CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein delivered an address on Monday to the annual convention of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB).

Populist drivel found in the comments section of various news media websites points to the irrelevance of regulators; how they just don’t understand the new era of an internet-enabled world. Such views are flawed and overly simplistic.

The address from the Chair made note of the impact of new media and the CRTC’s upcoming new media hearings:

New Media puts the users in control. They can watch what they want, when they want––in whatever form is most convenient. New Media offers exciting new ways of delivering news, information, entertainment, drama, music––and advertising.

These are innovations of great potential. They also carry major implications for the broadcasting industry that we will have to examine.

New Media operates outside the regulated routes of access to the communications system, so it is free of regulatory requirements, restrictions and licensing. Yet it unquestionably delivers broadcasting content. We will be addressing the role of New Media in the Canadian broadcasting universe during our public hearing in February.

The address contains insights into the philosophy and 3 principles that guided the CRTC in approaching its recent major policy framework reviews: simplification, coherence and calibration.

These principles can be expected to be applied in upcoming proceedings as well.

As if to launch the Christmas sales season, Bell Mobility has launched new rate plans that let users roll-over unused minutes from one month to the next.

Canadians have been watching ads from US carriers that offer such plans and Bell is the first major service provider to bring a variant of this offer to Canada. Bell will let you carry over unused local airtime voice minutes for one additional month, not indefinitely.

According to Bell Mobility President Wade Oosterman:

With Rollover Minutes, you no longer have to use ’em or lose ’em. If you undertalk one month, you can overtalk the next.

The plans are available until December 31 to Bell Mobility clients who sign a three-year contract. Customers can choose between rate plans that are broken into three categories: Rollover Minutes, Rollover Minutes & Email, and Rollover Minutes, Email & Internet.

Last year, the popular offer from most service providers was unlimited email and web browsing. What is in Santa’s bag for Christmas 2008?

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Bell, roll over

On Friday, Bell Mobility and Solo announced a feature that allows parents to block access to certain websites from their kids mobile devices. The content access control lets parents limit access to Internet sites that might be inappropriate for their children.

According to Adel Bazerghi, Senior Vice President of Products for Bell Mobility:

As use of the Internet on mobile phones grows, fuelled by the popularity of smartphones and the fast access speeds delivered by 3G networks, our clients have asked for tools to help them manage access. Bell Parental Control offers them content filtering capability on mobile phones for the first time in Canada.

The feature costs $5 per month.

It would be interesting to see if Bell or other service providers would support parents downloading 3rd party software to perform a similar function on the handsets.

I wonder about adding other parental controls to limit kids calling to a set list of numbers, perhaps even setting up limited call lists during peak hours. What about parental controls on the number of times users can incur premium text message charges – protecting against surprise charges for TV voting shows? Or bundling location tracking capabilities?

Deliver a complete phone-use management tool and you might have something that more parents will be happier to buy.

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On Wednesday afternoon, I received a call from a gentleman in the western United States who was doing some due diligence into a business deal. He had been contacted by someone using a variant of my company’s name, who informed him that he was in line to inherit $7.5M.

The scam artist claimed to be a lawyer, acting as an agent for a client of National Bank in Brampton and he forwarded a letter from an account manager at the bank named Dr Smith Allen.

The phone numbers don’t match the real numbers for the bank. The law firm doesn’t exist, the lawyer doesn’t show up in the registry at the Law Society of Upper Canada and the lawyer used two similar but different street addresses; I guess it is tough to keep the storyline straight when you are making it up as you go.

Usually, these types of letters are traced to Nigeria or other far off lands. Maybe it is a sign of the slipping economy that our call centres are being re-purposed to target seniors in the US.

This message is a public service announcement to help people doing a web search for “Goldberg”, “National Bank”, “Canada”. It is a scam. And I’m not involved.

I filed a report with Phone Busters using their toll free line (+1.888.495.8501). Cathy is on the case.

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National Bank, inheritance

There are a lot of reports hitting the wires (eg. Globe and Mail or Canadian Press) on the CRTC’s Decision on the new regulatory framework for Broadcast Distribution Undertakings (eg. cable and satellite companies). The CRTC’s press release can be found here.

I’d prefer to point to a different perspective.

I took the greatest interest in reading the dissenting opinion by Commissioner Michel Morin. His dissent takes up 45 pages (of the total 141 page decision [pdf]), which he says is the longest ever written by a CRTC Commissioner.

I was appointed to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in August 2007 for a five-year term. Today, I am issuing my sixth dissenting opinion… Believe me when I say I am not happy to be compelled to dissent from the majority opinion.

Commissioner Peter Menzies also had a dissent that takes on many of the same issues, although written in a different style. Both express concerns about the effectiveness of the local programming fund and whether the CBC should be able to draw on these amounts.

The dissenting views appear after the appendices. They can provide a fascinating peek at what some of the debates must have been during the decision making process.