Blogging may be spotty this week – I am on a road trip with limited on-line access (anyone able to catch the connection to the graphic on this page?). So far, we have covered 2100 miles, en route to Caltech, which we should reach late in the week.

Most interesting is that we have maintained continuous cell phone coverage, throughout the desert in New Mexico, even when AM radio was pretty spotty. 3G is spotty, but EDGE has been almost continuously strong.

Now that the airlines are outfitting seats with internet in the air, maybe car rental companies will consider offering affordable pay-as-you-go mobile broadband.

When I was at a recent analyst conference, I spoke with some people who have deployed HSPA as a mobile internet access system to be offered to passengers in airport taxis.

Domestic networks are making mobile broadband data affordable for most applications; the affordability of international roaming is a continued challenge (and high roaming charges isn’t just a Canadian issue).

There are ways to manage your international voice calling with prepaid SIM cards. What are your experiences with data access while travelling?

Keep those cards and letters coming. And yes, we did make a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Call me next week and I can tell you all about it!

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Animal House

Maybe it was a case of election envy. With all the attention being given to the US national conventions, Canada is heading to its own election.

Alec Saunders has said that for him, the next election is all about Bill C-61, the government’s plan to reform Canadian copyright legislation.

I have written a number of times over the past 6 months [eg. here and here] about executing on a national broadband strategy. Will any of these ideas make their way onto election platforms?

What is important to you?

Interesting story in last weekend’s NY Times, claiming that “The era of the American Internet is ending.” The headline says that Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.

[Actually, I think that transition began almost a decade ago with the construction of various global fibre networks.]

The article seems to be based on concerns about the US losing access to spying on foreign communications.

Internet industry executives and government officials have acknowledged that Internet traffic passing through the switching equipment of companies based in the United States has proved a distinct advantage for American intelligence agencies. In December 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency had established a program with the cooperation of American telecommunications firms that included the interception of foreign Internet communications.

Some Internet technologists and privacy advocates say those actions and other government policies may be hastening the shift in Canadian and European traffic away from the United States.

There are all sorts of irrelevant statistics in the article – read the story and you’ll see what I mean.

A question arises whether ISPs can force traffic onto routes that will avoid the US.

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NY Times, internet

The Home Office in the UK is charged with the responsibility to protect the public from terror, crime and anti-social behaviour.

According to the government’s website, “We help build the security, justice and respect that enable people to prosper in a free and tolerant society.”

The Home Office is currently in the final phase of a consultation on requiring service providers to retain data generated through electronic communications or public communications networks.

The aim of the directive is to ensure that certain data is retained so that public authorities can investigate, detect and prosecute crime.

My colleagues at Privacy Laws and Business have sent an advisory noting that the government is proposing that it will be compulsory for Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies to retain all communications data for a minimum of 12 months.

Data retention powers will be much wider than expected. The Home Office has confirmed that local councils, emergency services, the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Health and Safety Executive, the Food Standards Agency and the Post Office will have access to call, text, e-mail and internet records for 12 months.

The full consultation document can be downloaded here [ pdf]. How would Canadians and Canadian ISPs respond to such a proposal? What are the implications for Canadians travelling in the UK or Canadian ISPs with UK-based clients?

There is an interesting file in front of the CRTC in the form of an application by TELUS to have the Commission issue a declaratory ruling to interpret the terms of a customer specific arrangement.

Much of the application [zip] is blanked out, but it appears that there is a very large customer that is transitioning from Bell to TELUS with “many thousands of services/circuits which need to be installed in hundreds of locations across Canada”.

The customer’s current contract is coming to an end and it appears that TELUS is having trouble completing the transition prior to the expiration of the current Bell contract.

It appears that the customer approached Bell to see if all or some of the services currently provided could remain on reasonable terms and conditions. According to the application, Bell took the position that if any of the services are required after the contract expires, they can only be offered under the same terms and conditions, including the minimum contract period and minimum revenue guarantee.

TELUS asked the CRTC to intervene in what the Commission suggests may be more of a contractual than regulatory dispute.

TELUS submits that to permit the incumbent service provider to impose these obligations where the customer’s requirements are for a transition period from the incumbent service provider to a new service provider selected by the customer amounts to a penalty, is an abuse of Bell Canada’s temporary market power, would necessarily be a barrier to customer choice and would impair the operation of market forces.

Although the customer’s identity has been shielded, this looks like a dispute over a government contract.

Lessons to learned from our first day back at school?

• In the commercial marketplace, one can’t assume an incumbent service provider will roll out a welcome mat for a competitor taking away millions of dollars in revenue;
• Customers with complex networks should consider a transition period clause in their contracts;
• The carrier relations groups from both service providers may want to remember that this is just one contract. Other projects, such as the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, will need some serious cooperation between Canada’s two biggest ILECs.

At the end of the day, both service providers need to be guided by the principle of putting the customer first.

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TELUS, Bell