A very brief post today in order to highlight a new report from GSMA, “Socio-Economic Benefits of 5G: The importance of low-band spectrum” [pdf, 8.9MB].

The report was released last week as GSMA set out its vision for the ITU’s upcoming World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC2023), taking place at the end of the year in Dubai.

GSMA says the importance of low-band spectrum is because of the propagation characteristics of such frequencies. Low-band spectrum is particularly well suited for providing coverage in rural and remote areas. In addition such frequencies have better in-building penetration, providing ‘deep’ indoor coverage as well as capacity in urban areas.

Low-band spectrum is a driver of digital equality, reducing the gap between urban and rural areas and delivering affordable connectivity. Without sufficient low-band spectrum, the digital divide is likely to widen, and those living in rural areas will be excluded from the latest digital technologies.

The report has an interesting comparison of indoor 5G signal strength in the largest cities in Australia, Canada and Japan. Look for Figure 12 in the report.

As WRC-23 approaches, we will likely be hearing more about spectrum policy.

A communications failure earlier today at Fredericton International Airport was caused by thieves stealing copper cable.

Bell has experienced 60 such incidents in the past 12 months just in New Brunswick. Although a news report says 4 people were arrested last November for copper theft, the damage to critical infrastructure is continuing.

New Brunswick Power and individual homes have also been victimized by theft of power cables and copper pipes. A man died in 2019 after breaking into a power substation in Bathurst, NB.

Last October, the New Brunswick legislature amended its Salvage Dealers Licensing Act, so that scrap yards are no longer able to pay cash and are required to check government issued identification.

Bell is asking provincial and federal governments to increase fines and make changes to the Criminal Code of Canada saying such measures are necessary to improve the resiliency of Canada’s telecommunications networks. Addressing the scourge of thieves stealing copper cable was identified as a top priority in the recent report [pdf, 475KB] from the Canadian Telecommunications Network Resiliency Working Group

This isn’t just a problem for telecom service providers, as we saw with the impact on flights in and out of Fredericton today. Stealing copper cable from power and communications networks can be a matter of public safety, impacting access to emergency service bureaus, hospitals and first responders. And, it cost at least one would-be thief his life.

As Bell CEO Mirko Bibic wrote, urgent action on the part of government is needed as part of protecting Canada’s critical infrastructure.

As promised, here is further look at the 2022 edition of ISED’s telecom price study report [pdf version, 1.8MB].

In its press release, ISED claims the government “continues to deliver on more affordable telecom services”.

The report is clear, Canada’s wireless prices declined by an average of 2.6% across all levels, with declines up to 16% for the largest data plans in 2022. For home Internet, prices declined or were stable, an 11% decline was recorded for mid-range plans. The report also shows that regional competitors are offering prices up to 39% lower than the major national service providers.

I’m not convinced the telecom price study report, or the press release for that matter, is so clear. That paragraph starts with a sentence about wireless plans, then a line about home internet.

To which service does that third sentence refer? “Regional competitors are offering prices up to 39% lower than the major national service providers.” All of the facilities-based internet service providers are regional; the national providers are the wholesale based ones. You have to search the report to find Table 3, to find that the 39% refers to Freedom Mobile’s Level 7 price plan in Ontario. Level 7 is defined as “unlimited nationwide talk and text along with 20-49 GB of data.”

The report also indicates that “Average prices in Quebec tend to be among the lowest in the country.” This has been a highlight driving a number of policies out of Ottawa. Yes, prices have been lower in Quebec but do we actually understand the reasons? Is there enough focus on what is driving lower prices in some parts of the country?

Are lower prices in Quebec actually due to the presence of Videotron as a “disruptor”? Or, are lower prices driven by lower rates of adoption and attempts by service providers to stimulate demand in a province with lower average income levels?

Let’s look at what the press release says is “clear”. “Canada’s wireless prices declined by an average of 2.6% across all levels, with declines up to 16% for the largest data plans in 2022.” I’m not sure the data in the report is really that clear.

The source for this line appears to be this chart (found on page 10 of the pdf version):

As can be seen readily, the average price change (-2.6%) is heavily skewed by the nearly 13% price increase in Level 2 pricing. Of course, very few people choose to subscribe to such a plan any more. Indeed, the report itself acknowledges “very few providers currently have a stand-alone 1 GB plan. Only Virgin offers this service across the country and only one regional provider (SaskTel) offers this type of plan.”

Also, recall that the mid-range plans had already dropped by more than 25% prior to the start of last year. That helps explains why one might expect modest price declines for those price baskets.

Although the press release says “The report is clear, Canada’s wireless prices declined by an average of 2.6% across all levels”, what is actually clear is that prices declined significantly more if you exclude the obvious outlier.

As with other international price comparisons, look at the data with a critical eye. As a test, see if you can find the typo at the bottom of page 69 of the pdf version (Table A3.1).

The missing caveats from the older editions of ISED’s telecom price study should be returned. As I wrote earlier this week, “Prices in Canada and international jurisdictions are driven by a complex mix of a number of factors: cost of service, competitive positioning, technological advances, consumer behaviour and regulatory frameworks.”

In the absence of such notes to the reader, is it fair to describe any price study as “clear”?

A week and a half ago, ISED released the latest edition of its series of telecom price studies. I’m going to look at that report over the course of a few posts.

It’s a real challenge to create meaningful international telecom price studies.

Remember when two dozen leading economists and academics said, “The Rewheel story is easy to understand. It is also completely wrong.” and “Rewheel’s rankings are of no value in comparing prices and assessing the level of competition in wireless markets.” Rewheel’s reports were characterized by ICLE as “a careless mish-mash of data points from which no reliable conclusions can be drawn.” Last week’s report [pdf, 1.2 MB] lives up to that billing.

I looked at a couple well publicized international telecom price studies about a year and a half ago. In that post, I write of my frustration with “the misinformation from pseudo-statistical studies being circulated with viral velocity”. I pointed out what should be easy to detect flaws with the methodology being used by Cable.co.uk.

Typical problems with telecom price studies arise from overly simplistic examination of the different countries. While most studies adjust for currency variations, very few make adjustments for PPP (purchasing power parity). If consumers are earning 80% less in one country, it doesn’t help for them to pay 25% less for their digital connections.

Fewer still account for variances in quality of the products and services, such as speeds, coverage, costs of building networks. That can be like comparing prices for bicycles and motorcycles. A recent PwC study [pdf, 660 KB] compared Canada to the rest of the G7 plus Australia. Canadian carriers invest almost double the amount capital measured on a per subscriber basis ($168 vs $87), with capital intensity 35% more (19% versus 14%).

There are hundreds (or thousands) of price plans available in each country. It is virtually impossible for telecom price studies to look at which plans are the most popular in each market. And then, how would a study start to compare those to the plans in other countries? Arithmetic averages (means or medians) are somewhat meaningless. Are the plans that most consumers are buying are weighted more heavily than those on extreme ends of the menu? In countries with 150 to 200% mobile penetration rates, does the study account for people paying multiple bills?

Let’s consider the telecom price study released earlier this month by Innovation, Science and Economic Development: “Price Comparisons of Wireline, Wireless and Internet Services in Canada and with Foreign Jurisdictions: 2022 Edition” [pdf version, 1.8MB]. Wall Communications prepared the report for ISED.

As in some other recent years, the 2022 edition is missing a section on caveats to the interpretation of the findings. Those notes used to be an important part of the study. For example, in 2016, the ISED study included a page of notes, including these two paragraphs:

Prices in Canada and international jurisdictions are driven by a complex mix of a number of factors: cost of service, competitive positioning, technological advances, consumer behaviour and regulatory frameworks. As wireless technology is constantly improving and consumers demand ever more bandwidth and data caps, service providers are constantly increasing features. In the Study, these changes are reflected by the need to regularly update the definition of service baskets. Hence, price increases in those baskets may in part, simply reflect better service levels offered to consumers.

This Study did not take into account the network technologies deployed in the networks nor the speed or quality of service of those networks. Finally, this Study did not account for any cost of service or socio-economic factors that may be relevant for price differences across different domestic and international jurisdictions. Thus, factors such as population density, terrain and climate have significant impacts on the cost of service. Similarly, socio-economic factors such as affordability indicators (i.e. mobile prices in relation to disposable income), number of handsets per subscriber, number of minutes of usage per subscriber and other factors were not within the scope of this Study.

The 2022 edition includes a few caveats in its Introduction, but it would benefit from a separate “reader’s notes” section.

I’ll look at the results of ISED’s 2022 price report in another post later this week.

Do screens make teens lonely? A recent article by Noah Smith got me thinking about the impact of so much screen time on our kids.

In “Honestly, it’s probably the phones”, Smith argues that the smartphone is the most plausible explanation for teenage unhappiness.

Doesn’t having access to all of their friends and acquaintances at all times via a device in their pockets mean that kids are less isolated than before?

Well, no. As the natural experiment of the pandemic demonstrated, physical interaction is important. Text is a highly attenuated medium — it’s slow and cumbersome, and an ocean of nuance and tone and emotion is lost. Even video chat is a highly incomplete substitute for physical interaction. A phone doesn’t allow you to experience the nearby physical presence of another living, breathing body — something that we spent untold eons evolving to be accustomed to. And of course that’s even before mentioning activities like sex that are far better when physical contact is involved.

He goes on to say that there is nothing about smartphone ownership that forces users to stop getting together in person. But, he provides several reasons why smartphones reduce the incentives:

• Distraction — “the rise of smartphones was also the rise of “phubbing”, i.e. when people go on their phones instead of paying attention to the people around them”
• Behavioral ease — “when your phone is right there in your pocket, it’s easier to just text a friend instead of going and hanging out”
• Network effect – “If 20% of people would rather be on their phones, that reduces everyone else’s options for in-person hangouts by 20%.”

Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University wrote an article in 2019, “Teens have less face time with their friends – and are lonelier than ever”.

“It turns out that today’s teens are socializing with friends in fundamentally different ways – and also happen to be the loneliest generation on record.”

Written before the impact of the pandemic, Professor Twenge observed, “Today’s 10th-graders go to about 17 fewer parties a year than 10th-graders in the 1980s did. Overall, 12th-graders now spend an hour less on in-person social interaction on an average day than their Gen X predecessors did.”

The study found that as the decline in “face-to-face time” accelerated after 2010, feelings of loneliness among teens increased dramatically. At the same time, research has found that teens who spend more time on social media also spend more time with friends in person. That should lead us to wonder why in-person social interactions have been going down, while social media use has increased.

The social teens are still more likely to meet up in person, and they’re also more active on their accounts. However, the total number of in-person hangs for everyone in the group drops as social media replaces some face-to-face time.

So the decline in face-to-face interaction among teens isn’t just an individual issue; it’s a generational one. Even teens who eschew social media are affected: Who will hang out with them when most of their peers are alone in their bedrooms scrolling through Instagram?

This study was published in March of 2019, a year before the world transitioned to a period of virtual social interaction.

In the face of a possibility that smartphones are behind the rise in teen unhappiness, Noah Smith suggests that our best move may be to simply wait for society to adapt to the changes effected by social media.

Perhaps that is the most pragmatic approach. Collectively, we aren’t going to put the smartphone genie back in the bottle.

Still, these articles should serve as important warning flags for parents, teachers and all those concerned about the mental well-being of a generation raised on always-on connected devices.

Some have argued that teens are simply choosing to communicate with their friends in a different way, so the shift toward electronic communication isn’t concerning.

That argument assumes that electronic communication is just as good for assuaging loneliness and depression as face-to-face interaction. It seems clear that this isn’t the case. There’s something about being around another person – about touch, about eye contact, about laughter – that can’t be replaced by digital communication.

The result is a generation of teens who are lonelier than ever before.