A Fraser Institute report examining net neutrality was released last week.

The executive summary characterizes the issue as “a prominent focus of debate in the ongoing evolution of Canadian broadcast and telecommunications regulatory policy.”

The executive summary tries to summarize the net neutrality argument as:

Many believe that the Internet should be universally available for all possible uses and that access to content and applications should not be interfered with, particularly by service providers.

The report is intended to counter the tautology of that view.

proponents of net neutrality share a view that regulatory constraints on private sector decision-making will enhance the net economic benefits of the Internet to Canadians. This study critically evaluates and rejects this view.

The Fraser Institute addresses concerns on three key issues: access-tiering; vertical integration with the carrier based ISPs; and, innovation. The report concludes with recommendations that rely on existing regulatory mechanisms.

I’d be interested in your comments.

We’ll be exploring net neutrality on Wednesday next week at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit.

Technorati Tags:
Canadian Telecom Summit, net neutrality, Canada

The CRTC has given approval to the proposed rates for accessing the Do Not Call List database.

To subscribe to the database will cost $11,280 per year for all of Canada, or $600 per area code.

There is also an ad hoc query rate. Let’s say you are a company that received a list of sales leads and you want to validate them. Just pay Bell $0.50 per number and the list will get checked against the database.

Accordingly, telemarketers that are required to subscribe to the National DNCL can expect to pay the following in these hypothetical examples:

1. A telemarketer that conducts telemarketing campaigns across Canada throughout the year could get an annual subscription for $11,280, which would give them access to all area codes for a full year.
2. A telemarketer that conducts telemarketing campaigns in just four area codes throughout the year could get a subscription for $2,460.
3. A telemarketer that conducts a seasonal telemarketing campaign across Canada that lasts just three consecutive months could get a subscription for $2,970.
4. A telemarketer that conducts a limited telemarketing campaign that targets just 50 telephone numbers could query those 50 numbers for $25.

We can expect that the contract for subscriptions will have prohibitions against resale.

Will businesses that aren’t professional telemarketers comply? Is the cost of compliance such that companies will choose to take their chances and not bother checking?

Technorati Tags:
CRTC, DNCL

Dunt, da-dunt, da-da… It’s Telecom week in Canada.

There is a lot of attention to telecommunications issues over the course of the next week.

Of course, the launch of iPhone v2 has been part of the global hype, but there is a lot of news made in Canada as well.

David George-Cosh and Jamie Sturgeon kicked things off last Saturday with their look into the future of wireless: Better. Faster. Smarter.

The AWS spectrum auction, having moved into Stage 2 earlier this week, is moving faster toward its conclusion. Stage 3 started Wednesday (lower bid increments; all points have to be bid each round) and the process moves to 6 rounds per day starting this morning. More than $3.5B has already been bid, more than double the original estimates. As I said to Peter Nowak at CBC yesterday, we seem to honing in on the final number.

Bell will have its day in court next Tuesday to see what tune the Supremes will sing. Will the deal just keep them hangin’ on?

The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit opens on Monday at the Toronto Congress Centre and there will coverage of the event all of next week in the major media outlets. Watch for our special Telecom Summit supplement in the National Post. Registrations are strong again this year and we are grateful for the industry support.

On Monday, the CRTC issued a Public Notice to consult on what kinds of information carriers should be required to provide to customers.

Over the years, a number of regulatory requirements have been imposed – mainly upon incumbents – to provide information to make customers aware of their basic rights and responsibilities.

Under the information requirements, the ILECs are required, for example, to publish information in their white pages directories, on their websites, and/or in billing inserts about the Terms of Service, the Statement of Consumer Rights, a description of the quality of service regime, the privacy implications of number and name display services, the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules and information as to how to register on the National Do Not Call List, 900 service safeguards, and information pertinent to forborne markets.

In consideration of the current competitive environment, the CRTC has called for comments on questions such as whether market forces have made the rules obsolete.

Michael Geist notes that

concern over the lack of transparency associated with Internet and telecom services has been mounting, the CRTC has just launched a public consultation on the prospect of eliminating mandatory disclosures, relying instead on market forces. The outcome of this consultation could lead to dramatic changes in what the telcom companies are required to disclose to consumers.

In a competitive environment, does the regulator need to mandate disclosure in order for consumers to be informed? How do consumers get informed about all of the characteristics of the services they are buying in an increasingly complex market? For example, what is a reasonable set of FAQs for consumers for their internet access service, given the different treatments by service providers for P2P traffic?

On the other hand, should the regulator dictate what media are used for disclosure of consumer information: does anyone actually use white pages anymore, let alone read the introductory pages? How many trees go into the pages printed with the Terms of Service? What rules would be efficient?

Yesterday, the Commission announced a combined Broadcast and Telecom notice of consultation and public hearing scheduled for November 17, 2008. The consultation is to explore unresolved issues related to accessibility of telecommunications and broadcasting services to persons with disabilities. Based on a quick review of the associated consultant report, maintaining access information is an issue for the community of persons with disabilities. [Note: the link to the consultant report was broken from the Telecom PN, but it works from the Broadcast PN.] In particular, the report suggests customer service and support are seen as increasingly inaccessible due to the need to navigate voice response systems.

While some internet service providers (ISPs) may claim that they perform no network management, no ISP can sustain that position for the long term.

Network management covers a range of activities that help protect the integrity of the customer experience. For example, service providers need to guard against denial of service attacks – that is network management. ISPs need to watch for and manage spam – both incoming and outgoing – that is network management.

Yesterday, Rogers held a briefing to provide insights on its philosophy and approach to its network management.

A question on many people’s minds is how does my ISP deal with peer-to-peer file transfers.

Rogers appears to have taken a different approach from other ISPs in Canada. It does not interfere with download capacity for torrent-type traffic. Instead, Rogers divides its upload bandwidth into two segments: a P2P file transfer portion; and everything else in the other portion.

The allocation is largely static; it doesn’t change based on time of day. Rogers doesn’t interfere with encrypted packets; it does not block traffic; it does not manage the downstream traffic; it does not inspect the content of packets.

Their approach was determined to have the least customer impact in that most customers aren’t even aware when their machine is being used as a server. It does not affect the downloading of content and Rogers does not differentiate based on the content or the application – just on the characteristics of the application: if it is a P2P file transfer application, then its upload demand goes into a different bucket.

The objective of all network management techniques is to balance the internet experience for all subscribers, even those heavy downloaders. Some of the data indicates that 34% of all users are now downloading music and 18% are downloading video. These kind of figures mean that more than just students are beginning to use file download software. Downloading has crossed into the mainstream.

Is the Rogers approach more consumer friendly and competitively neutral?

Mike Lee, Rogers’ Chief Strategy Officer, will be speaking next week on the Net Neutrality panel at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, June 18. Have you registered yet?

Technorati Tags:
Rogers, Canadian Telecom Summit, net neutrality