On Saturday, the Globe ran an article by Derek DeCloet, who repeated the now familiar view that deregulating local phone service will lead to price increases. Mark Evans described the article as Finally, Someone Gets It. Rob Hyndman joined in and Michael Geist pointed to the article as well.

I disagree with that viewpoint and I am more aligned with Andy Abramson‘s rebuttal. I know that we weren’t going to see vigorous competitive behaviour without the regulatory handcuffs being removed from the incumbents. After all, why would competitors price agressively when incumbent prices were fixed and publicly posted.

Under the rules of the tariffs, the ILECs aren’t even allowed to waive service charges, can’t contact people who had left them, couldn’t create fall promotions to coincide with student moving dates. When the ILECs have retail prices from which it is impossible to vary, how creative does the competition have to get?

There are also more competitors than just the cable companies. While Canadians don’t have access to Skype-In, we do have Vonage, Comwave, Babytel and a wide variety of other VoIP providers. Primus Canada offers both VoIP and conventional telephone competition for residential and business applications. Canada is well beyond a duopoly or oligopoly for substitutable products.

Mark Evans argues that Bell is unlikely to offer across the board price decreases because of the impact on its revenues. He is likely correct on that point. But normal behaviour would suggest targetted price discounting, rather than across the board rate changes. Maybe it will be special rates for students. Maybe it is a promotional deal on your first year of local phone, internet and TV service when you buy a new home or move into a certain apartment building.

More fierce competition for business services – large and small. Bundled promotions: commit to 2 or 3 years on your cell phone and we’ll throw in integrated voice mail. Buy Digital Voice and get half price on Digital Voice Lite.

What kind of pricing will unregulated local prices bring? We’ll have to see. But it is a certainty that under a regulated environment, we weren’t getting lower prices from either the ILECs or their competitors.

The state of competition in residential, business and wireless markets will be the subject of panel discussions at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit in June, featuring business unit leaders from Bell, Rogers, TELUS, Toronto Hydro Telecom, Videotron and Vonage.

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CRTC, local forbearance, ILECs, Canadian Telecom Summit

There is a Canadian Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) Emergency Services Working Group (ESWG) that has been trying to sort out how VoIP service providers can deliver E-911. After recent conference calls on March 27 & 28, about the only thing the ESWG members could agree on was that they will never agree, according to a report by the Canadian Association of VoIP Providers.

Almost as if to prove the dependency that new entrants still have on ILECs for certain bottleneck services, a flare-up arose in architectural design for a solution for E-911. The four major cable carriers, Cogeco, Videotron, Rogers and Shaw, called for an immediate stop to activities at the ESWG. In a letter filed with the Commission, the Cable Companies are reported to have expressed “deep concern with the direction being taken within the ESWG” and labelled the process as “abusive”.

There seem to be three or four irreconcilable positions: ILECs; Cablecos; Quebec ISPs and CAVP. It is unclear that the CRTC will be willing nor able to choose an approach – certainly not in a timely fashion.

As a result, access independent VoIP customers may be the losers, having to wait for an industry-wide solution. At the same time, we may be seeing whether VoIP customers really rely on 911.

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CRTC, CISC, E-911, CAVP, ILEC, cableco

KINSA – The Kids Internet Safety Alliance – is holding its first annual gala evening on May 2 at the Ontario Science Centre, celebrating ‘Heroes of the Fight‘ with an award of distinction dinner.

The event is intended to raise awareness and celebrate the work being done to make the Internet safer for children. Funds will support Youth and Parent Education, Internet Safety Advocacy and the establishment of the KINSA Centre for Child Rescue and CyberCrime Investigation.

Join us to celebrate and honour the people who have been working on our behalf to protect our children. You can download an order form for individual tickets and tables here.

There is a session looking at Illegal Content on the Internet at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit in June, featuring KINSA board members Paul Gillespie and David Butt.

In response to an application from Rogers Wireless, the CRTC has simplified the process for competitive phone companies, including wireless carriers, to access numbers. In doing so, a side benefit is that the North American Numbering Plan may last just a little bit longer.

In the past, each competitor had to be assigned a three digit central office code for each exchange in which it offered service. In some small communities, 3 competitors (or wireless service providers) means three times the number of numbers.

Why did the incumbents fight this proposal, despite the benefits it brings for their own wireless and CLEC operations?

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CRTC, numbers, Rogers

Late yesterday afternoon, TELUS filed its first applications for forbearance: for Edmonton, Alberta and Vancouver, West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Richmond, New Westminster, Newton and Whalley, British Columbia.

Among the most immediately significant aspects of last week’s Cabinet announcement was the removal of restrictions on winbacks and promotions.

Winback rules were introduced by the CRTC to prevent the incumbent telephone companies from targeting new customers of competitors with special offers, which presumably would threaten emerging competition. Given the current state of competition, the government was of the view that the CRTC’s winback restrictions were no longer required.

Want to get your phone company’s attention? Just like trying to cancel your cell phone service, the mere threat of leaving may bring the best deals.

Let the games begin.

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Update: [April 12, 1:20 pm]
Bell Canada has now filed applications for Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa-Gatineau, London, Hamilton and Quebec City.

Technorati Tags:
winback, CRTC, local forbearance, TELUS