AT&T (NYSE: T) has called for Canada to relax its foreign investment restrictions.

According to AT&T, the current rules are the most restrictive of any country in the OECD and the rules

impose inefficiencies in the delivery of critical telecommunications services that harm consumer and business users throughout Canada’s economy and limit economic growth in Canada.

AT&T’s proposed remedy for the restrictions to be eliminated completely, or as an interim alternative, that foreign ownership restrictions be relaxed for telecommunications services providers with market share of less than 10% in any telecom services market.

AT&T’s submission points out the lack of symmetry with relaxed US rules that have enabled T-Mobile USA, wholly owned by German Deutsche Telekom, to become a significant market player south of the border.

AT&T’s submission includes references to Canadian studies (such as the Telecom Policy Review Panel and the Commons Committee on Industry, Science and Technology) that appear to contradict some of the assertions set out in the CRTC’s position paper, the subject of yesterday’s posting.

A senior leader of AT&T will be delivering a keynote address at The Canadian Telecom Summit in June.

Technorati Tags:
ATT, Competition Policy

Billboard has the full text of yesterday’s speech given by U2 manager Paul McGuinness at the MIDEM conference in Cannes.

His remarks call for ISPs to get involved in the policing of the content being carried across their network.

Despite selling their broadband service on the basis of sharing photos and sending emails, McGuinness says that music sharing – illegal music sharing – is the killer app that justifies $25 broadband.

In his speech, he says that Radiohead’s widely reported ‘honesty box’ demonstrates that given the choice to get music for free from an authorized site, the majority will still steal using other peer-to-peer applications.

It’s time for a new approach — time for ISPs to start taking responsibility for the content they’ve profited from for years.
…
For ISPs in general, the days of prevaricating over their responsibilities for helping protect music must end. The ISP lobbyists who say they should not have to “police the internet” are living in the past — relying on outdated excuses from an earlier technological age.
…
And as it turned, the “Safe Harbour” concept was really a Thieves’ Charter. The legal precedent that device-makers and pipe and network owners should not be held accountable for any criminal activity enabled by their devices and services has been enormously damaging to content owners and developing artists. If you were publishing a magazine that was advertising stolen cars, processing payments for them and arranging delivery of them you’d expect to get a visit from the police wouldn’t you? What’s the difference?

Technorati Tags:
U2, Paul McGuinness, illegal content

With a little bit of linguistic gymnastics, the CRTC sided with Videotron in the dispute that I wrote about last week.

Recall that the dispute goes back to a Bell complaint that Videotron’s installation practices result in Bell having to roll a truck if the location ever wants to reconnect to Bell service.

As I suggested last week, the Commission reached a conclusion in just a week:

In this Decision, the Commission determines that Vidéotron ltée’s proposed disconnection practices when disconnecting Bell Canada’s network from a residential customer’s inside wire are not unreasonable. Accordingly, the Commission denies Bell Canada’s application.

You just have to learn to love the double negative of regulatory decisions!

In the wake of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s speech at the Conference Board of Canada event yesterday, I am just getting around to posting some thoughts about some of the submissions to the Competition Policy Review Panel.

I was somewhat intrigued to see that the CRTC submitted a paper with 5 recommendations, starting off with one that sought to replace the Broadcast Act and Telecom Act, with a new converged Communications Act:

There should be a single Act governing broadcasting, telecommunications and radiocommunication.

The CRTC added 4 more recommendations: streamlining regulations while moving to ex-post regulation but first ensuring the Commission has powers to impose monetary penalties; move spectrum licensing for telecom away from Industry Canada [a recommendation I endorsed last month]; a merger review process with clear and distinct roles for the CRTC and Competition Bureau; maintaining foreign ownership restrictions for both content providers and carriers.

I found it to be particularly interesting that the Commission intervened in the consultation, rather than waiting to simply administer whatever rules are set forth by the government on the other side of the river.

A lively discussion could arise from at least one part of the submission:

The economics of Internet production do not favour local content. As localism is eroded, the maintenance of Canadian capacity in the form of Canadian-owned and –controlled companies will become more critical. A branch plant economy for cultural production and distribution is difficult to envisage. Multi-national enterprises would have little incentive to create uniquely national content.

There is a lot of material in this little paragraph. I wonder if this could be an exercise for my grad students this weekend. Hmmm.

We’ll see if these points attract debate later this year; the CRTC’s workplan calls for hearings in 2008 on the impacts of New Media on the Broadcasting and Telecommunications system.

2008-6) on delegation of investigation of telemarketing complaints.

In a nutshell, everyone who makes telemarketing calls, and their clients (the companies that hire telemarketers to make calls on their behalf) will need to register with a new agency. The CRTC explicitly rejected a call to exempt the registration of those making calls that are exempt from the Do Not Call registry.

One might have thought that clubs would be exempt because they are calling people with whom a business relationship exists. Every girl scout that calls to sell cookies, every school kid that calls to sell you tickets, every club member that calls to tell you about their car wash – everyone of these people is a telemarketer under the CRTC’s definition. Even if they only call families within the school, if there is money involved in the call, it is telemarketing.

If the kids call from their home phone, that phone better be registered. Our kids are telemarketers. The client is their club. Each kid as well as the club will have to register and pay $100. And parents, you better make sure that the club has registered because your phone line is now being used for telemarketing purposes. By the way, mom and dad, you have to keep a copy of club’s registration – and proof of their fees paid – for 3 years in case of an audit.

Back in September, I wrote that I thought the Section 41.7(1) of Telecom Act specifically exempts the following classes of callers from any database registry: calls made when an business relationship exists, calls from a registered charity, newspaper, political party, etc. The CRTC’s response was that all 9 of the parties that pointed out the conflict in 41.7(1) were mistaken. The CRTC said that Section 41.2 lets it administer databases (beyond the DNCL), although mysteriously, the exemption from any databases doesn’t seem to apply.

There were some suggestions that all of the costs should be paid by the telecom services providers. After all, they are the biggest beneficiaries of telemarketing. The phone companies tried to get compensated for helping with the investigations – the CRTC said no to that; it is a cost of doing business.

Here is how this decision chases jobs out of Canada. The CRTC has established new rules:

A telemarketer shall not initiate a telemarketing telecommunication on its own behalf unless it has registered with, and provided information to, the National DNCL operator and has paid all applicable fees charged by the Complaints Investigator delegate.

A telemarketer shall not initiate a telemarketing telecommunication on behalf of a client unless that client has registered with, and provided information to, the National DNCL operator and the applicable fees charged by the Complaints Investigator delegate associated with that client have been paid.

The CRTC can only enforce its rules in Canada. So, let’s say a lawn care company hires a US or overseas telemarketing company that completely ignores the Do Not Call List. The CRTC can’t go after the telemarketing company – how would they press charges outside Canada? The Commission forgot to add a rule explicitly requiring clients of telemarketers to register.

Those pesky lawn care companies or duct cleaners don’t need to register – the CRTC requires the telemarketer to ensure that its client has registered. But the telemarketer is out of the country; why would they care? What is the Commission going to do?

Will the CRTC fix the holes in its decision that tries to make all of us who volunteer to make a few calls for schools and clubs pay $100 annual registration fees?

Who thought the gun registry was out of control?