Last night, I attended the Toronto performance of Comic Vision, part of a series of 5 events in support of vision research and the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Over the past 10 years, the Foundation Fighting Blindness has raised $3M to fund research into cures for retinal diseases, thanks to the support of these events. The event is supported by a number of the most prominent names in Canadian telecom: Bell, Nokia, Ledcor, HTC, Huawei, Samsung, RIM, Nokia Siemens Networks. As a result, there were a lot of friendly faces among those in attendance.
There is a long history of involvement by telecommunications professionals with organizations that support the visually impaired. The Telephone Pioneers’ beeping baseball was among the first initiatives of the organization that I was exposed to when I got into the industry 30 years ago.
There are still tickets available for the two remaining shows next week: the Vancouver event on May 4; and, Calgary on May 5. It makes for a fun evening – try to attend.
Monday is election day in Canada. Please go out to vote.
Despite the efforts of many commentators and media, a national digital strategy was at best a marginal issue in the campaign. Digital issues did not make the cut of questions debated by the leaders which in many ways was unfortunate.
I don’t think that Open Media has a monopoly on assessing whether a political party is pro-Internet and the group has used the label “pro-Internet” to refer to parties that have policies that strike me as contrary to the interests of a progressive, innovative and open internet.
The Green Party turned out to be the earliest supporter and promoter of Open Media‘s pro-Internet project, but there is no mention of “digital” nor “internet” in the Green’s platform. How pro-Internet can they be?
The NDP has carried a pro-Internet label from Open Media, but this is the party that has said it would impose greater government controls on Internet content than perhaps any democracy on the planet. In its responses to the Open Media Digital Future Survey, the NDP has clarified its platform statements on carrier matching funds: the party would impose a $500M per year tax on the major telecommunications companies to support a $1B per year universal broadband fund. If applied in a competitively neutral manner, this would raise broadband prices by about $4 per month or nearly 10%. Not sure how this can be seen to help with broadband adoption or affordability.
The Liberals have proudly proclaimed that it has the most candidates who have signed up for the Open Media pledge. Its technology critic was caught in the heat of an online chat supporting functional separation and couldn’t back away, although the party has issued a reassuring statement: “carriers that invest heavily in the advanced services and infrastructure of tomorrow deserve the chance to earn a fair return.”.
And the Conservatives have remained largely silent on digital issues, save a rant on the elusive iPod tax. Preferring to let their platform statements and pre-election record do most of the speaking for the party, the Conservatives would not engage with Open Media, refusing to take the bait from the Twitt-iverse that sought to extract additional information or promises.
On Monday evening, we will learn the outcome of the election and which policies will prevail. Which party will lead the release of a long overdue national digital strategy? What policy shifts will impact the investment in communications infrastructure and delivery of content and services.
A month from now, these issues and more will be debated when the leaders of the telecom industry gather in Toronto at The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit, May 31 – June 2. Prices for registrations increase this weekend. Register today to save more than $250.
Apple launches its white iPhone today. I thought that it is remarkable that the introduction of a new colour (or is it a non-colour) for the shell is a news item. The functionality is the same; the price is the same. We are talking about white plastic versus black.
Such is the world of consumer electronics.
Functionality, power, speed, memory, battery life, megapixels, screen resolution are the stuff of engineers – table stakes for the game.
Winners need to understand, and in some cases create, the consumer trends for the feel, shape, colour, packaging, buzz. A product can fail because of a miss in any one of these areas. Is this a case of beauty over brains? Sizzle over steak? Or is it better characterized as getting the complete package – a gourmet meal where the presentation is as important as the combination of flavours.
Still, I have to wonder if Henry Ford created so much consumer and media interest when he released his first non-black car (was it in midnight blue)?
Presently, a healthy yet misguided debate rages on about UBB versus unlimited Internet plans offered by third party resellers. Few have either recognized or even discussed a simple solution to the problem. Why not just meter the use, no matter who uses it, without tiers?
I have a feeling that these professors may not have been listening to folks who are not crazy about usage sensitive pricing. We have a number of political parties saying that they will regulate usage sensitive prices, we have a movement that wants all pricing to be unlimited and yet they conclude that few have “recognized or even discussed” such a simple solution!
I suspect that in this multi-gazillion dollar internet access business, that at least one ISP somewhere in the world has done market research into how consumers respond to flat rate versus usage sensitive prices. As many of us have come to learn, as expressed by Andrew Odlyzko (U Minn) in a paper [pdf, 158KB] about a decade ago: “Users value simplicity, and in particular flat rates.”
I recommend the Odlyzko piece to all “Internet pricing and the history of communications“. He provides pricing examples “based on two centuries’ worth of data on the evolution of mail, telegraph, telephone, and data services.”
Users value simplicity, and in particular flat rates. That is why ISPs won’t charge by the gigabyte.
Open Media has missed out on leading a discussion of digital strategy issues in the current election. Instead, its tactics and failure to develop serious discussion papers have relegated their participation to serve as scorekeepers on the sidelines.
It is somewhat disappointing that the organization has been unable to graduate from tactics better suited to school pep rallies. If Open Media really represents a constituency of nearly a half million Canadians, it seems that it is squandering its political capital, failing to move past slogans to a more serious level, setting out greater details for the specific changes it seeks for the competitive marketplace.
Open Media has prodded politicians to sign its so-called “pro-internet” pledge, getting most to gloss over the line in the pledge that calls for government regulation of retail pricing. It is fascinating that Open Media appears to be comfortable with the idea that the term “pro-internet” can be applied to political parties who advocate a greater level of government control of the internet than we would accept for autocratic dictatorships, let alone a democracy.
Take the NDP for example, who call for government regulating Canadian content and plan to ban usage based billing. It is a remarkable level of government intervention in the internet, unprecedented in western countries. And yet Open Media characterizes the NDP as being pro-Internet.
Are we forgetting that it was precisely the imposition of a specific business model by government fiat that started the furor in the first place. I have written in the past [such as here on my blog and in the National Post] that usage tiers enable flexible low price plans at higher speeds.
Open Media and their supporters have ignored the evidence that the vast majority of Canadians don’t run up against the volume thresholds for their pricing tiers. No economic evidence has been produced to demonstrate how these users’ interests will be protected when the government regulates their service delivery.
As far as regulating Canadian content, Open Media can’t seem to make up its mind. It has blogged about the potential destructive impact of Canadian content regulations on an open internet, yet it appears unwilling to challenge the NDP’s digital platform. Were such inconsistencies and lack of depth the reason that digital economy issues were left out of the leadership debates in both official languages? Not just internet pricing, but skills development, intellectual property, government and business adoption of ICTs. Serious issues with significant divides between the various political parties.
Open Media has to raise its game to be a credible voice for consumer advocacy in shaping the evolution of new media and digital policy in Canada. Open Media sent a survey of digital issues two weeks ago, promising to release the results “later in the election.” It was supposed to have been “releasing its own set of digital policy recommendations [last] week.” Time is short; voting has begun. Where are their recommendations, the questionaire and its results?
In many ways, Canada and Canadian communications stakeholders would be well served by increased diversity in the development and implementation of our national digital strategy. Will Open Media be able to step up to fill that role?
