Over the past year or so, there have been a number of CRTC decisions and industry announcements related to enhanced emergency access (E-911) from mobile devices. In addition, there was a recent decision related to enhancing relay calling services, leveraging internet and other communications technologies in order to bring TTY based message relay services ahead from its 30 year old technology. This followed last July’s policy statement on accessibility for broadcast and telecom services.

On Wednesday, the CRTC authorized the industry technical consultation group to investigate a mash-up of these two capabilities: Improving access to emergency services for people with hearing and speech disabilities.

With this solution, when a pre-registered person with a hearing or speech disability initiates contact with a PSAP by dialing 9-1-1 on a cellphone, that person’s contact and location information would automatically be transmitted in the same way it is for other cellphone users, but the 9-1-1 call would be flagged as coming from a person with a hearing or speech disability. Upon receiving a flagged 9-1-1 call, the 9-1-1 operator would respond by sending an SMS text message to the caller, thus enabling the caller to text back and forth with the operator.

There will be progress reporting back to the CRTC every six months, while CISC investigates the viability with wireless carriers, 9-1-1 service providers, and the public safety community.

A lot of people have trouble with statistics.

I learned that first hand teaching statistics at a university level.

But it also became evident with the way a bunch of reports have misinterpretted reports from Akamai’s State of the Internet for 4Q09 [pdf, 2.28MB]. A number of people are reporting that the internet is slowing down because of the iPhone, based on observations by Akamai about a decline in average internet access speed in Korea.

we believe that [the iPhone] launch was likely responsible for the significant drop in South Korea’s average observed connection speed in the fourth quarter.

As an example, Bill St. Arnaud says that indicates a “desperate need for 5G networks.”

There are several reports of how Internet traffic is being slowed down because of the huge growth in mobile data traffic from devices like the iPhone. Mobile data now exceeds mobile voice in terms of traffic volume.

I think that these reports are misunderstanding the impact of the iPhone and mobile devices on Korean and other networks. It is wrong to interpret these results as internet traffic being slowed down because of a growth in mobile data.

This isn’t an issue of capacity and there isn’t a slowing down of conventional internet access. Instead, it appears to be a statistical anomaly caused by a surge in internet access from slower speed devices. The average is being pulled down by the growth in internet demand from slower speed forms of access – but that does not mean that the internet is being slowed down. Nor does it mean that people are getting anything less than fully satisfactory service quality from these slower speed mobile devices and networks.

If anything, the massive growth in mobile data is an indicator of overwhelming user satisfaction. That is why people are continuing to buy smart phones and using their devices more and more.

On Monday, Michael Hennessy posted a tweet that pointed to a piece in the Financial Times called “Net Neutrality: Time for Evidence-Based Policy”.

In that article, Thomas Hazlett exposes a significant flaw in a NY Times OpEd penned by University of Michigan academic (and former special assistant to President Obama) Susan Crawford.

Obama economic adviser Susan Crawford, arguing in the New York Times for broadband re-regulation, said that ending government DSL mandates was “a radical move… [that] produced a wave of mergers,” raising prices and lowering quality.

It is simply untrue.

Read the pieces.

That same day, I was bothered by a statement in a CANARIE press release issued to talk about University of Toronto digitizing half a million books for the Internet Archive:

The University of Toronto library team sends approximately one terabyte of data, in the form of scanned books, per day to the Internet Archive via the CANARIE network. A terabyte is one trillion bytes of data, equivalent to 1,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. This data transfer would not be possible on the commercial Internet, as the size of these files would take up too much bandwidth and potentially bring down the network.

I was struck by this statement. CANARIE has a fraction of the capacity of a number of the commercial national networks in Canada. There are commercial applications that are sending those volumes of data every day.

With the downturn in the traditional media sector, we don’t seem to see enough attention being paid to checking facts the way they did in the ‘old days’. It means that readers have to be more vigilant in challenging sources.

Last Friday, I was frustrated by a Toronto window company ignoring the national do not call list and calling me. They just didn’t care.

And it made me think even more about what I have written in the past about the flaws in the Electronic Commerce Protection Act. McCarthy’s had also warned about restrictions being too broad.

Unlike other international anti-spam legislation, the prohibition against unsolicited commercial messages in the ECPA is not limited to messages sent with some element of fraud or misleading information, sent with an “intent to deceive or mislead,” sent to addresses that were gathered using “automated means,” or sent in bulk.

Typically, we see internet communications as being less restrictive than traditional media. We have so many people that talk about open access to information and actively promote it. I see so many cases of civil libertarians up in arms over attempts to block digital communications – even in cases where hard copies are stopped at the border or seized by police.

We are less likely to impose restrictions on digital content than print or other forms. But the previous version of the act goes far beyond protection from spam. It prevents commercial contacts in digital form from businesses with no intent to defraud – communications that are perfectly legal in a paper format. Why would Industry Canada want to prevent a legitimate company from acquiring a electronic mailing list, when this is completely acceptable in print form?

As it is written, the bill would be better titled the Electronic Commerce Restrictions Act: it discourages many efficiencies that should be available to businesses of all sizes in reaching out to new customers.

The re-introduction of the bill in a new session of Parliament will enable Industry Canada to fix these deficiencies to encourage confidence in e-commerce without choking off incentives for Canadian business, legitimate businesses, to adopt innovative business models using electronic communications.

Industry Minister Tony Clement will deliver the opening keynote address on June 7 at The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit. Will he use the opportunity to announce a new and improved version of the Electronic Commerce Protection Act?

The parliamentary industry committee (known as INDU) is wrapping up its review of foreign ownership of telecom carriers later this week with an appearance by Industry Minister Tony Clement on Thursday.

Last week, the CRTC appeared and it delivered a message consistent with what it has said in the past: that Canada needs a common Communications Act (to replace the Broadcast Act and Telecom Act), and that foreign companies should not be permitted to control Canadian carriers.

Two years ago, I wrote about the CRTC’s position submitted to the Competition Policy Review Panel. At the time, the Commission wrote:

The economics of Internet production do not favour local content. As localism is eroded, the maintenance of Canadian capacity in the form of Canadian-owned and –controlled companies will become more critical. A branch plant economy for cultural production and distribution is difficult to envisage. Multi-national enterprises would have little incentive to create uniquely national content.

The CRTC does not appear to have modified its view. I think it is wrong. The presence of Canadian versions of global websites (Google, MSN, Yahoo among many others) demonstrates that attracting viewers has been an incentive to create “uniquely national content.”

Of course, no one seems to be screaming for liberalized ownership of broadcasters – the content masters. As Ken Engelhart of Rogers pointed out in its testimony last week, there is a different license for broadcast distributors (cable, IPTV and satellite companies) as contrasted with the broadcast licenses held by TV and radio stations. It is pretty easy to see how we can liberalize ownership on the carriage side, while retaining protections for content.

As William Watson asked in the National Post last week, “Do you sleep better at night knowing our communications companies are safely in Canadian hands?”

We aren’t going to have a unified Communications Act as quickly as we need to see liberalized ownership rules for the communications industry. With continually increasing capital requirements for network upgrades, why shouldn’t all carriers be able to increase their access to foreign capital?

Michael Hennessy of TELUS has posted his testimony on his blog.