Over the past year, I have written a number of times about the need to get more computers into lower income households with children.

To date, government programs focus on delivery of broadband subsidies based on geography, rather than affordability. We have looked at targeting the high price of rural and remote service, without regard to affordability for low income households regardless of geography.

I think these programs have failed to do enough.

Earlier today, the FCC announced a bold partnership with industry that will deliver low cost computers and broadband and basic digital literacy to low income American households with school aged children. As the FCC chair stated, and similar to what I wrote about earlier this week, “Whether we’re talking about jobs, education or healthcare, in this day and age, getting online is a necessity, not a convenience.”

The US program has been anchored by the National Cable TV Association membership that will be offering a $10 cable broadband service to households that qualify for the school lunch program.  It is a way to readily identify low income households with school aged children. These homes are seen as being least likely to subscribe to broadband service. In other words, the program isn’t cannibalizing existing revenues and the program won’t apply outside the existing service areas.

Five years ago, I wrote a piece called “Doing well by doing doing good.” At the time, I quoted opening remarks from an industry event that cited Margaret Mead’s inspirational statement “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

I don’t think we can wait any longer for leadership from the government in the form of its digital strategy. Even if we had received a nice glossy book or a slick website, entitled “National Digital Strategy”, let’s face it, we have a lousy track record implementing these kinds of things.

I’d like to hear from people who want to actually do something. Who’s in?

UPDATE: Greg O’Brien and Cartt.ca has a commentary calling for Canada’s ISPs to take responsibility for expanding affordability of broadband service to low income Canadians.

Seeing Sandvine CEO Dave Caputo at yesterday’s Scotia Capital event reminded me that I have not yet written about the most recent Global Internet Phenomena Report. The Fall 2011 edition is based on September 2011 Internet traffic statistics from a cross-section of Sandvine’s customer base.

This edition provides interesting analyses of different geographies and internet access technologies:

• North America, Fixed Access
• North America, Mobile Access
• Asia-Pacific, Fixed Access
• Asia-Pacific, Mobile Access
• Emerging Markets (Eastern Europe, Brazil and Africa), Fixed Access

Within North American fixed networks, Real-Time Entertainment applications are the primary drivers of network capacity requirements, accounting for 60% of peak downstream traffic, up from 50% in 2010. Furthermore, subscriber usage is becoming increasingly concentrated in a smaller band of the evening, driving up network costs despite relatively constant per-subscriber monthly data consumption.

Sandvine also reports that North American fixed access networks have entered a post-PC era, defined by the majority of Real-Time Entertainment traffic being destined for devices other than a laptop or desktop computer. Game consoles, set-top boxes, smart TVs, tablets and mobile devices being used within the home combined to receive 55% of all Real-Time Entertainment traffic.

Sandvine’s report is a must read information source for trend analysis. Be sure to register and download your copy.

“Stereotype of ‘menial worker’ is obsolete” was the headline of a Toronto Star article that a colleague pointed me to. The article was inspired by a report released by the Ontario Literacy Council: Menial No More [pdf, 562 KB].

The discussion paper revolves around the concept that ‘low-skilled’ jobs need ‘high-skill’ ability.

the reality is that almost one million adults in Ontario do not have a high school diploma. While these adults tend to dominate many ‘low-skilled’ occupations in manufacturing, retail, food processing, and service industries, more university and college graduates are filling these positions, as these jobs now require a far greater range of skills than before. For instance, coffee shop baristas no longer just serve coffee, but troubleshoot the Wi-Fi; and hotel room attendants are now often required to operate personal digital assistants while cleaning rooms.

Too many people believe that a national digital strategy is all about infrastructure. This report brings the human element into focus: seeking to ensure that we think of how we can tailor accessible education and training programs for our most vulnerable citizens. As skill levels and expectations of jobs rise, going back to high school to obtain a diploma is usually not an option – too time-consuming or costly. For many workers, we need to find other kinds of training options.

This isn’t just a federal issue. As my colleague wrote to me, the percentages and numbers may not align with other studies, but we can agree with the Star’s conclusions: that there is enough evidence of a shift in the Ontario job market that politicians and policy makers would want to “dig deeper” and begin to think differently about how to train workers and allocate more education dollars toward that segment of “the adult population that lacks the skills to fill out an online application or compete for an entry-level job in the digital economy.”

On Friday, the Commissioner of Complaints for Telecommunications Services released his annual report [pdf, 1.8 MB] which shows a sizable increase in complaint volumes over last year, thanks largely to increased public awareness.

Among the sections I found most interesting was the “Summary of Complaints by Service provider.” It isn’t surprising that Bell, Rogers and TELUS have the most complaints: they are, by far, the largest service providers in the country. As such, the 85% of complaints that were directed at them appears to be roughly in line with their aggregate share. I was more interested in seeing which service providers generated fewer complaints than one might expect.

For example, Saskatchewan residents generated just 1% of the total complaints, despite having 3% of the population. On the other hand, Quebec represents 23% of the population, yet it generated 27.5% of the complaints, punching 20% above its weight. Why?

Virgin Mobile and Fido each generated about 8% of the complaints. Why? TELUS was responsible for less than half the complaints of Bell [including Virgin, Solo and Bell Aliant] and a third less than Rogers [including Fido]. On the other hand, dropping the alternate brands results in roughly the same level of complaints for TELUS and Rogers.

The aggregate data from the report may provide an interesting look at changes in buying patterns for certain services over the past 3 years or perhaps better understandings between consumers and service providers for legacy product lines. Long distance services used to generate 1 in 6 complaints – it is now responsible for just 1 in 20. Wireline voice and VoIP used to produce a quarter of complaints; they are now under 15%.

Contract disputes and billing errors are roughly 80% of the complaints to the CCTS. Mobile services continue to generate an increasing share of the contacts. Between the device, the voice plan, the messaging, data, long distance and roaming, contracting for mobile services is about as complex a transaction as consumers will face.

Are service providers and their agents doing enough to ensure that their subscribers clearly understand what they are buying and how long they are committed?

I hate customer service calls.

Inbound or outbound: it doesn’t matter. I take deep breaths, pour a fresh cup of coffee, preparing to invest the time on the phone. Actually, the worst is sending technicians for in-person service. That means sitting and waiting for the service “window”.

For whatever reason, the past month has seen an unusual level of call centre activity around here. And the call centre and customer service experience was rarely a proud moment.

Our pre-winter furnace tune-up led to 3 service calls before we all agreed that it was time to retire the old unit. That led to an energy audit, which in turn led to a discovery that our attic was missing about a foot and a half of insulation. That led to another few calls for sales and installation service. Then, scheduling the follow-up energy audit. The furnace installers missed their initial 2 hour window and called me an hour later to say they were on the way. I told them not to bother showing up and got a new crew to do the work the next day. Business is good for insulation companies – that must be why I pretty much had to beg their dispatchers to get around to even scheduling the work, let alone performing the job.

A newspaper subscription came due last week. The paper’s outbound call centre didn’t get my renewal order input properly in September, so that led to 3 additional calls this week to get the paper started again. The subscription has finally been renewed, but I was made to feel like they were doing me a favour. Why?

One of my telecom services has had intermittent problems, so that has led to 3 lengthy calls to repair and 3 technician visits so far. They still haven’t found the problem, but at least we now have confirmed diagnostics that there is an actual trouble within the network, not my inside equipment. Apparently, the issue has been escalated to the Office of the President: I can’t wait to see him stop by on his way home wearing a toolbelt and with test gear in hand. [As an aside, I think this would make an excellent United Way fundraiser.]

I had other call centre interactions with my wife’s car company and a telephone company that was apparently testing the Do Not Call List and Competition Bureau rules.

TOA Technologies (a developer of mobile workforce management solutions) is releasing its 3rd annual “Cost of Waiting” study this morning. The study finds that in the US, $37B is lost in labour force productivity as a result of waiting for in-home services or deliveries. Most importantly, 70% of respondents said they would recommend a company solely on the basis of an appointment being on time. The skill of the service technician and initiative to go above and beyond, were among the most important aspects that positively impact consumers’ opinion of a company. There are a lot of firms that should be reading this study and working on improving their performance.

As TOA Technologies has said in its press release, businesses have a narrow opportunity window to transform negative customer perception into customer satisfaction and retention. My furnace company turned around the initial negative experience by applying appropriate oversight and service excellence on the recovery. Obviously, it is better to consistently deliver superior customer service, but even I have bad days once in a while. It’s true.

My biggest gripe? Sitting on hold hearing a message that says that my call is important to them. If my call is so important, why am I on hold waiting for an agent?