every angle.

Now in its 12th year, The 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit is Canada’s most important annual ICT event, attracting attendees from around the world.

The Canadian Telecom Summit  is your chance to hear from and talk with your colleagues in both a structured atmosphere of frank discussion and high-octane idea exchange, as well as schmooze in a more relaxed social setting of genial conversation.

An annual tradition to conclude the first day, after being immersed in a full program of keynotes and panel discussions, we hold our not-to-be-missed Cocktail Reception, sponsored this year by Ericsson. This is a chance to unwind, enjoy some delicious food & drink, catch up with colleagues and make new professional acquaintances.

Come meet with leaders from services and equipment suppliers, applications developers, policy makers, regulators and major customers.

Book your seat early. The Canadian Telecom Summit is the only event you need to attend.

Register now: www.telecomsummit.com

Download the complete conference brochure here.

With great fanfare, last month the Federation of Canadian Municipalities announced an agreement with the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association in releasing a joint protocol on antenna siting [pdf].

The Joint Antenna System Siting Protocol is the result of a partnership between municipalities and the wireless industry, through FCM and CWTA, to find common sense solutions to the challenge of building Canada’s digital infrastructure while respecting local land use preferences and community concerns.

As I wrote at the time, a week later, Industry Minister Christian Paradis announced “New measures to increase competition in the wireless sector” which included

tightening the rules to increase cellphone tower sharing, thereby helping to limit the construction of new cell towers

Those measures were released the same day on the Industry Canada website, with a set of conditions of license that included:

Decision B-1 The conditions of licence for mandatory tower sharing will be modified as follows:

The mandatory tower and site sharing conditions of licence will apply to all Licensees in all bands who are telecommunications common carriers as defined in the Telecommunications Act.

The Licensee must facilitate sharing of antenna towers and sites, including rooftops, supporting structures and access to ancillary equipment and services (“Sites”) and not cause or contribute to the exclusion of other telecommunications common carriers from gaining access to Sites. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing,

• where the Licensee is party to an agreement that includes a provision excluding other operators from the use of a Site, then, in order to facilitate the sharing of Sites, the Licensee must consent to waiving that portion of the agreement to facilitate a Request to Share;
• as applicable, the Licensee must consent to or, in a commercially reasonable manner, seek the consent of third parties to the assignment, sublease or other rights of access to Sites pursuant to any agreement or arrangement to which the Licensee is a party; and
• the Licensee must not enter into or renew agreements that exclude other operators from using a Site.

The problem is that the last bullet can come into conflict with local community land use authorities. Having been a participant on my own city’s telecommunications protocol task force, I have heard concerns of local community members that do not want the concentration of antennae associated with co-located structures. Like many communities, the local protocol will be seeking single carrier structures when located close to residential neighbourhoods.

Industry Canada’s 2007 Procedure Circular (CPC-2-0-03) recognizes this:

Proponents are not normally expected to build new antenna-supporting structures where it is feasible to locate their antenna on an existing structure, unless a new structure is preferred by land-use authorities.

It is unfortunate that the new license condition appears to be in conflict with reasonable concerns of local communities to reduce visual impact of intensive antenna arrays in their neighbourhoods. Perhaps Industry Canada should modify its recent decision to be consistent with its CPC-2-0-03, with language such as:

the Licensee must not enter into or renew agreements that exclude other operators from using a Site, unless a new single carrier structure is preferred by land-use authorities.

With everyone in the industry trying to minimize conflicts with Canadians who want 5-bars of signal, but apparently with no towers in sight, hopefully the new license conditions can be modified to permit local land use authorities to represent the willingness of neighbourhoods to welcome new towers as long as the visual impact is kept to a minimum.