One of the advantages (and disadvantages) of having multiple phone lines in the house is that I can anticipate telemarketing calls before they arrive on the second line. In this way, I am better equipped to try to find out who is behind those annoying recorded messages.
I recently received a call from a mythical Orlando phone number (407.000.9821) that told me I won a Florida or Bahamas vacation and I just had to press 9 for more information. I did just that and reached a human who must have accidentally hung up on me when I asked to be placed on their do not call list.
A few minutes later, the same caller ID showed up on another line and I reached a different agent. I decided to play along a little longer, so that I could ask the name of the group behind this promotion – Cancun Travel Unlimited. Once armed with a call-back number, I asked this agent to remove my phone number from their list. Again, a hang up.
As it turns out, the phone number I was given didn’t belong to Cancun Travel, a company that has a number of reports on a rip-off website. The folks at Hilton Timeshare were happy to add me to their own do not call list, but they were unaware of a campaign.
When we have a Florida / Mexican company making calls, with no presence in this country, it makes me wonder how enforcement of our Do Not Call legislation is going to provide the kind of relief expected by Canadians.
If you Google the terms “end of Vonage”, you get back more than 1.2M entries, looking at patent issues, implementation issues, IPO issues. Vonage has survived all of them, so far.
Vonage has been trying to close on $250M of new debt and its timing couldn’t be worse, considering the turmoil in the global financial markets. A story on Telecom Web suggests that Vonage is quickly running out of runway, burning through cash and having challenges renew some of its loans. But last night, Vonage issued a press release suggesting that it has revised terms for about 90% of its original target.
December 16 is the due date on its old debt. Vonage has been on the brink of disaster a number of times. Will the largest pure-play VoIP provider survive once again?
I will be taking time off tomorrow in observance of Yom Kippur. I expect to have my next posting on Friday.
With less than a week remaining until the election, the Conservative Party has finally released its platform [pdf] and surprisingly, telecom policy figures prominently in the document.
In the forefront of the consumer protection section (page 5 of 40), the Conservatives say that they will prevent charges for unsolicited incoming text messages, strengthen the powers of the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecom Services and create a compliance and deterrent power for the CRTC. Further, the Conservatives commit to address spam:
A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will introduce legislation to prohibit the use of spam (unsolicited commercial email) to collect personal information under false pretenses and to engage in criminal conduct. The new law will reduce dangerous, destructive and deceptive email and web site practices, and will establish new fines for those who break the law.
Broadband investment isn’t directly addressed, but may be part of the infrastructure super-fund:
A re-elected Conservative Government will continue to support rural and remote communities by investing in new infrastructure throughout rural and northern Canada.
The Conservatives make interesting cultural composition commitments for the CRTC. They say that chairs will alternate between English and French speakers and that the two vice chairs will be split: one English and one French. A quarter of the Commissioners will be French speakers and a majority of those hearing cases involving French-language or Quebec broadcasters will be from that group.
In practice, the CRTC has operated this way without rules that would seem to question whether immigrant Canadians are equal in the eyes of those responsible for filling vacancies. What does this mean for future representation in the CRTC by Canadians who are not from either official language group?
What other fall-out might there be from last week’s revelations by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab project that China was monitoring Skype instant messaging?
What is the risk of a foreign government agency requiring a company within its borders to provide access to information that is available to them?
What are the implications for outsourcing operational functions to certain off-shore jurisdictions with democratic and civil liberty principles that aren’t aligned with those we hold to be important? If a call centre has access to my phone records or banking records for customer service purposes, how do we know that their government doesn’t have access as well?
What issues arise when sourcing network equipment and services from off-shore suppliers? How secure is network and customer information? What level of diligence is sufficient for corporate boards to be confident that cost savings justify the risk of privacy loss through corporate or government espionage.
A coalition has released a “report” [pdf] calling for an increased awareness of net neutrality and for political candidates to support their drive for regulating internet service providers.
The document is more of a brochure, a collection of advocacy statements with a skewed view of the history of the internet, seeking to inject new regulation over private sector business models.
It includes an attempt to compare internet service to electric power. In my view, the metaphor doesn’t support an argument favouring net neutrality regulations.
It would be ludicrous to imagine a hydro company charging a premium to customers who used the service to power innovative appliances, for example refrigerators that also dispensed ice cubes.
What I found ludicrous is the relevance of this statement to the position advocated by the net neutrality camp. Where should I start?
First, hydro companies charge by the kilowatt; the more power you use, the more you pay. On the other hand, Canadians like flat rate internet services. In fact, in its platform, the NDP (a member of the coalition) has called for net neutrality to include the mandating of flat rate pricing. Second, hydro companies are implementing ways to control consumption by power hungry, non-real time “applications” (like air conditioners) during peak periods. Their current method of controlling demand is rotating brown-outs. Sound like “throttling” to anyone?
Is “Save Our Net” going to set its next objective to promote flat rates for power? That will probably cost them support from the Green Party, another member of the coalition. Or are they looking to contradict the NDP platform and advocate for all internet pricing to be “by the bit” – a business model that Canadians just don’t want. I don’t think we’re enamored with our electric utility’s monthly customer charge, delivery fees and debt retirement charge.
Either way, capacity for power delivery is no more unlimited than the myth of unlimited flow of bits, regardless of the business model for cost recovery.
The coalition also suggests that Net Neutrality legislation isn’t new; it is analogous to the safeguards found in Sections 27(2) and 36 of the Telecom Act.
However, the current provisions are insufficient to safeguard network neutrality in Canada. The central problem is that Sections 27(2) and 36 predate the internet, thus were not drafted with modern telecommunications technology in mind. So, for example, it remains unclear what unjust discrimination, undue or unreasonable preference amount in our modern context. [sic]
Well this is interesting. The Telecom Act was actually written in the internet era, proclaimed in force as of October 25, 1993 and amended in 1998.
Where is the evidence that these provisions are insufficient?
Further, the paper ignores the history of content distribution networks and the fact that large content providers have worked with major ISPs for more than a decade to find ways to get their content delivered faster to consumers. Content companies work with ISPs (and pay them) to find ways to speed up downloads and improve the user experience – hardly consistent with the banner in the “report” that proclaims “Prioritization deals are bad for consumers“.
But let’s go back to that flat rate model for electricity. I guess I would think about supporting a platform that lets me run the air conditioner all day and all night for $40 per month. Can you get me gas for my furnace and barbecue at that price as well? That isn’t likely coming.
I am troubled by the use of fear mongering headlines like “Telco companies [sic] shouldn’t decide which Internet businesses succeed“. When have telephone companies, or any other types of ISPs, suggested that they would make such a determination? What purpose is served by throwing this into this document that is looking at net neutrality?
So, I encourage you to take a good look at the piece from Save Our Net with a critical eye. With such a cadre of support for their cause, I expected a better quality piece.
