Canada will have a National Digital Strategy this spring. But will we have to wait a year for it to be funded?

In his appearance before the Parliamentary Industry Committee on Tuesday [see video on CPAC.ca], Industry Minister Tony Clement said that the comprehensive national digital strategy should be released in the Spring, about a year after the consultation was launched.

The challenge will be whether the government will be prepared to fund the implementation of that strategy. Yesterday, Finance Minister Flaherty announced that the federal budget will be announced in 3 weeks, on March 22. A quick scan of the Treasury Board’s Government Expenditure Plan [pdf, 2.1 MB] doesn’t reveal any hints that there will be new investments to fund any new programmes.

Although the Digital Strategy is being released sometime in the Spring, it won’t be before the Budget is released. As a result, will Canadians have to wait until 2012 before there is substantive funding to move forward with a meaningful implementation of plans?

In  testimony before the parliamentary industry committee yesterday, Minister Tony Clement said that access to the Internet is fast becoming a crucial part of social and economic fabric of the country.

I agree. It was 3 years ago last week that I first wrote about the need to be more inclusive, giving birth to the idea that has become a One Million Computers initiative.

Maybe Canada needs to look at targeting broadband subsidies based on income, regardless of where people live. There is a gap in the level of connectedness among lower income Canadians in urban markets as well. Maybe it is time to consider making PCs and broadband part of our social welfare system.

I asked then whether the government would be considering a broadband tax credit in its next budget.

It is budget time in Canada once again. Will the government introduce targeted programmes and incentives for low income Canadians to participate more fully (and more digitally) in this crucial part of the social and economic fabric of Canada?

The Economist had an article about the court ruling on the Globalive – Wind Mobile case entitled “Three is the magic number,” claiming that Canada’s big three incumbents, “fearful of losing their monopoly—and fat profit margins” are “using their formidable resources to uphold the letter of the law.”

The article should cause Canadians to pause and reflect. In the eyes of The Economist, our courts are a sham.

There is a paragraph that implies our courts are susceptible to lobbying, rather than act based on the evidence set in front of them.

Because Orascom, an Egyptian company, owns 65% of its shares, the court concluded that it breaks antiquated foreign-ownership rules requiring all operators to be Canadian-controlled.

The ruling came after intense lobbying by Canada’s “big three” operators, Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Telus.

Regardless of your views on the case, on the ownership rules, on mobile competition, do any of us really believe that the court ruling came after intense lobbying by the big three? In fact, wasn’t it intense lobbying by Globalive that led to Cabinet overturning the CRTC? So much for the effectiveness of any lobbying by the incumbents!

The article is filled with so many flaws, such as wireless penetration rates, not the least of which is its conclusion:

The big three, fearful of losing their monopoly—and fat profit margins—don’t see it that way.They are using their formidable resources to uphold the letter of the law. That may yet backfire. Some are suggesting that Mr Clement simply amend the Telecommunications Act, rendering their objections worthless.

I always get a kick out of the Yogi Berra-esque use of the term “monopoly” in describing our market structure. I thought a magazine called “The Economist” would be staffed by writers who are more careful when using economics terminology.  In any case, at least some of the incumbents have asked for the amendments to The Telecom Act, so it is hard to see how any lobbying on the matter would be worthless. As for upholding the letter of the law, I think that is what most of us would want of our court system, not having one industry participant being granted favours outside the law.

It is an unsigned piece – which means it is either an official perspective of the editors at The Economist, or perhaps the author was just too embarrassed to admit it.

 

A number of government funded research networks operate in Canada, under the supervision of  non-profit, independent boards, such as CANARIE and ORION. As we approach budget time for governments across Canada, serious questions should be asked about whether increased public benefits can be derived from our national and regional research networks.

These fibre-based networks provide communications capabilities for virtually all of Canada’s universities, many school boards hospitals and private sector research institutions [see ORION’s “Who’s connected” page for a sample listing]. Are these projects doing enough to help promote the roll-out of advanced networking to Canadians?

I often wonder if the private network approach is the best way to stimulate increased backbone capacity throughout Canada. If these research network requirements were embedded within multi-carrier commercial networks, why couldn’t the same technical capabilities be possible? Could such an architecture accelerate the commercialization of new networking technologies and the delivery of higher speed services to more Canadians? Would the public funding requirements be the same or less? Would the research facilities requirements help justify increased investment by the commercial carriers in more remote communities?

Does the migration of major “anchor tenants” to the private research networks in smaller locales handicap the rest of the community by reducing some of the financial incentive for investment by commercial internet service providers? Universities, hospitals, school boards, municipal institutions can (and should) purchase their communications strategically to advance policy objectives for the benefit of their local stakeholders.

Almost all of the keynote speakers have now been confirmed for The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit. Virtually all of the major service providers and suppliers will be participating again this year and there should be lots of interesting issues to review. A highlight last year was the open conversation with CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein – and we look forward to his return this year.

The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit features cutting-edge topics for its panel discussions. This year, in addition to our always popular Regulatory Blockbuster panel, we are featuring sessions devoted to LTE: The future of mobile; Connecting Canadians: Delivering broadband to all; Wireless Broadband: Our insatiable thirst for spectrum; Privacy & Security: Guarding information in a transparent world; Unified Communications: The evolving future of business; Evolution of Consumer Communications: Compete or collaborate; Tablets, TVs and Smartphones, Oh My!: The explosion of the multiscreen universe; and, Cloud Computing. With so much public attention is focused on telecommunications issues, no other event is quite like The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit in covering the industry from every angle.

Government policy and regulation is always brought to life at The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit. At last year’s event, Minister Tony Clement launched the consultation into liberalization of foreign direct investment in the sector. What has been the impact of a year of uncertainty in the capital markets? Submissions for the 700 MHz consultation will have just concluded, and the whole area of usage based billing and wholesale access for high speed services should continue to figure prominently.

Early Bird registration for ends on Monday. You can save more than $200 by registering now! Download the latest version of our brochure here.