Last spring, Rogers brought in Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to help launch its Vision service. Vision is still the only video calling service available in North America.

Today, Rogers announced further speed enhancements to its HSPA network, the first carrier in North America to begin the conversion to 7.2 Mbps data transport on its wireless network, with trials beginning in Montreal and Brampton.

Rogers current HSPA capability, running at up to 3.6 Mbps, is already available in the top 25 markets in Canada, representing about 60% of the population.

Fewer than 1% of the world’s carriers have begun to trial this doubled speed capability.

In today’s press release announcing the 7.2 Mbps service, Rogers Wireless president Rob Bruce said:

The consumer appetite for mobile applications is undeniable in Canada and around the world. The data speeds achieved in this trial will enable Rogers to meet our customers’ needs with the most advanced, innovative services today and in the future.

Rogers has spent $500M in the past two years in upgrades to its wireless network. Tuesday’s National Post carried a story about a report from the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association that forecasts mobile data usage to be on the verge of explosive growth:

With wireless service providers reporting data growth rates exceeding 50% per quarter, CWTA expects spending to triple to more than $3 billion in the next three years as Canadians increase their demand for non-voice wireless services such as e-mail, social networking, Web browsing, music downloads, mobile television, satellite radio and text, multimedia and instant messaging.

With Rogers launch of 7.2 Mbps service, mobile wireless will now be able to deliver the kinds of speeds that consumers are used to experiencing from wireline DSL and cable modem connectivity. What is the impact on demand for more spectrum?

I wrote a piece last year called 7 reasons why warrants aren’t needed in response to some of the discussion on police investigations and ISP cooperation and related matters.

One of the questions raised last year had been “what laws need to be changed” and my posting carried a response from prosecutor David Butt that said the current laws were fine, if ISPs would cooperate.

Yesterday’s National Post had an article that prominently featured my KINSA colleague, Paul Gillespie. The article suggests that a single legislative word change in PIPEDA – the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act – would rectify inconsistencies in ISP responses to police investigations. Just changing the word “may” to “shall” in Section 7(2) is said to be the magic bullet to aid investigations.

(2) For the purpose of clause 4.3 of Schedule 1, and despite the note that accompanies that clause, an organization may, without the knowledge or consent of the individual, use personal information only if

1. in the course of its activities, the organization becomes aware of information that it has reasonable grounds to believe could be useful in the investigation of a contravention of the laws of Canada, a province or a foreign jurisdiction that has been, is being or is about to be committed, and the information is used for the purpose of investigating that contravention; …

Such a change would impact the operational response from the telecom industry to police requests. Will the industry support it or fight it?

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National Post, KINSA, pedophiles

There is growing interest in the US for the FCC to look at White Space to enable more options for broadband wireless in rural areas.

What is White Space? Last weekend, the Sunday NY Times published an article about wireless services that included this description:

In many areas, not all broadcast [television] channels are in use. The unused channels are “white spaces” of high-quality spectrum that could be made available to local Internet service providers. Unlike the much higher frequency of Wi-Fi, television broadcast frequencies can travel for miles and penetrate walls, providing a much broader range for Internet service.

There is a coalition of eight technology companies driving the discussion in the US: Microsoft, Google, Dell, HP, Intel, Philips, Earthlink, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics. Their objective is to get FCC approval for a generic device that will detect unused spectrum to be made available for broadband internet.

There are two versions of the technology: one that is fixed mounted and installed professionally, which can include a manual verification that the spectrum is clear for non-TV applications; and the other is a flexible, portable consumer unit that would automatically sense “white space.”

The National Association of Broadcasters in the US is opposed to the portable version, citing concerns that the technology could cause interference to digital TV signals.

Over the summer, the FCC conducted tests of technology supplied by Microsoft and it wrote a negative report. However, Microsoft responded that the FCC used a broken unit and failed to try the back-up unit that had been supplied to it. The coalition has submitted new test results from working units.

NAB isn’t impressed, stating that the impact of these kinds of failures are precisely the motivation for their concerns. They argue that defective units could result in entire neighbourhoods experiencing the blue screen of death on their TV sets, with no ability to trace the source of the problem.

Once millions of unlicensed devices are in consumers’ hands, they cannot be traced or recalled. Interference may come from the next apartment or from a neighbor down the street. To protect consumers’ DTV sets and the DTV transition, personal and portable unlicensed devices should NOT be allowed to operate in the TV band.

Canada’s spectrum policy is generally that of “fast follower”, recognizing the economic advantages associated with aligning its spectrum allocation to match the purposes assigned south of the border.

White Space will be a discussion worth watching.

I have been giving additional thought to IPTV lately – looking at the technology in a broader sense than simply a telco solution for broadcast over twisted pair. IPTV is more than the way the phone companies provide TV using specialized set top boxes; it can also refer to programming delivered through a soft-client solution to a PC and technology to power video-on-demand among other incarnations.

As I have written before, telcos that are trying to simply replicate the analog cable experience over twisted-pair telephone wiring are likely heading toward toward failure.

So where does IPTV work best? How can telcos compete against cable?

Broadcast into typical North American multiple-TV set homes is well suited to cable with its coaxial broadband pipe. On the other hand, a dedicated point-to-point architecture may be better for on-demand business models despite being bandwidth limited.

Will IPTV be the right solution for business communications? On demand programming? Podcasts or delivery of campus course-ware? How do intelligent cross-device services (including mobile TV, high speed internet, large screen, etc.) get seamlessly delivered?

We’re working on sessions for The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit. What would you like to see?

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Update [October 29, 8:20 am]
Brian Gordon pointed me to a relevant story in Light Reading entitled Telcos: IPTV needs FTTH. The story comes out of last week’s Telco TV 2007 conference in Atlanta.

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IPTV

Michael Geist’s column in the Toronto Star this week takes a critical look at the CRTC’s process to implement the telemarketing Do Not Call List.

… the do-not-call list process has degenerated into a farce. Having absolved itself of responsibility, the CRTC may now be ready to hand over the operation of the list to Canada’s telecom companies, who will collect a steady stream of revenue from thousands of Canadian businesses.

I have written extensively on the subject, including mentioned that the CRTC’s proposal will also require school clubs, scouting troops and neighbourhood teams to register with the phone cops. I won’t add anything more, other than a link to a catalog of my earlier articles on the subject.

Technorati Tags:
CRTC, Michael Geist, DNCL