Canada needs a million computers for lower income households.

We have computers in 81.7% of our households, heavily skewed by income. High income households are already computer equipped – better than 97% of households in the top income quintile have a computer and virtually all of them are internet connected. But in the lowest income quintile, only half of the households have a computer. I think this points to computer ownership being an affordability issue. 

Canada has about 12.5 million households, so each quintile represents 2.5M homes. We need to start with households with school aged children. If we want to have the world’s most digitally literate economy, we need to make sure that no kids are left behind because their parents couldn’t afford a computer to help them compete.

Of Toronto’s 1.8M households, around 225,000 are without computers. In Montreal, there are about 300,000 households without a computer. Vancouver: 100,000. Many urban centres lag the national average; Yellowknife has among the highest rate of computer ownership.

A million computers will bring the lowest income households to parity. One Laptop Per Child set out to provide the world’s poorest children with a connected laptop computer. Shouldn’t all Canadian children be comparably (if not better) equipped?

How many computers are being discarded from corporations that should find their way out of recyclers and into the hands of school kids? Are there low cost incentives to encourage re-use of business computers and stimulate investment in new machines? Can we develop a voucher system that encourages competition among retailers to win the business of eligible households?

Virtually all households with computers already have an internet connection, but one in five Canadian households lacks a computer. To grow the market for internet services, we need to increase the number of households with computers. That represents an opportunity for more than 2 million new household connections. What is the role of the telecom services industry in increasing computer ownership?

One million computers. What ideas do you have?

Forty years ago, my father participated on the Commission on Emotional and Learning Disorders in Children that issued a report called “One Million Children” providing a blueprint for meeting the needs of one million Canadian children with primary learning disorders. The title of that report inspired the title of this blog post. We need to ensure that all Canadian children have access to the tools to succeed. 

Last week, I mentioned the PIAC report that concluded that consumers have not benefited from nearly 20 years of telecom competition in Canada.

The document seems to be somewhat disparaging at the ineffectiveness of consumer stakeholder representation in communications tribunals:

The gaps in the demand and the ability of the public interest to be adequately represented in telecommunications issues and proceedings are substantial. The bridging of such gaps will likely require a separate study. This report will touch upon this issue again in the recommendations.

PIAC says that the solution will require a separate study, but this strikes me as the core issue. As I mentioned last week, consumer groups have been active lobbyists with politicians, regulators and policy makers in every proceeding.

The CRTC revised the funding formulae for cost awards just before the holidays with its Telecom Regulatory Policy 2010-963. But does not achieve the same result as that recommended by the Telecom Policy Review Panel. In its final report, the TPRP observed the need for improved policy research capabilities.

Recommendation 9-2
Industry Canada should make a multi-year commitment to fund ongoing policy research to support improved policy making and regulation in the telecommunications and information and communications technology sectors. Research grants should be awarded by a qualified, independent panel, and the research results should be made publicly available in a timely manner.

I agree. I also agree with the recommendation of the Panel in respect of long term funding for the participation of public interest groups:

Recommendation 9-30
The government should review the issue of public interest group participation in telecommunications regulatory proceedings. Funding for such participation should come from a multi-year commitment by government to subsidize such participation, rather than costs awards imposed by the CRTC on individual telecommunications service providers.

The entire industry – consumers and service providers – will benefit from an enhanced quality of representation of diverse perspectives made possible by an improved funding formula.

When will we bury the Public Switched Telephone Network?

That question is at the heart of a recent article at Webtorials, entitled “Can the PSTN be Shut Down?”

Wireless and broadband connections proliferate while the old copper pair connections offered by the Telcos are turned off, as many as 700,000 lines per month. The trend is all downhill for the PSTN and its legacy operation.

Interconnection, numbering, free calling areas, regulation: all of these are based on the primacy of classical public switched telephony networks dating back 130 years.

There are now more mobile lines than land phones in virtually every country in the world. Most corporations have long abandoned analog telephony and many are using integrated IP platforms.

The paper raises interesting questions that merit examination. Are we prepared to shut down the PSTN?

In mid December, Statistics Canada released the 2009 survey of Household Spending which showed that 78% of Canadian Households have an internet connection.

What wasn’t released in the Daily was that only 81.7% of Canadian Households reported having a personal computer. So this would seem to imply that more than 95% of households with a computer are connected to the internet.

Our biggest challenge in driving increased digital connectivity appears to be getting more computing devices into the hands of Canadians.

OK. It is time to return to reality after a couple weeks of downtime with family.

While I was enjoying warming temperatures, apparently PIAC released a report that is trying to put a chill on Canada’s government policy that favours allowing the marketplace to discipline the communications sector. As the PIAC release states:

PIAC’s report recommends that the government rescind the Policy Direction of December 2006, and establishing a licensing regime for all carriers with codes of conduct in place for all licensees. It also recommends reforms to the CRTC operations, including the establishment of more powers and resources recommended by the Government’s Policy Review Panel Report of 2006.

The full report [pdf, 3 MB] is entitled Waiting for the Dream: The Consumer Case for Telecom Reform and Results-Based Regulation. My initial impression is that the document ignores 20 years of consumer benefits that have been yielded from competition in the communications sector.

Do any of us even think twice about making a long distance phone call. Certainly not to anywhere in North America or to most of the rest of the places Canadians call.

Here is an example of the type of language characteristic in the report:

Industry governance since the development of telephone networks has been profoundly influenced by the strategic action of stakeholders, in particular the major incumbent local exchange companies, (ILECs), the largest of which was the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, or later, Bell Canada. This action included lobbying with politicians and successful persuasion of the regulator concerning the recovery of revenues from customers and the exclusion of competitors from essential facilities.

Come on, now. Consumer groups and competitors have been among the stakeholders lobbying and participating in every regulatory and government policy and judicial  proceeding. PIAC has been active and has been funded by governments and by industry players to ensure that diverse voices are heard.

How would greater regulation result in lower costs? The CRTC regulates wholesale access already. While some new entrants may not like the outcomes of some of the proceedings, what specific areas need increased regulatory intervention?