The headline should have grabbed your attention.

But this blog posting is to thank Primus for blocking more than 17,000 spam messages that attacked my email account this evening between 6:00 pm and 11:00. The attack is still on, but it seems to be slowing.

More than 2000 messages leaked through anyway.

Sometimes we want carriers to intervene, other times we don’t.

For example, a talk radio station in Calgary asked me to comment on the case of a mobile carrier that billed a user for $85,000 in excess web usage. The user wants to know why he wasn’t warned that his charges were running up.

Contrast that with another case. Earlier in the week, some bloggers launched into an attack against Rogers for doing just that – warning a user that they were approaching the limit of their flat rate service.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Primus – thank you for intervening on my email spam attack.

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Primus, spam

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a Town Hall session being hosted by the Corporate Chief Technology Officer for the Ontario government. A colleague of mine, Brian Gordon, attended and I asked him to prepare some notes.

Much of the discussion was centred around a theme of Government 2.0: How new technologies can transform and enhance Government.

Ontario’s Information and Information Technology Organization was set up to implement the Ontario government’s integrated approach to I&IT.;

To strengthen its citizen-centred approach to government, the province has begun to develop a strategy on citizen engagement. One component of this strategy is intended to expand the use of electronic channels, mainly the Internet, to help bring citizens closer to their government. The goal is to ensure citizens have access to a wide range of tools and information that will enable them to participate more fully in the democratic process.

For many at the Town Hall, what the Ontario government has implemented to date is e-Government or Government 1.0. While some 10.8 million transactions were carried out on the Ontario government portal in 2006-07, speakers at the Town Hall said this has simply put a pretty face on the traditional, industrial-age, hierarchical type of government organization: rigid, input-oriented and closed.

Government 2.0 requires a major cultural change taking place within the public sector. It needs to move away from a traditional organization that acts in vertical silos to one that is organized in such a way that it can think and act laterally, collaborate and share and uses an open network. This cultural change is as fundamental to Government 2.0 as the technological changes that will be required. Technologies allow for a networked government, permitting it to more effectively interact with the community of citizens.

Will government be able to transform itself to deliver better quality services for less cost?

As Glen Murray wrote in the Sunday Toronto Star,

Government is becoming more risk averse with a diminishing capacity for creativity. Innovation by its very nature requires risk as it assumes a departure from the tried and true and therefore has an inherently higher risk of failure.

Moving to Government 2.0 will require plenty of trial and error and experimentation since there are a lot of unknowns. Trials are inherently risky; they aren’t all going to have positive results. Media coverage of failed trials is such that it puts the bureaucrats who proposed and implemented them and the politicians who approved them and who are ultimately responsible for the decisions on the firing line with very little chance of rebuttal. Would you want to carry this responsibility on your back? Not very likely.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that partnerships with the private sector make sense for innovative government transformation. Otherwise, it is unlikely that we’ll see Government 2.0 any time soon. Still, according to a recent CATA study, there is widespread dissatisfaction with government procurement processes.

At the end of the day, it may not be an issue of technology – but whether government will allow itself to be changed.

Various media outlets (Ottawa Business Journal, Ottawa Citizen) are reporting that Ottawa’s electric utility is selling Telecom Ottawa, its broadband network and wireless Internet business.

The sale of Telecom Ottawa is said to help Hydro Ottawa refocus its business on generating and distributing power, especially in the wake of disappointing financial returns to the city.

Who will be the most likely bidders?

Is the focus on core business going to be something to watch in other jurisdictions?

To what extent should utelcos address telecom services differently in major centres versus markets with fewer competitive alternatives? How should municipalities exercise political strategies through ownership of infrastructure?

I exchanged some correspondence last week with John Lange, president of CAVP – the Canadian Association of VoIP Providers. As an aside, I always find it interesting to discover an acronym that embeds another acronym within it. It is an extra bonus for these to be the same length: VoIP (4 letters) within CAVP (also 4).

John has a posting about the spectrum auction on the CAVP website that speaks about open access and other wishes for the winners of the spectrum.

He writes:

While another player in wireless (foreign or domestic) certainly isn’t a bad thing; in the end it is just one more wireless company charging high rates for use of the airwaves that we (the Canadian public) used to own.

Clearly it’s time for something radically different.

Open Access Wireless is concept that (mostly) won over the FCC in the US. When the 700Mhz spectrum became available, the FCC put restrictions on the bidder. For example, the user of these public air waves should be required to give access to (gasp!) the PUBLIC! What a concept, the public should be able to use the public airwaves!

Although I disagree, his thoughts are worth some time to consider. They are representative of a sizable community.

I recall that when some countries first licensed alternate long distance companies, the RFP process sought bids for pricing to a target list of countries. The licenses were awarded to the lowest bidders.

How would we keep such rates competitive? What benchmark should be used to measure low prices? Comparing voice prices and bids would be relatively easy. But the new spectrum needs to drive increased adoption of advanced services.

How would we compare bids for services that have not yet been invented?

MTS Allstream released its 2008 forecast this morning and for the first time since 2004, it is expecting to experience growth from both its ILEC and its national operating divisions.

A couple other announcements over the past week may indicate that MTS Allstream is starting to ride a wave of momentum that to help carry it into the new year. On Tuesday, MTS Allstream announced it has completed the extension of its fibre optic network to Newfoundland. On Wednesday, Primus extended its wholesale services agreement with MTS Allstream.

The fibre project, which added 3000 route km of new fibre, including diverse undersea cables, puts MTS Allstream into an elite position of controlling its own capacity and service requirements for its business services portfolio such as MPLS.

This achievement marks a significant milestone for MTS Allstream and the people of Newfoundland, and forever changes the landscape of the telecom industry in Atlantic Canada. The door is now open for new services, and more choice for businesses. We are proud to be the first telecommunications provider to leverage this new alternative fibre-based route to bring competitive services to Newfoundland

Consumer services is also expected to contribute strongly to 2008 results, likely led by success with its IPTV product and MTS Allstream dominance in the Manitoba wireless market.

Pierre Blouin will be a keynote speaker at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit. MTS Allstream will be represented on a number of other key panels at the event.

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MTS Allstream, Primus, Canadian Telecom Summit