I’ll be taking a little time off over the next week as my family celebrates Passover, the feast of freedom.

Part of the holiday includes major feasts, called “seders“, on Monday and Tuesday evenings, reading from the Hagaddah – an organized retelling of the biblical story of the exodus from Egypt – wrapped with stories to ensure family members of all ages are kept interested throughout the evening. The number “four” figures prominently during the evening. We have four cups of wine, the youngest child asks 4 questions about why this evening is different from all the other evenings. In another part, we speak of the questions asked by four types of children: wise, wicked, simple and one who doesn’t even know how to ask.

I consider this section to be an form of audience segmentation, helping the leader of the ceremony market to different members of the population gathered around the table.

Relating all of this to telecommunications, one might say (if you will permit me to stretch the metaphor) that as Canadians, we have been wandering through a digital desert for some time, looking for guidance toward a promise of a digital economy.

As I scan the latest federal budget, the only references to digital strategy types of issues seem to be references to “connectivity and broadband” as being eligible investments under a provincial / territorial Building Canada Fund, providing $14B over 10 years “to support infrastructure projects of national, regional and local significance.” Other eligible categories for the fund includes: highways, public transit, drinking water, wastewater, and innovation.

We continue to be willing to spend billions to subsidize the supply of broadband to less than 1% of the population, while failing to address the 20% of the population that isn’t making use of the broadband sitting at their front door.

In keeping with the tradition of the Passover seder, I’ll let you come up with other questions to ask the leader.

As we look toward the promise of a digital strategy, we hope that it considers market segmentation. As described in the Hagaddah, there are 20% of us who don’t know how to ask.

More than 60 leaders who shape Canada’s ICT industry will speak at The 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit, June 3-5 in Toronto. The event will include a dozen keynote addresses offering insights into the future of Canadian ICT, examining the services, technologies, consumer & business trends and regulatory & policy initiatives that drive the information economy.

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

• 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.

With so much public attention focused on telecommunications issues, 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 has become Canada’s most important annual ICT event, attracting attendees from around the world.

For 3 days, The Canadian Telecom Summit delivers thought provoking presentations from the prime movers of the industry. This is your chance to hear from and talk with them in both a structured atmosphere of frank discussion and high-octane idea exchange and 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.

How do you eat an elephant? Easy – one bite at a time.

It is an old adage, but one that is often forgotten in the face of daunting goals.

I wonder if the release of Canada’s National Digital Strategy has been held up because officials are trying to make it too all-encompassing.

In November 2010, then Industry Minister Tony Clement said the strategy would be released in the Spring of 2011 (i.e. 2 years ago).

This coming spring, we will formally launch our digital economy strategy. It will be a living document, one that will continue to evolve to meet the changing needs of changing times. But it will be an important milestone in Canada’s path to greater competitiveness and innovation.

Now 2 years overdue, as time passes our expectations for the document are also evolving. Three years in the making, some may be expecting the document to be nothing less than an all encompassing recipe book to guide Canada’s participation in a global digital economy.

Look at the breadth of questions for which input was sought 3 years ago when the Digital Economy Strategy consultation was launched:

Consultation Questions

• Innovation Using Digital Technologies
  • Should Canada focus on increasing innovation in some key sectors or focus on providing the foundation for innovation across the economy?
  • Which conditions best incent and promote adoption of ICT by Canadian business?
  • What would a successful digital strategy look like for your firm or sector? What are the barriers to implementation?
  • Once copyright, anti-spam and data breach/privacy amendments are in place, are their other legislative or policy changes needed to deal with emerging issues?
  • How can Canada use its regulatory and policy regime to promote Canada as a favourable environment for e-commerce?
• Digital Infrastructure
  • What speeds and other service characteristics are needed by users (e.g., consumers, businesses, public sector bodies) and how should Canada set goals for next generation networks?
  • What steps must be taken to meet these goals? Are the current regulatory and legislative frameworks conducive to incenting investment and competition? What are the appropriate roles of stakeholders in the public and private sectors?
  • What steps should be taken to ensure there is sufficient radio spectrum available to support advanced infrastructure development?
  • How best can we ensure that rural and remote communities are not left behind in terms of access to advanced networks and what are the priority areas for attention in these regions?
• Growing the ICT Industry
  • Do our current investments in R&D effectively lead to innovation, and the creation of new businesses, products and services? Should we promote investments in small start-ups to expand our innovation capacity?
  • What is needed to innovate and grow the size of the ICT industry including the number of large ICT firms headquartered in Canada?
  • What would best position Canada as a destination of choice for venture capital and investments in global research and development mandates?
  • What efforts are needed to address the talent needs in the coming years?
• Canada’s Digital Content
  • What does creating Canada’s digital content advantage mean to you?
  • What elements do you want to see in Canada’s marketplace framework for digital media and content?
  • How do you see digital content contributing to Canada’s prosperity?
  • What kinds of infrastructure investments do you foresee making in the future? What kinds of infrastructure will you need in the future to be successful at home and abroad?
  • How can stakeholders encourage investment, particularly early stage investment, in the development of innovative digital media and content?
• Building Digital Skills
  • What do you see as the most critical challenges in skills development for a digital economy?
  • What is the best way to address these challenges?
  • What can we do to ensure that labour market entrants have digital skills?
  • What is the best way to ensure the current workforce gets the continuous upskilling required to remain competitive in the digital economy? Are different tactics required for SMEs versus large enterprises?
  • How will the digital economy impact the learning system in Canada? How we teach? How we learn?
  • What strategies could be employed to address the digital divide?
• Improving Canada’s Digital Advantage
  • Should we set targets for our made-in-Canada digital strategy? And if so, what should those targets be?
  • What should the timelines be to reach these targets?

It was an aggressive shopping list of issues to be addressed from the outset. So much more has been added as the government released all sorts of announcements in the interests of furthering a national digital economy strategy.

Open data? Digital government? Support for new media development? Cyber security? Copyright? E-commerce? Digital wallets? Crowdfunding? Rural and remote community connectivity? Distance education? Computers for low income households? Spectrum policy? Vertical integration? Lawful intercept? Skills development? Digital literacy? e-Health? Anti-spam? Foreign investment reform? National broadband and mobile testbeds and incubators? Support for accessibility tools? Integrated first responder emergency broadband networks? Evolution of 911 emergency access? Digital TV spectrum? Role of CBC? Privacy? Security?

Will the document still be an important milestone along Canada’s path to increased competitiveness and innovation? Have the expectations for the National Digital Economy Strategy become elephantine, so big that we are certain to be disappointed?

At this point, I wonder if a collection of briefs may be better than trying to address every issue all at once in a single magnum opus.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

A colleague pointed out an article in the Ottawa Business Journal that indicated that on March 7, Canada’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology began a study of Broadband and Internet access across Canada. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce was the only witness at that particular session. In the introduction to its testimony, Scott Smith of the Chamber observed:

Canadian business is not online and this is despite the fact that Canada has some of the most advanced and available telecommunications infrastructure in the world. … So the story I want to tell you is one of adoption, or lack of adoption, not about barriers to access. With our relatively small population in a huge land mass, the Canadian market is essentially California with a distribution challenge. Yet Canadians continue to be among the first users in the world to benefit from next generation network.

Access to networks isn’t the problem, even though solving this non-issue continues to be a focus for many politicians at various levels of government.

It is adoption that we need to address.

Digital literacy and adoption are much more difficult challenges than throwing money at regional broadband infrastructure. How do we convince households to get computers and subscribe to connectivity; how do we get businesses to go online and adopt e-business strategies? The Chamber of Commerce identified market certainty as an issue

One of the committee members asked why businesses aren’t investing in ICT, after all, it would seem to be for their own benefit. Unfortunately, the Chamber did not have any studies to cite. I wonder to what extent there are government policies that inadvertently discourage adoption of ICT.  Besides CASL, which I have highlighted at length, are there other regulations that discourage e-commerce and ICT adoption.

How do we ensure that individual citizens are not left behind? Among those households with a computer, virtually all have broadband connections. However, nearly 20% of Canadian households have no computer. How do we reach them?

As might be expected, half of the households with no computers are households in the lowest income quintile.

Statistics Canada data has been showing that Canada actually has a bigger urban broadband problem than rural, yet no programs appear to have targeted this segment.

On these pages, I have written about ideas to start with targeting computer and connectivity solutions for low income households with school aged children [see, for example, here]. This needs the participation and cooperation from the carrier community and may be well suited for a network of public private partnerships.

Getting computers into all households with school aged kids would be a good starting point for increasing digital adoption in Canada. Even for those of us who have been on-line since the earliest days of networking, our kids can be a leading source of technical support and improved household digital literacy.

We will see what direction the INDU study takes as the committee continues to explore Broadband and Internet Access in Canada. There will be an outstanding panel at The 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit looking at building an innovation economy. The session will be moderated by Namir Anani (President & CEO, ICTC) and it features Chris Hodgson (Canadian Retail and Tech Practice Lead, Google), Tracey Jennings (Canadian Leader: TICE, PwC), Warren Jestin (SVP and Chief Economist, Scotiabank), Ron Styles (President & CEO, SaskTel), Joan Vogelesang (President and CEO, Toon Boom Animation) and John Weigelt (National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada).

Have you registered yet?

Last week, Minister Paradis announced “the next steps in our government’s plan to build a more competitive wireless sector”. In his speech: “New measures to increase competition in the wireless sector“, there were four key elements announced,  as I listed in my blog post last week:

• expanding—and extending—the requirement for wireless companies to provide roaming on their networks to competitors;
• tightening the rules to increase cellphone tower sharing, thereby helping to limit the construction of new cell towers;
• use the upcoming wireless spectrum auctions to promote four competitors in each region of the country;
• review the policy on spectrum licence transfers with the objective of promoting competition in the wireless sector.

In theory and with the best intent, these measures are supposed to help foster a more competitive market. The problem was that these measures were announced without an overall strategy against which they could be tested for consistency with an ultimate objective. So the measures sound good, but how can we determine if they fit together with an overall plan?

In practice, we may have already seen the first unintended, yet somewhat predictable sign that some of these measures could be counter productive.

The fourth element of the Minister’s plan was likely targeting the Shaw-Rogers spectrum option deal, but it scored a direct hit on a potential exit strategy for the backers of new entrants. Was this announcement a contributing factor for the current debt challenge facing Mobilicity?

This isn’t the first time that we have seen this kind of behaviour. A year ago, I wrote about the “Digital indecision” discussing the foreign investment consultation that overhung the market for 2 years.

We have Industry Canada and the CRTC each examining new measures that will impact the willingness of investors to fund wireless competition. How are we ensuring appropriate coordination? What policy direction is guiding the deliberations? At a time that Canada is seeking to recruit foreign carriers to participate in the upcoming 700MHz auction, one needs to ask how this contributes to a better investment climate for competition.

What is the overall strategy for wireless? How does it fit into an integrated national digital strategy?