>Last fall, when Ontario was getting to set to implement its handsfree driving laws, I wrote about a number of solutions that I had come across to help drive safely while staying connected.

One of the solutions I talked about was Waterloo’s iLane, which is an adjunct device to provide an automated concierge / assistant through your Blackberry and bluetooth audio.

Through the weekend, I was introduced to an application that resides on your smartphone itself which will notify you of a new incoming message and read it to you. DriveSafe.ly has a free version which will read just the first 25 words to you and it is available for Blackberry and Android platforms today. Or for a one-time payment of $13.95, DriveSafe.ly Pro will read 500 word messages, allow you to choose the type of reader (male/female), or even auto select the reader based on the gender of the message sender.

DriveSafe.ly can be set up to send auto-responses, but it does not yet offer the full suite of two-way capabilities that iLane can provide. Still, it appears to be a great application to get people to let go of their mobile devices when behind the wheel.

The FCC has been trickling out information about the contents of its National Broadband Plan over the past few weeks. Earlier today, it released the 6 page executive summary [pdf, 888 KB]. The report is scheduled for release Tuesday.

During a number of the consultation sessions, I got the impression that many of the speakers were confusing access to broadband with access to basic connectivity. For example, during the small business session, some speakers talked about benefits of having a website or a web storefront, neither of which need broadband at all. You want to make sure your web host is powerfully connected to multiple networks, but that doesn’t require a lot of power in the umbilical to the ‘net. 

In reading the goals in the Executive Summary, I was disappointed that one of the 6 items to be tracked “as a compass” over the next decade is:

To ensure that America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

Why do we need broadband for this? Isn’t this a low bandwidth application? How many bits per second do you think it takes to tell you about your water, electricity and natural gas flow? How many bits do you think it takes to send a message to dial down the air conditioner or turn off the water? I was able to do this with a Radio Shack X-10 system and a touch tone phone nearly 30 years ago. Maybe I am confused.

Once the FCC realized that home health care won’t justify 100Mbps service, the regulator must have been looking for some other application that would appeal to the Democratic agenda. After all, how many of us are going to buy a Binford 9000 MRI machine to generate the high resolution images to transmit to Radiologists-R-Us for diagnosis? Instead, let’s set a goal to enable all Americans to have remote access to watching the meters on the side of their house – in high definition, no less! Of course, as I wrote before, earlier FCC consultations were equally modest in saying that broadband enables the IRS to save money with e-filing of tax returns, another low bitrate application.

This isn’t the only place that the Executive Summary fails to inspire. The FCC has set a bold vision for bringing affordable 100 Mbps service to 100 M households, the majority of American households. But for the rest of America, the plan falls short. Over the next 10 years, the FCC wants to have 4 Mbps service universally available. That’s it. 4 Mbps to the hinterlands after another decade of subsidy.

There is much to applaud from what is rumoured to be in the FCC’s plan to be released tomorrow. For example, it is encouraging to see the drive to improve digital literacy.

Maybe the executive summary doesn’t do the plan justice. I hope to find greater inspiration in the full document.

On Tuesday June 8, The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit will be featuring panels looking at International Perspectives on ICT Strategies and progress on the development of Canada’s National Digital strategy.

Have you registered yet?

The CRTC issued a consultation notice on Friday [2010-149] to ask for input on whether there are current regulatory measures that could be left to the discipline of a competitive marketplace.

The Commission set out a list of 17 items that could be up for review and it asked parties to comment on whether such a review is warranted for each of them, considering changes in the telecommunications industry.

This is a follow-up to a process that actually began 3 years ago, triggered by the Policy Direction given to the CRTC from Cabinet in late 2006, that ordered:

1. the Commission should
   1. rely on market forces to the maximum extent feasible as the means of achieving the telecommunications policy objectives, and
   2. when relying on regulation, use measures that are efficient and proportionate to their purpose and that interfere with the operation of competitive market forces to the minimum extent necessary to meet the policy objectives;

So, the Commission has issued a number of decisions to implement changes following a set of priorities established after the initial consultation in 2007. Friday’s notice of consultation continues the process of letting the marketplace regulate more of the industry.

Yesterday, Ericsson Canada announced that it is supplying Vancouver’s Wavefront mobile commercialization centre / incubator with HSPA mobile communications equipment and access to Ericsson’s Montreal Test Facility, one of the largest and most advanced telecom labs in Canada. Ericsson engineering support will also be available to developers should they need help troubleshooting applications.

Mark Henderson, president and CEO of Ericsson Canada, said:

The final piece of the puzzle for most wireless applications developers is testing their technology on a large-scale network. With this connection, developers now have convenient and affordable access to such a network as well as the support of our world-leading Montreal Testing Facilities.

Wavefront is a joint venture between industry and government, formed in 2007 to accelerate the commercialization of mobile applications and technologies. Ericsson Canada’s Montreal labs has the mandate for development of many areas of Ericsson’s global mobile product portfolio.

On Monday June 7, Ericsson Canada CEO Mark Henderson will be delivering a keynote address at The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit.

Have you registered yet?

When the CRTC set up its review of access to basic telecommunications services, the public notice [2010-43] included a few little words that triggered a firestorm.

In addition, the Commission will re-examine the appropriateness of the existing forbearance framework for mobile wireless data services.

The Canadian Wireless Telecom Association suggested to the CRTC that this section of the public consultation should be severed from the rest of the process in the interest of keeping the proceeding manageable.

In a letter on February 10, the Commission refused, saying, in effect, that the public process is fine as is; if you want to comment on mobile wireless data services forbearance, the CRTC looks forward to hearing from everyone in mid-April. 

A report issued by the CRTC the day before added fuel to the firestorm when it said:

Over time, the Commission’s hands-off approach to wireless may come under pressure as it becomes a more important platform tool to access all forms of communications and the distribution of Canadian content.

The media started speculating that the CRTC was about to wade in on regulating wireless pricing. CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein conducted an interview with The Globe and Mail to try to calm the rumours and “paranoia”.

There is a little bit of paranoia here. Obviously, I am very concerned about the impression that the regulator is reasserting itself more than is necessary.

According to the article, the Chair said that the intent is to focus on the narrow issue of whether the CRTC should have the power to protect against wireless service discrimination. Of course, the Public Notice and the Commission’s February letter do not have the same clarity of focus as the Globe and Mail story indicates. The Public Notice asks a very broad question:

Should the Commission change the scope of forbearance with respect to mobile wireless data services, and if so, to what extent?

Pricing, range of services, the need to file tariffs, wholesale services, geographic coverage, service standards. What do you want to talk about? The CRTC has invited the public to open the proceeding up to virtually anything you might want to talk about.

So yesterday, the CWTA wrote a letter to once again give the CRTC an opportunity to limit the proceeding scope to keep the process somewhat manageable, keeping in mind that the main focus of the proceeding is pretty broad itself: the definition of basic services and the obligation to serve.

The CWTA’s letter says that its carrier members support having Sections 24 and 27(2) of the Telecommunications Act apply to mobile wireless data services (the same sections that the Commission retained when it forbore from regulating mobile voice services). As such, CWTA says that it is no longer necessary for the Commission to consider this issue.

The proceeding is going to have to tackle a broad enough range of issues and the two-week public proceeding is being split between Timmins and Ottawa, adding to the complexity. It seems that the CWTA is offering the CRTC a last opportunity to rein in the range of topics.