The opposition parties have succeeded in calling an emergency meeting of the House of Commons Industry Committee to wade into the sale of Nortel’s business units.

While the trigger event is the recent Ericsson deal, the committee might as well be looking at the entire business liquidation process, since wireless is just the first of a number of business units to go.

The NDP industry critic, Brian Masse said in a press release:

The Conservatives are using taxpayer money to help a foreign company steal very valuable assets at a lowball price, while a leader in Canadian innovation who is offering a higher price, is blocked. It is outrageous.

The Committee meeting allows opposition members to get their views into the transcripts, helping to build campaign literature for the next election.

Will the minority government resist the calls for intervention in Ericsson’s acquisition of Nortel’s wireless business?

Members should remember that there are a large number of Canadians who are employed by foreign technology firms, including 1500 Ericsson’s research labs in Montreal.

Last week, I commented on the harsh language used by Ontario’s Finance Minister, who was quoted saying that “LTE was partly funded with Canadian taxpayer money, and he doesn’t want it going to a foreign company.” This came from the guy signing cheques for more than a quarter billion taxpayer dollars for France-based game studio Ubisoft.

So, last Friday, Democrat US Representatives Ed Markey and Anna Eshoo introduced a Net Neutrality Bill that has been attracting a lot of attention.

I caught a tweet on Monday evening from CIPPIC that asked “where’s ours!!”

Of course, when you read the bill [ pdf, 49KB], you’ll realize that most of these proposed protections are already part of Canada’s Telecom Act. The one novel proposed amendment to the 75 year old US Communications Act was one that seeks:

to ensure that consumers receive meaningful information regarding their communications services;

In other words, increased transparency, as was suggested by a number of parties in the recent network management proceeding.

Canada’s regulatory framework already captures protections that the US is just starting to consider in legislation. What more is needed?

I find it interesting that the FCC has waded into the Google Voice / iPhone kerfuffle. This is the US regulatory body that enjoys taking up populist causes, such as its defense of our mores harmed by nine sixteenths of a second of exposure to parts of Michael Jackson’s sister that distracted the February 1, 2004 broadcast Super Bowl XXXVIII.

In case you haven’t heard, the FCC wants to know why Apple’s iPhone does not support Google Voice, the reincarnation of Grand Central. Many commentators south of the border suggest that Apple’s US carrier partner, AT&T, is the cause of the application block, but this would be improbable, since the Google app is being marketed for Blackberry support, including AT&T’s Blackberry devices. Politicians are already up in arms over exclusive deals for cell phones. Somebody has to do something!

Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes about the FCC investigation, with links to the letters sent to Google, Apple and AT&T.

Alec Saunders has a great post on why the AT&T conspiracy theory doesn’t add up.

He writes:

Perhaps Apple themselves are quietly developing features that are competitive to Google Voice?

The questions posed by the FCC may probe beyond the statutory authority to compel answers from companies that aren’t regulated by the Commission.

How will Apple and Google respond? Will they even bother to respond?

The companies compete as evidenced by the resignation of Google CEO Eric Schmidt from Apple’s board. They are both big and don’t need government protection. Is government going to start dictating business models?

Are we equally troubled by exclusive soft drink deals with certain restaurants? Exclusive coffee suppliers at some hotels? Exclusive credit cards at the Olympics?

While we are busy legislating open access, are we going to require RIM to enable Blackberry Messenger on iPhones?

What raises the level of passion over such business arrangements in the wireless industry?

The final comments on internet traffic management practices have been submitted and it will take some time to go through all of them. One of the pieces got me thinking.

The discussion during the oral hearings with Professor Odlyzko of University of Minnesota found its way into the TELUS submission:

TELUS found it significant that Professor Odlyzko, speaking on behalf of the Campaign for Democratic Media, testified that peer-to-peer applications are “throttled” and the network “capacity controlled” in that portion of the University of Minnesota’s campus network that serves the student dormitories

I began to wonder about Canada’s universities. Not just their internet traffic management practices, but I also wondered whether we have any idea how many connections are being provided by these internet service providers.

When my kids were in student dorms, their universities charged a non-trivial fee for internet access service. This would appear to define them as internet service providers, but they don’t seem to be captured in CRTC lists since they don’t fit any of the categories – resellers, resellers of retail high speed internet, carriers, etc.

As a result, we may have tens of thousands of residential student subscribers to university-provided internet services that do not appear in counts of broadband adoption in Canada. With CANARIE as an unregistered carrier providing the backbone, it isn’t clear that we are fully capturing the connectivity picture in subscriber studies. Are the universities themselves counted as a business location? [On the other hand, I find it interesting that many school boards are registered carriers.]

A story in Wireless Week talks about the view of some folks that wireless carriers could become more like Amazon, selling all shapes and sizes of digital products.

Carriers now support downloads, streaming video, SMS, mobile payments and more. This expanding mobile ecosystem has prompted carriers’ billing service providers to get ready for a future where their carrier clients transform from basic technology service providers into digital retailers.

Will the carriers actually put these products onto your phone bill or will they simply facilitate retailers connecting to conventional banking and credit cards?

When the phone bill comes at the end of the month, will consumers remember that the charges include the movies, music and other products that they clicked on, or will they focus on the big number next to the words “Pay This Amount”?