Will you be with some of the most influential leaders of the Canadian & International ICT industry who are gathering next week at The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit?
No other event matches The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit for the depth and breadth of topics covered and issues debated. No other event presents a complete picture of current and expected trends & developments. Come see why The Canadian Telecom Summit has become Canada’s must-attend conference.
With more opportunities than ever to learn, network and do business, if you are involved with or impacted by Canadian telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology, you need to be at The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit.
Join your colleagues for 3 days of spirited discussion and networking, next (June 4-6, 2012) at the Toronto Congress Centre.
Vancouver introduced a novel modular utility pole at the New Cities Summit in Paris last week. According to the story in the National Post:
To clear its streets of cellphone towers, parking meters, Wi-Fi terminals, streetlights and even community message boards, the city of Vancouver is pushing forward with a scheme to compress all the technologies together into specialized “Vancouver poles” planted throughout the city.
I have been participating in a task force to help my local community develop a telecommunications infrastructure protocol for dealing with carrier requests for local land use consent. I have been supporting an idea for for the city to leverage its existing vertical real estate, including poles, towers and buildings. As wireless carriers expand their networks for capacity (as opposed to coverage), tower height requirements are reduced; can more of the carrier needs be integrated into replacements for existing lighting, traffic and electric poles?
“We’ve been seeing an almost exponentially growing demand for data,” said Mr. Johnston. “So, we’ve been trying to find a way to integrate cell phone infrastructure into the urban landscape in a way that does not detract from the aesthetic and view qualities of the city.”
As wireless traffic climbs — and infrastructure expands in response — Mr. Coupland predicts that poorly-managed cities could become “as cluttered as a kitchen junk drawer.” “I like to get rid of as much crap as possible from the visual environment,” he said.
Is there an opportunity for cities to develop partnerships with wireless carriers to develop a next generation streetscape, with new energy efficient lighting, reducing clutter while delivering more reliable and diverse competitive wireless coverage?
Greg O’Brien has an important commentary on Cartt.ca – he wants it accessible to all, so he has reproduced it on tumblr for those who don’t have access to his must-read industry newsletter.
I DARE ANYONE TO disagree with this statement: “A child without access to the Internet will find life increasingly difficult in the information age.”
That was how Greg reported what National Cable and Telecommunications Association president and CEO Michael Powell said during his keynote speech [pdf, 133KB] yesterday at the 2012 Cable Show in Boston.
Many Americans still are not online and that needs to change. Cable is working to increase adoption by partnering with the FCC to launch a low cost broadband service to low income families across America. This is critical because a child without access to the Internet will find life increasingly difficult in the Information Age.
It has been way too easy for most leaders to equate broadband leadership with rural subsidies.
It isn’t about access. It is about affordability. Most households with a computer have broadband connections. There are too many households that don’t even have computers.
Last Wednesday, I wrote about the need to find a leader who will step up to the challenge of providing all school kids in Canada with the tools to compete in a digital economy.
As Greg wrote:
In the U.S., if a family qualifies for help under the National School Lunch Program, and isn’t already a broadband customer, they can sign up for a $9.95 per month broadband connection (with no installation charges, a low-cost or free modem and a minimum 1 Mbps download speed promise), access to other agencies and programs offering discounted computers, security software and training on how to use their new connectivity, too. The pilot project is wrapping up in San Diego, with a national rollout beginning here in September.
Such a program works from a business perspective, too. We’re not talking about substituting a bunch of $40/month subscriptions for ones at $9.95. These low-income customers will be newcomers who previously couldn’t afford broadband. We’re talking about homes already in the ISP’s footprints which currently are generating no Internet revenue.
This kind of program needs to be launched in Canada. No child should be without access to the Internet in a digital Canada.
Who will lead this initiative? Will it be a CEO from a major ISP or a government leader, such as the Industry Minister, the CRTC Chair or our Governor General? We need a leader willing to take a bold step for Canadian kids to compete in the information age. Who will step up to the challenge?
Rogers newest video, “Next is Now … More than Ever” offers a fast paced and often entertaining look at statistics that speak to how much Canadians value the Internet, smart appliances, the multi-screen experience with TVs and tablets, smartphone usage, digital wallets, and the resultant impact on health, government, education, and shopping.
A week ago, in its Rogers Innovation Report, we saw a preview of some of the data behind this video. Be sure to watch it.
Some of the factoids have important market implications. Many of these trends will be explored in depth in various sessions at The Canadian Telecom Summit from June 4-6.
Think about what it means that “54% now watch movies and TV on computers and the majority of tablet owners watch TV and tablets… at the same time.” On June 5, our multi-screen panel will look at this and more with speakers Phil Hartling from Rogers, Paul Brannen from Samsung, Chris Hodgson from Google and Gary Schwartz from Impact Mobile and moderator Mike Abramsky.
Almost exactly halfway through the video, there is a snippet that struck me as most important for Canada’s national digital strategy: “For the first time in history, teens now do homework online as much as offline“.
I paused the video on that frame.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I have been troubled by our collective failure to get computers into the homes of low income Canadians, especially households with school aged children.
As a country, we now have broadband service in nearly every home that has a computer; thanks to government initiatives and private sector leadership, we have access to a broadband service in even the most remote parts of the country. Yet half of all households in the lowest income quintile don’t have a computer, and therefore have no need for a broadband connection.
We need One Million Computers to bridge the digital divide. We need a Canadian carrier to step up to offer a program to connect low income households, similar to a program that has been launched in the US. The US has demonstrated that the government doesn’t need to throw money at this; but we need leadership.
Perhaps the Industry Minister will add such a program to the long delayed national digital strategy.
Perhaps the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development can lead with this under training and social services initiatives.
Perhaps the CRTC can explore a program for low income households with children when reviewing public benefits for broadcasting.
Or maybe we’ll find one of the industry participants to take it on themselves because it is the right thing to do – and it may even turn out to be profitable.
As the video shows, there are 20,000 educational apps that some kids can’t access as easily as others; three times more learning apps than colleges and universities in North America. It bothers me that there are kids in our city schools who don’t have access to these technologies. Kids who can’t benefit from these same opportunities that most Canadian households enjoy.
The video demonstrates the vision of continued growth, evolution and development for communications services and information technology providers. More bits, flying faster, with even greater reliance on new technologies and integrated services for work, school, shopping and play time.
As the Rogers video shows, next is now, more than ever. How can we help “next” to come now for all Canadians?
Four weeks from now, we will mark 20 years since the CRTC’s landmark Decision 92-12, “Competition in the provision of public long distance voice telephone services and related resale and sharing issues.”
I was the lead-off witness in the hearing that led to that Decision. It was the job that brought me back to Canada and I am grateful for that career decision.
Hard as it may be to imagine, among the issues we had to deal with was convincing the CRTC that competition itself was in the public interest. The Commission made the right decision:
Based on a thorough assessment of all of the information presented, the Commission has concluded that increased competition, subject to the appropriate terms and conditions, would be in the public interest.
The printed version of the Decision was more than 200 pages in each official language.
You should take a fresh look at the Decision. You may be surprised at the types of issues that needed to be settled: competitive safeguards, industry standards, access to emergency services and more. The decision gave birth to CISC processes and carrier services groups.
The very first Canadian Telecom Summit took place 10 years ago. The event was called “Celebrating 10 Years of Telecom Competition“. On June 12, we will be marking the 20th anniversary of that Decision. It is sometimes surprising how many issues continue to arise that we sought to resolve a generation ago.
We’ll mark the anniversary at this year’s Summit (coming up in less than 3 weeks), but our focus will be more forward looking. The theme this year is “Competition and Innovation: Celebrating our Legacy, Developing the Future“. Once again, we have speakers who are the most influential in leading the development and evolution of Canada’s communications sector.
