Last December, Minister Bernier announced a variance to the CRTC’s local forbearance decision. This afternoon, the order was finalized, accelerating the deregulation of the industry. According to the Minister, this order is in the interests of customers and taxpayers, to deliver lower prices, recognizing the level of competition in major urban centres across the country.

The order was issued, despite a report from the Parliamentary Industry Committee (INDU) to withdraw the variance order, but it took into account the concerns of parties that provided responses to the consultation process, especially targetting the concerns of smaller cable companies.

The final order maintains the simple test that was set out last December, but clarifies a few points – it broadens and clarifies the definition of who are competitors, tightens the definition of a forbearance region.

The Telecom Policy Review panel had made an extensive number of recommendations to update the industry framework in a competitive global environment. Some of these will require legislative changes and it seems unlikely that the current incarnation of INDU will set aside politics to move forward on policies that should attract bipartisan support. Recall that the TPR panel was created under the Liberal government and its report was delivered to the current Minister. Still, we may need to wait for a majority government to bypass the tone of the committee meetings.

As we have noted before, it strikes me as more than a little ironic that the initial implementations of the TPR’s recommendations are derivatives of cabinet appeals that may not be permitted when reform is completed.

Michael Geist and I don’t usually agree, especially on areas like government intervention into the marketplace. Still, I respect him and his perspectives.

I was somewhat surprised to see the tone in his Law Bytes column in the Toronto Star yesterday: “More Web regulation doesn’t make any sense.”

I have come to learn that columnists don’t have much influence, if any, on what the headline writers choose to stick on top of our words. Imagine my surprise seeing the banner on Michael’s column agreeing with me that we don’t need more regulation on the net.

I found that some of the content in that piece coincided with a number of my viewpoints. Unfortunately, he wasn’t writing directly about Net Neutrality. Instead his article had to do with new media regulation.

The market-focus in his language sounds a lot like mine and even that of Minister Bernier. It is quite encouraging to see. He speaks of content production migrating from the protection afforded by government regulation to one mandated by market survival.

How is it that market forces are fine in this instance? Isn’t it a little inconsistent to acknowledge the benefits of light touch regulation for content production, but still be calling for net neutrality legislation?

Just as his article says, the CRTC had the right approach in terms of internet regulation 8 years ago with its new media decision.

Since that ruling, a remarkable array of new media services – including podcasting, Internet streaming and online video sites – have emerged outside of the traditional broadcast regulation model. Despite the success, recent submissions to the CRTC suggest that a growing number of stakeholders are increasingly wary of their unregulated counterparts and may be gearing up for a fresh look at Internet regulation.

I think the CRTC has sufficient tools in place to handle discriminatory behaviour.

Why not apply the same arguments for net neutrality? “Despite the success,” why would we want to risk neutering the ‘net with excess regulation?

We got it right yesterday. Rogers had William Shatner launch North America’s first video calling service.

Complete with access to YouTube videos, streaming radio. Here is a link to a story from Reuters.

Technorati Tags:
Rogers, William Shatner, Samsung A706R, HSDPA

This week, we learn the nature of Cabinet’s intervention into the CRTC’s rules on local service deregulation.

Following two months of review, the Parliamentary industry committee has recommended that the Minister withdraw the variance, and instead table

a comprehensive package of policy, statutory and regulatory reforms to modernize the telecommunications services industry.

While some suggest that this would be an opportunity to introduce legislation regarding net neutrality and spam, the intent is likely much more broad – to adopt more completely the recommendations of the Telecom Policy Review panel. As I have noted numerous times, net neutrality advocates cannot take comfort if the TPR report is adopted as written. In any case, the legislative exercise will likely have to wait until after the next election.

There was a flare-up this week when the CRTC told TELUS that it was deregulating Fort McMurray, just as soon as TELUS meets the quality of service standards that have been set.

What was with the dust up?

The law of the land, as it currently stands, is what is set out in last April’s CRTC ruling on Local Forbearance. Those rules are expected to change in the next few days, with the release of Cabinet’s final version of its variance order from last December. Both the CRTC’s original ruling and the Minister’s preliminary variance had a two-stage test prior to forbearance: the existence of sufficient competition; and, acceptable levels of service being provided to competitors.

Didn’t the CRTC accommodate the possible Cabinet changes in their phrasing?

The Commission approves the introduction of local forbearance in the Fort McMurray residential relevant market once [TELUS] has demonstrated that it has met the CQ of S [Competitor Quality of Service] criterion that will be in effect at the time of its CQ of S filing.

Doesn’t that say that local service will be forborne under whatever rules are in place at the relevant time?

What are the hidden agendas?