Videotron continues to demonstrate tremendous market strength in all sectors of the communications industry.

According to a news release issued late on Wednesday, Videotron is growing strongly, offering a counter example to recent stories about cord cutters in the cable industry [see Globe story and ESPN views on other side]. 

Videotron saw almost 7,000 new subscribers to its basic cable in the past two months, with an increase of 22,500 digital TV subscribers.

Its customer count for high speed internet services grew by 1% to 1.25M in that same 2 month period. It also added 1% to its 1.1M cable-based digital phone subscribers.

Having launched its HSPA+ wireless network in early September, Videotron is adding customers at a pace of close to 1000 per day, with about 75,000 customers already.

Videotron’s CEO, Robert Depatie will be returning to The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit, talking about his approach to customer focus throughout the organization.

When the Industry Minister delivered his Interim Report on the Digital Economy, he chose to delay the decision on foreign direct investment in telecommunications.

With respect to foreign ownership, I have been consulting throughout the summer on whether the current restrictions constitute an impediment to growth in the wireless sector. Those consultations will continue as we proceed with our discussions on the 700 MHz spectrum.

And this just makes sense. After all, how spectrum is allocated and who is eligible to compete for it — and pay for it — are interrelated issues. And so we will consider foreign investment rules and decisions around the 700 MHz auction together, as part of an integrated regulatory approach.

The foreign investment determination is certainly a pre-requisite to the 700 MHz auction. That doesn’t mean that there should have been a 6 month overhang of the capital markets.

Last June, I warned about delays in determining the outcome of the foreign investment review.

Once you open a process and there’s uncertainty as to which direction is going to be followed, it creates an overhang for the capital markets. The [impact on the] ability of companies to raise capital during that interim period of uncertainty can’t be overstated.

It could be extremely damaging to small players and large players alike to have a lengthy period of uncertainty when you’ve got such a capital intensive business.

There are a lot of players in the Canadian telecom market who are impacted by the delay in a decision, but it isn’t really surprising. Even before the formal consultation was announced, I warned that this wasn’t going to happen this year:

Telecom analyst Mark Goldberg said he doesn’t see any changes coming this year due to the complexity of the issue. A minority federal government will also make it challenging to pass legislation.

“I don’t think people should be holding back on their purchases waiting for a Verizon store to open up in their shopping mall soon,” said Goldberg of Mark Goldberg and Associates.

There is a cost to uncertainty. The government needs to clarify the rules.

A tweet from an OECD analyst seemed to sum it up:

Just heard that Canada will have 100 mbit/s available to 80% of households by 2014 using DOCSIS 3.0. Impressive.

It is about time the news made it over the ocean. More than a year ago, we released our report on Canada’s broadband infrastructure that spoke about the “near universal adoption of DOCSIS 3.0 technology by cable companies.”

It seems to take a while for the OECD to report on Canadian advances in connectivity. 

A couple weeks ago, I asked:

Anyone look at #OECD #broadband data (behind the charts) and wonder who is providing old inputs for Canada? Why? http://bit.ly/fPIqNm

The OECD’s household broadband data used Canada’s 2007 figures to compare our broadband penetration rates to 2009 figures from other countries. So, it isn’t really the case that Canada was slipping in the rankings (as some critics charged), it was that other countries caught up to our out-of-date standings.

At risk of being called a “lobbyist“, I have to ask, why aren’t journalists taking the time to ask why the OECD isn’t using current information?

Better data is available. Who is holding back?

For the OECD data released yesterday, why are there still so many distortions in the Canadian information?

Glaring errors and ommissions abound.

For example, despite Bell Aliant reporting of its continuing FibreOP fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) investments, the OECD still thinks that Canada has no FTTH to report.

Interestingly, the OECD gets its data from the governments of its member countries, except in the case of Canada and the United States, for which the OECD creates its own estimates “based on data reported by publicly listed companies.” What does that mean for data from SaskTel, Eastlink and subscribers to hundreds of private internet service providers?

Canada’s wireless broadband [xls, 44 KB] reporting is marked as incomplete by the OECD.  So, despite Canada having access to among the world’s best mobile broadband networks, we get a zero for mobile broadband.

When we have federal cabinet ministers citing these statistics in policy announcements, it seems that we should have a much better effort to feed the OECD with better quality data.

The CRTC will be ruling this week on an interesting file that started a year ago when Abovenet tried to register as a reseller. Telecom Notice of Consultation 2010-165 asked for public comments:

The Commission calls for comments on whether by lighting dark fibre leased from a third party and providing the lit fibre to third parties for compensation, a service provider is “operating” a “transmission facility” and is a “telecommunications common carrier” as defined in the Act.

Abovenet is a US company – a successor to Metromedia Fiber Network. Its Canadian subsidiary was planning to lease dark fibre from TELUS and attach its electronics. TELUS claimed that this would make Abovenet a carrier.

Under Canadian ownership rules for carriers, this would be a problem. The issue of operating as a carrier versus a reseller also determines the application of a variety of regulatory obligations.

It is an interesting file.

To what extent would this have largely been rendered moot if Canada had acted more quickly to liberalize its rules on foreign direct investment in telecommunications?

The first announcement for The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit went out earlier this week – if you didn’t receive an email, you can get on the list here. Or check to make sure that emails from “gstconferences.com” are able to get through your spam filters.

The conference will be taking place May 31 – June 2 in Toronto. Registrations have already started to come in.

Mark the dates in your calendar and plan to attend. Early bird rates are in effect until the end of February.