As I was sitting waiting my turn at a 4-way stop in my neighbourhood, watching the morning car-pools blow through the intersection 2-3 cars at a time, the last one not even slowing down, it struck me that we already have the right laws in place.
There are rules about undue preference and blocking. The CRTC has reviewed a number of cases and made determinations.
Net neutrality advocates like to point to the TELUS blocking of a website as a reason why we need new net neutrality laws. I disagree. No new regulations are needed. The existing rules prohibit that kind of blocking already.
It is like saying that we need new speeding laws because some people drive 140 kmph on the highway.
Do we need new laws, new policies, new regulations when there are already plenty on the books?
There is a little story in Network World suggesting that a flu pandemic could choke the ‘net, leading to requests for voluntary curbs in high bandwidth applications.
Is that the only acceptable solution? Should network operators be prohibited from doing their own traffic management? Do government applications, such as health care management or national security, merit priority treatment? What about corporate PVNs? Should QOS be permitted for work-at-home applications?
Alternatively, do you believe that all content should be treated the same – voice, video, web browsing, multi-million dollar stock trades, checking the balance on my savings account, two-way remote surgery – “don’t allow a two-tiered internet.” A bit is a bit is a bit.
Are there net neutrality advocates who are willing to say that an internet application providing interactive residential remote health care should have no greater priority than my neighbour’s kid downloading movies?
If preferred handling of health and corporate network traffic is permitted, what are the criteria for acceptable tiers of service? When is it acceptable to discriminate?
The Globe and Mail discussed a new report, Lament for a Wireless Nation, from Seaboard Group, that concludes “Canadian wireless adoption is a national disgrace.” The report says that Canada’s adoption rate for cellphones puts it on par with Tunisia and slightly behind Turkey.
According to the Globe and Mail account:
Seaboard suggests the government take several steps to improve the situation for Canadians, including allocating wireless spectrum for one or more new competitors. The spectrum could be awarded to a new national carrier or one or more regional operators.
The newspaper says that the report is calling for new entrant incentives, such as a spectrum set-aside and mandated tower sharing.
Is Canada’s wireless penetration rate lagging because of our pricing, or is more aggressive pricing the result of higher penetration rates? As I have written already, I am not convinced that government intervention can avoid unintended consequences from interfering with the normal workings of the marketplace. I don’t think Seaboard’s recommendations are able to be implemented without market distorions.
For example, the Seaboard study found that low volume users are better off in Canada, paying 27% less than their counterparts in the US. Not all rates in Canada are worse than US comparables.
It is somewhat hard to understand Seaboard’s view that mobile phone companies should target new demographics, like seniors, with appropriate pricing. It appears that their own study shows Canada already has better standby emergency rate plans, despite the drag on carrier ARPU from these plans. When I wrote about the grey market for mobile last month, I was advocating big button, easy-to-use handsets, not critiquing the rates that are available.
It seems to me while heavier users may have the most to gain from Seaboard’s recommendations, low volume users may have everything to lose.
Will low-income Canadians lose their price advantage as an unintended consequence of government manipulation of the market to incent competition?
Is posting on the internet the same as broadcasting? That is a question in front of the courts in a libel case.
The York University Excalibur has an interesting story about motions being heard in the case of professor David Noble claiming he was defamed by Canadian Jewish Congress Ontario Region, Hillel of Greater Toronto, the United Jewish Appeal of Greater Toronto, as well as the York University Foundation and various individuals, including outgoing York University president Lorna Marsden.
As tempting as it may be to comment on the merits of the case, I’ll focus on the motion to throw out the suit. The motion is based on the view that under Ontario’s Libel and Slander Act, the statute of limitations is only 6 weeks for cases involving broadcasting. Under normal circumstances, individuals have two years to commence a personal libel case.
The CRTC’s treatment of the internet is not as relevant as Ontario’s libel law definition of broadcasting.
“broadcasting” means the dissemination of writing, signs, signals, pictures and sounds of all kinds, intended to be received by the public either directly or through the medium of relay stations, by means of,
any form of wireless radioelectric communication utilizing Hertzian waves, including radiotelegraph and radiotelephone, or
cables, wires, fibre-optic linkages or laser beams
Sounds like the internet could fit under this definition, right?
Except for a 2003 Ontario Appeals Court ruling in Bahlieda vs Santa. That case points to Section 7 of the Libel Act that that the abbreviated statute of limitations “apply only to newspapers printed and published in Ontario and to broadcasts from a station in Ontario.”
There is also the open question of whether the existence of the content constitutes retransmission of the material. The issues in Bahlieda vs Santa, a case which was highlighted in Michael Geist’s 2003 A-Z year in review, aren’t going away.
Over the past few weeks, I received email messages from Merx telling me to “Take Advantage of Year-End Public Spending” and “Government Year-End Means Iincreased [sic] Tender Postings”.
Merx is the public tendering portal for many levels of government and for some private sector companies.
Obviously, suppliers to the government like the year-end rush to spend remaining money in the budget.
Would you run your business that way? How do most CEOs respond to people spending on the basis of ‘use it or lose it’? As a former telco boss of mine used to say when we were reviewing the capital program, “if this was your candy store, would you spend the money?”
I trust that departments are prudently spending consistent with meeting their objectives. I also hope suppliers are offering financial incentives so that we, the taxpayers, feel comfortable that we’re getting good ‘year-end’ public savings to go along with that year-end public spending.
