For those who couldn’t make it to The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, Fox Group Media has prepared a summary video.

There are interviews with speakers, summaries of keynote addresses, conversations with delegates.

In addition, the 40 minute video includes our opening remarks at The Canadian Telecom Summit. The focus is on the first day.

Time		Presentation & Interview
00:00		Introduction – Roberta J. Fox, Editor in Chief, Publisher, FOX GROUP Publishing
02:00		Mark Goldberg & Michael Sone, co-chairs of the Canadian Telecom Summit comment on Canadian Government and Telecom Policy arena
09:47		Nadir Mohammed, President & COO, Rogers Communications is queried by Roberta Fox in an open forum and summarizes the comments of his keynote speech
12:52		Bill Archer – CMO – AT&T; Corp. – Roberta provides a summary of his Luncheon Keynote regarding top global Telecommunications industry trends
17:46		John Maduri – President and CEO – Barrett xplore – Wireless Internet Services – Roberta in a One on One Interview on top issues facing Canadian SMBs
25:25		John Cameron – CEO – Aizan Technologies – Voice Technologies – One on One Interview with Roberta Fox on benefits of hosted voice solutions
20:50		Tony Cassetta, Chairman – Pulse Voice – One on One Interview with Roberta Fox on top telecom issues facing Canadian organizations
33:30		Mike Zafirovski – President & CEO, Nortel Networks, Roberta provides summary of his Keynote Presentation
35:30		Martha Bejar – Corporate VP, Communications Sector, Microsoft Corp. – Roberta provides summary of her Keynote presentation
37:45		Stuart Wells, President Global Solutions, and Mario Belanger, President of Avaya Canada, summary of telephone interview on top telecommunication trends affecting enterprise and SMBs in Canada
41:54		Wrap-up and Closing Remarks by Roberta J. Fox, FOX GROUP Publishing & Telecom Consulting

You really need to attend in person to experience the event, but hopefully the video will provide a taste for you.

Plan to attend in 2009: June 15-17 in Toronto.

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Canadian Telecom Summit

I have been test driving the new Fido Uno mobile service recently and I have to say that I like it. I have the handset connecting automatically to various WiFi networks; the set up was pretty easy.

The service is a good way to save on long distance charges, but I am left thinking that we should be expecting more. After all, Bell and TELUS really don’t need fancy Fixed Mobile Convergence to deliver a competing service; all that is needed is lower (or no) long distance charges for domestic calls.

If all the customer sees is a reduction in pricing, then it seems like a lot of effort.

Recall my POTS over IP postings [here and here]. [PoIP – don’t you just love a 4-letter acronym that embeds a 4-letter acronym?]

How can service providers leverage VoIP for more than just price advantages?

Markham-based Iristel is trying to find that service mix. They have announced IP Mobiliy Service, integrating hybrid WiFi / GSM phones into business communications, thereby enabling the suite of unified communications capabilities to be available from office phones or hybrid mobile/wifi devices. It is now announcing Iristel IP Mobility, a service that enables users to seamlessly switch between their mobile carrier’s network and fixed lines when moving from one location to another (e.g. car to office).

Iristel IP Mobility’s universal features enable business users to remain productive and active in conference and group calls when out of the office by providing access to all the same telephone features users would have from their desk. It also provides VoIP roaming, enabling subscribers to access fixed line services when away from home or office through wireless VoIP.

Will customers embrace Iristel’s services? What about mobile carriers themselves?

Are these the kinds of services that might let new entrants differentiate themselves?

As bidding for AWS spectrum cracks though the $4B mark, I like to look at the details to see where people aren’t bidding.

For example, the 10MHz ‘G’ band [1910-1915 MHz / 1990-1995 MHz] has attracted no bids in Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Northern Ontario. Not even an opening bid.

And almost all of the 5MHz ‘I’ band [1670-1675 MHz] remains in the government’s hands; the exception is Manitoba where MTS has bid half a million dollars for it. Will any equipment be available to operate in this orphaned band?

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Industry Canada, AWS Spectrum Auction

Michael Geist’s column in the Toronto Star this week joins our call for the government to examine a national connectedness strategy as a way to use the windfall from the spectrum auction, as bidding approaches the $4B mark.

He suggests three uses, among them:

Third, a large chunk of the surplus could be allocated toward fulfilling the goal of ensuring that all Canadians enjoy access to high-speed networks. Canada’s broadband global ranking has been steadily declining in recent years with one-third of Canadian communities still without high-speed access. For those Canadians without access – whether in rural areas, or on the outskirts of major cities – the Internet’s potential for communication, commerce, access to knowledge and culture remains largely unrealized.

As Michael Sone and I suggested in our opening remarks at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, the digital divide is not just a matter of connecting communities, but helping lower income Canadians get on-line, regardless of where they live.

As I asked in the opening remarks, will broadband policy find a place on the election platforms of various political parties this fall?

The CRTC rejected an appeal by MTS Allstream of a couple of earlier Centrex forbearance decisions, Decisions 2007-80 and 2008-10.

MTS Allstream had argued that these Decisions had the effect of foreclosing any possibility of sustainable competition in Centrex services. It said that maintaining these Decisions would cause irreversible damage to competition.

Among its arguments, MTS Allstream provided evidence that showed that ILECs had in excess of 95 percent market share of business local exchange services to large and very large business customers. MTS Allstream claimed that the ILECs had “significant market power” in Centrex services as seen by the ability to raise prices as much as 19 percent within a year, with no loss of ILECs’ market share.

However, the Commission found that the market share data submitted by MTS Allstream was inconclusive. For example, the data submitted by MTS Allstream did not separate the in-territory from out-of-territory regions where ILECs operate as competitors.

The Commission remains of the view that market share is but one measure of competition. The Commission considers that competitor presence is widely accepted in economics and competition law as a measure of a market’s competitiveness and notes that it was the required test in the local forbearance framework set out in modified Telecom Decision 2006-15.

The Commission noted that the forbearance framework for wholesale services would ensure that competitors have access to inputs needed to compete in retail markets, independent of the regulatory determinations in the retail market. And of course, the Commission retains its powers to address issues related to undue preference and unjust discrimination.

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CRTC, centrex, MTS Allstream