CPAC’s on-demand service has added the June 9 keynote address by CWTA chief Bernard Lord from The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit to its video on demand database.

This is the fourth session that is available from CPAC:

• The interview with CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein from the morning of June 8.
• The Regulatory Blockbuster, recorded on the morning of June 8, 2010
• Building Digital Canada from the end of the day on June 8.
• Keynote address by Bernard Lord, CEO of CWTA

Enjoy them.

Your comments are welcome.

Be sure to plan to attend The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit: May 31-June 2, 2011 in Toronto.

Today, the British Medical Journal published a study that concluded “There is no association between risk of early childhood cancers and estimates of the mother’s exposure to mobile phone base stations during pregnancy.”

An accompanying editorial goes further, setting out a recommendation to physicians to reassure patients:

Meanwhile, clinicians should reassure patients not to worry about proximity to mobile phone masts. Moving away from a mast, with all its stresses and costs, cannot be justified on health grounds in the light of current evidence.

This is an important statement by a leading medical journal that directly challenges much of the junk science and hysteria that is being promoted by some who appear at community town hall meetings who lack any credentials in relevant medical, engineering or epidemiological fields.

So it was somewhat ironic that yesterday the city of San Francisco decided that the US, already suffering from 51 different telecom regulatory authorities, needed yet another level of telecommunications red tape. Its city council voted 11-1 to require mobile devices to be sold with a disclosure to consumers of the specific absorption rate (SAR).

It seems to me that there are already bodies at the federal level who have the responsibility to ensure consumer safety, and provide clear consumer labelling where appropriate.

San Francisco’s vote threatens to cause confusion in the marketplace and raise the cost of doing business by adding a third tier of regulation to an industry that is already hobbled by state regulation of intra-state communications and federal regulation of other matters. 

What is the relevance of a higher or lower SAR number? Is a lower number safer?

If the federal agencies aren’t doing their job, that is a different matter – but there is no evidence of failure by the national authorities.

One of the reasons that I enjoy watching World Cup soccer is that is provides such a wonderful metaphor for organizational excellence. Unlike the games we see at neighbourhood parks, players at the top tier don’t converge on the moving ball. The panoramic camera angles show the choreography as team members back away and trust their mates to defend or attack, pass and dance around the field. Players know their jobs and they know what the roles are for the other members of the team.

Government bodies, at all levels, need to know their own job and trust their team mates to do the same. You can’t perform at a world class level if you can’t get each player to understand this. The consumer labelling and information requirements of the San Francisco ordinance isn’t what troubles me; it is the dysfunctional balkanization of regulatory authority that the ordinance represents.

In the end, this additional level of red tape could be an inhibitor to world class performance of the US communications sector.

CPAC has added 2 more segments from The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit to its video on demand database.

You can now watch The Regulatory Blockbuster, recorded on the morning of June 8, 2010 and the Building Digital Canada panel from the end of the day on June 8.

These complement the interview with CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein that has been available for a while now.

We would appreciate your feedback on the value of these sessions being available in the CPAC archives.

Just like the millions of school kids turning in their end of year projects and term papers before heading off for summer vacation, last week our elected members of parliament and our appointed senators released three reports of interest to the ICT community.

First was the Senate’s Standing Committee on Transport and Communications releasing its Plan for a Digital Canada [pdf, 2.3MB]. Of the three reports, this was the one that actually used web technologies to release its report, as contrasted with simple pdfs from its classmates. A summary of the 18 recommendations can be found here.

Parliament’s INDU committee (the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology) spent a few months examining foreign ownership issues. It called nealy 40 witnesses, collected briefs from a dozen or so groups and its report [pdf, 745KB] came out with just 2 recommendations: clarify the “control in fact” test of the Telecom Act (Section 16); and, liberalize ownership restrictions for satellites – a move that the government took 3 months earlier. Some early reports have been critical of this output from the committee.

I’ll point out that I found greater value in the appended statements from the 4 parties, perhaps providing advance insight into which way the minds are leaning. Given the current public consultation process (which should yield legislation being introduced in the fall), it is helpful to have an indication of where the political support and opposition for various alternatives will be found.

The final report was from Parliament’s Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. It issued what it called an ‘interim report’ on “Emerging and Digital Media: Opportunities and Challenges” [pdf, 206KB]. The report covers a broad range of issues, including foreign ownership, copyright, Canadian content, net neutrality and more. It makes it clear that there is more work to be done.

Add the three reports to your summer reading list.

CPAC is continuing to provide portions of The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit on its broadcast network and then it will make the programs available on demand on CPAC.ca.

Tonight, beginning at 2:00am (Eastern, 11:00pm Pacific), CPAC will air two of the sessions recorded Tuesday June 8. First up will be the Regulatory Blockbuster session, always a highlight of the Summit, and this year represents the first time that the programme has been made available to the public.

That program will be followed by a presentation of the Digital Canada panel.

If you can’t stay up that late or you don’t have a recorder, then there are still two options: you can watch the two shows next Tuesday, June 22 starting at a more reasonable 2:00pm (Eastern); or, you can visit CPAC.ca after it loads the programs into its video-on-demand server.

I’ll provide a link here, as soon as it is available.

I’d appreciate feedback on having portions of the event available in this way – does it help you share the experience of the event? Will it help encourage you to attend in person next year?