On Tuesday, I wrote about Canada’s Digital Compass, a crowd-source website launched by PricewaterhouseCoopers to solicit a broader perspective on questions and ideas to guide the development of a national digital strategy.
The first week’s call asks for ideas about technology focus: What technological innovation or technology focus could earn Canada the role as global leader? As of the time of writing this, 8 submissions have been made (including a particularly insightful one proposing a focus on solving the rural and remote divide. Necessity being the mother and all that…).
So far, only 18 users have actually registered, and many of them are associated with the building or operation of the website. Hardly a crowd. What is inhibiting participation? Is the requirement to register and obtain a user ID in order to join the discussion acting as an inhibitor?
The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit will feature panels looking at International Perspectives on ICT Strategies and progress on the development of Canada’s National Digital strategy. Think of the event as a live crowd-sourcing festival. This year’s event opens just 10 weeks from Monday.
Yesterday, Rogers announced an updated policy for people who tether their mobile device to a computer, generally preserving their promotional rates.
Tethering allows you to connect a computer to the Internet, usually using the computer interface cable that connects a smartphone (such as a BlackBerry or iPhone) for synchronization purposes. Computers typically use a lot more data when connected to the Internet than smartphones do, so many mobile carriers have restrictions on the use of mobile devices in tethered modes.
Under the new policy, customers who have a 1GB or greater mobile data plan can use their mobile device as an oversized data-stick at no additional charge.
Just last week, my residential internet was knocked off the air and my Blackberry was pressed into service as a broadband modem. Frankly, you would want to have at least a 1G plan before letting your PC do its virus definition updates, back-up services and downloading of email attachments.
Blackberry’s Desktop Manager made it very easy. Do you really need a mobile data stick?
The same day that the CRTC issued its new private TV policy, Ipsos reported that for the first time, weekly internet usage in Canada overtook TV viewing.
But all is not as it seems. If you look carefully at the Ipsos release (that is – look past the headline), you realize that their study was from the Ipsos Online panel. In other words, for people who are already on-line enough that they don’t mind doing on-line surveys, these people now spend more time in front of the computer than they do in front of the TV.
Or at least they say they do.
While Ipsos claims that the sample is representative, their weightings are done to match demographics, not necessarily representative viewership. If you look beyond the headline, Ipsos carefully tried to couch their language:
the weekly Internet usage of online Canadians has moved ahead of the number of hours spent watching television.
Ipsos didn’t say “the weekly Internet usage of Canadians has moved ahead…”; the statement referred to “online Canadians”. Be sure to read the fine print. The general news media and many other commentators didn’t bother.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is officially launching a crowd source website, Canada’s Digital Compass, to solicit a wide range of answers to a number of questions.
For the first week, the site asks about Technology: What technological innovation or technology focus could earn Canada the role as global leader? That call is open until March 30, when the site will ask about Education: How could Canada foster the world’s strongest creative, engineering and business talent? And for the final week, Media Production: What new business models and approaches to content and distribution put Canada at the forefront?
PwC is issuing a call to action to engage Canadians passionate about “digital transformation” in defining Canada’s role in the digital economy. As a bridge between the decision makers in government, education and industry, this initiative will capture seed ideas and help to define some measures of success on how Canada can lead in the digital economy.
Not just ideas on innovation and focus; how do we measure success? A panel will review the submissions and distill the top 3 ideas that position Canada to lead in the digital economy.
Pricewaterhousecoopers is sponsoring the Business Centre at The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit, providing meeting space and business services for delegates at the event. On Tuesday, June 8, The Canadian Telecom Summit will feature panels looking at International Perspectives on ICT Strategies and progress on the development of Canada’s National Digital strategy.
Interesting reading about broadband on the editorial pages of the major US papers this weekend.
The Sunday NY Times had an OpEd penned by Yochai Benkler, principal author of the largely ignored Berkman Center comparative study of international broadband performance [as we wrote a few weeks ago, University of Calgary’s Dean of Business observed that the study was rebutted by economists with extensive practical experience of telecommunications regulation]. The FCC’s National Broadband Plan had only one footnote that referred to the Berkman Center’s report. Out of all the work done by the Harvard researchers, the only observation that appeared to merit a reference was:
Some international comparisons suggest the number of retail broadband providers may be positively correlated with advertised download speeds, at least at the high end of the market, and with affordability.
And the FCC quickly followed up with:
Others rank the United States high in affordability of broadband, despite the fact that 96% of consumers have two or fewer choices, and suggest that consumers may not be willing to pay as much for high speeds as they are for other functionality.
Since the FCC report had only one reference to the Berkman study, the OpEd tries to cut out the middleman – selling to the public what he could not get the FCC to buy into.
after eight years of intense litigation and lobbying from telephone companies, the Federal Communications Commission gave in, deciding that competition between one telephone incumbent and one cable incumbent was enough — in essence, it rejected open access as a way to create competition.
Benkler misses the point. Open access is used outside of North America because in most countries, there is nothing close to the nearly ubiquitous intermodal competition that we have in Canada and the US. This model of “open access” won’t create the benefits of increasing competition and investment when competition already exists.
No matter how many times we hear the populist mantra of a cable and telco “monopoly,” the vast majority of North Americans already have access to choice; multiple facilities-based choices enabled over twisted pair, coax, fibre, fixed and mobile wireless, satellite. Multiple service providers offer consumers choices over many of these facilities.
A recent paper by Catherine Middleton, Canada Research Chair – Communication Technologies in the Information Society at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, observes that Canada has about 500 internet service providers, less than 10% of which are incumbents. The paper discusses the problem with many open access models, with regulators manipulating the market:
It is therefore no surprise that despite being considered as a ‘‘second-best” alternative, unbundling policies have been implemented to introduce service-based competition into broadband markets in 29 of the 30 OECD markets.
However, paradoxically, service-based competition also bears the risk of actually deterring facilities-based competition and further innovation and investment in the existing single infrastructure: with the incumbent providing attractive access provisions (e.g. relatively low prices for unbundled loops), incentives for a new provider to roll out new infrastructure are diminished.
Also on Sunday, the Washington Post carried an editorial talking about the FCC’s National Broadband Plan as being “longer on aspiration than specific policy intentions.”
broadband networks have been built with billions of dollars from companies in the private sector with a legitimate right to extract profit from well-placed investments. These initiatives — and yes, the profit motive — have resulted in remarkable leaps in a few short years.
Broadband service is hardly a monopoly marketplace. And as the Post observed, “it is hard to see in this field the signs of gross market failure.”
Many of the “digirati” tweeted and provided links to the NY Times piece. Virtually none have linked to the Washington Post. Perhaps the Post’s message didn’t resonate as well with those arguing for increased regulation of the internet, but why are they afraid of sharing it with their disciples?
