In an appearance on CNBC on Monday, former AOL-Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin acknowledged the failure of AOL-Time Warner, calling it the “worst deal of the century.”

He said CEOs should take responsibility for failed companies.

It’s time for those who are involved in companies to stand up and say, ‘you know what, I’m solely responsible for it. I was the CEO; I was in charge; I’m really very sorry about the pain and suffering and loss this has caused. I take responsibility. It wasn’t the board; it wasn’t my colleagues. It wasn’t the bankers and lawyers.

Think back to all those multi-billion dollar paper acquisitions of a decade ago and the collapse of industry stalwarts.

Any other former CEOs willing to stand up?

In an interesting filing to the FCC [ pdf, 100KB], AT&T; said that the public switched telephone network (“PSTN”) and plain-old telephone service (“POTS”) are relics of a by-gone era.

Revenues from POTS are plummeting as customers cut their landlines in favor of the convenience and advanced features of wireless and VoIP services. At the same time, due to the high fixed costs of providing POTS, every customer who abandons this service raises the average cost-per-line to serve the remaining customers. With an outdated product, falling revenues, and rising costs, the POTS business is unsustainable for the long run. Yet a web of federal and state regulations has the cumulative effect of prolonging, unnecessarily, the life of POTS and the PSTN.

The CRTC has been told to examine whether its regulation distorts the business case for facilities upgrades in the context of wholesale services.

The CRTC proceeding does not have a sufficiently broad scope to examine the issues raised by AT&T; in its FCC filing. At what point will Canada formally launch the development of a national digital strategy?

This issue and many more will be discussed at The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit in June. Among other sessions, ADM Helen McDonald of Industry Canada will be moderating a panel examining “Building Digital Canada.”

Early Bird rates are in effect until the end of February. Have you registered yet?

Welcome back and Happy New Year!

The new year may also bring a new session of Parliament.

Through the holidays, we learned of plans to prorogue parliament, which will lead to the death of 4 technology related bills, as Michael Geist reported, including Bill C-27, the so-called Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA).

As I wrote last May, the bill is flawed in that it goes far beyond protection from spam to prevent forms of commercial contact in digital form that are perfectly legal in paper form. McCarthy’s had also warned about restrictions being too broad.

Typically, we see internet communications as being more open than traditional media – we are less likely to impose restrictions on digital content than print or other forms. 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.

Hopefully, the reintroduction of the bill will enable Industry Canada to encourage confidence in e-commerce without choking off incentives for Canadian business to adopt innovative business models.

The CRTC has issued another update to Telecom Notice of Consultation 2009-261, which has been titled “Proceeding to consider the appropriateness of mandating certain wholesale high-speed access services.”

Today’s update, number 7, expands the scope and sets out a new schedule in order to incorporate the directions from Cabinet issued a week ago [Bell/TELUS Order and MTS Allstream Order].

The Order in Council states that the Governor in Council considers that the continued development and availability of broadband Internet infrastructure and services is important for Canadians and the Canadian economy. It notes that it is critical that the regulatory regime provide a cohesive, forward-looking framework that provides the proper incentives for continued investment in broadband infrastructure, encourages competition and innovation, and leads to consumer choice.

So, TNC-2009-261-7 reopens the paper proceeding and delays the oral hearings that had been scheduled to open in early January.

Specifically, the CRTC is seeking comments by February 8 asking:

1. the application of the existing essential service framework on a forward-looking basis such that it provides appropriate incentives for continued investment in broadband infrastructure, encourages competition and innovation, and leads to consumer choice; and
2. in the context of the discussion provided in response to A, above,
   1. whether the speed-matching requirement, mandating the provision of the high-speed access services under consideration, or mandating access to any new types of Internet access infrastructure does, or would, unduly diminish incentives to invest in new network infrastructure in general and, in particular, in markets of different sizes;
   2. whether, in the absence of the speed-matching requirement and the mandated provision of the high-speed access services under consideration, there would be competition sufficient to protect the interests of users;
   3. whether the respective wholesale obligations imposed on ILECs and on incumbent cable carriers are equitable or represent a competitive disadvantage; and
   4. whether the impact of these wholesale requirements unduly impairs the ability of incumbent telephone companies to offer new converged services, such as IPTV.

The hearings will now take place May 31-June 4, finishing up in time for everyone to attend The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit, which opens on June 7. We are open through the holidays if you are looking to register early with your remaining 2009 budget.

A Virginia court has convicted neo-Nazi Bill White for threatening Ottawa human rights lawyer Richard Warman more than three years after the threats first appeared on the internet.

Long time followers of this blog will recall that we wrote about this case in August, 2006. At the time, we sought authorization for carriers to block the death threats.

Following the verdicts, U.S. Attorney Timothy Heaphy said:

For an extended period of time, William White has hidden behind the First Amendment while making racist remarks and threatening people who are different from him. While the First Amendment protects our ability to express views even if unpopular, it does not provide a license to threaten, intimidate, and inflict emotional distress.

In this case, the threat was made from a country with a legal and judicial system that was willing to prosecute the perpetrator of the illegal posting.

How should a country maintain the sovereignty of protecting its own citizens from illegal content?

When does legitimate free speech cross the line? The instructions to the jury are interesting in defining a “true threat”:

For you to find the defendant guilty of each count, you must find that the communication issued in that count contains true threat. The First Amendment does not protect true threat. Whether a communication in fact contains a true threat, is determined in accordance with the interpretation of a reasonable recipient familiar with the context of the communication.

The government does not have to prove that the defendant subjectively intended for the recipients to understand the communication as a threat. The speaker need not have intended to carry out the threat or have the ability to carry out the threat. The government does not have to prove that the person who received the threat was actually placed in fear of harm.

On the other hand, a statement does not become a true threat simply because it instills fear in the listener. You may, however, consider the reaction of any recipient in determining whether a reasonable person would consider the message a true threat. A true threat is a serious expression of an intent to injure the person of another or to commit an act of unlawful violence against a particular individual or a group. A true threat is a serious threat as opposed to mere idle or careless talk, exaggeration or something said in a joking matter.

A true threat is more than mere political hyperbole or vehement caustic and unpleasantly sharp political attacks or crude offensive and abusive methods of stating political opposition. Identifying and providing personal information on a Web site standing alone, while it may be offensive or disturbing to those listed, is protected by the First Amendment. The mere advocacy of the use of force or violence does not remove speech from the protection of the First Amendment. To be a true threat the communication does not need to be directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action.

You may find that a particular statement is a true threat if you find that the statement was made under such circumstances that an ordinary reasonable person who was familiar with the context of the communication would interpret it as an expression of an intent to injure the recipient or injure another person.

Of course, this is the way a US jury was instructed so it would not necessarily hold for Canada; but this verdict demonstrates clearly that there are bounds on speech freedoms.