There are also downloadable reports, elaborating on these predictions for the three sectors: Technology, Media and Telecom.
I had missed the news, so others may have as well. Thank you, Dennis, for bringing this to my attention. The International Telecommunications Union has decided to make its inventory of Recommendations available for free, on a trial basis.
ITU Recommendations are the standards that define the way telecom networks interoperate. While compliance is not required, generally operators conform because it provides assurance of interconnectivity of networks on a worldwide scale.
There is a general belief that the strategic importance of making on-line access to ITU-T Recommendations free outweighs the costs (in terms of lost revenue) to ITU. This is seen as a way to increase the transparency of ITU-T work and encourage wider participation in ITU-T activities. It is also believed that this policy will help increase developing countries’ awareness of pertinent issues and help to promote the participation of academia in ITU-T work.
There are more than 3000 Recommendations, on topics such as service definition, network architecture, security, optical transmission systems, next-generation networks and more.
You can access the ITU recommendations database here.
In December, I provided a roadmap to the timetable for the final Cabinet directive on the Local Forbearance file.
Comments were due this past Monday. The submissions are available for viewing on the Industry Canada website.
I have been going through them over the past couple days. There are over 100 submissions, ranging from individual citizens sending email messages through to more substantial submissions with attached research studies.
I note that at least one of the incumbent telcos has an extremely politically aware workforce judging by the number of employees that chose to participate in the Gazette process.
As an aside, I’d like to apply for a grant to study whether there is a correlation between increased media production (Corner Gas and Little Mosque on the Prarie) in Saskatchewan and the elevation of awareness in CRTC and Industry Canada consultative processes.
Clearly, for many professionals in the telecom policy business, it was a busy holiday period.
I am somewhat disappointed in the lack of detailed implementation input that I have seen. There are exceptions to be found the submissions by Bell, Bell Aliant and TELUS, providing suggestions to assist in clarifying specific aspects of the final version of the Order. Shaw also provided a couple recommendations that seek to improve the conditions for forbearance by emphasizing QOS on interconnectivity.
Bell Aliant’s submission is a plea for special consideration for Halifax – the region that has demonstrated the fastest market share loss for any Canadian telco and likely most competitive market for local phone service in the country. I have to sympathize with Aliant. Its application for forbearance in Halifax started off the whole process in April 2004 and yet it isn’t one of the 10 listed regions slated for examination in the first wave.
Generally, the non-incumbent local service providers chose not to try to improve the specific conditions. Some argued that the proposed variance will act to keep smaller players from even trying to launch service. To help ensure that the smaller cable companies aren’t disincented to introduce telephony, I might have tried a difference approach. Instead of suggesting use of a complex set of competition law tests, why not be helpful and ask for a specific head-start? That is, perhaps define the existence of a competitor (wireline or wireless) as one that has been offering the service for greater than 6 months, 12 months, whatever.
I did not see input from new entrants on how to deal with measuring presence of competition for business services, a particularly difficult issue, given that most competition in that market is not facilities-based. I would have expected to see suggestions that certain wholesale services, such as types of access facilities, be mandated. While the area of essential services is the subject of a major CRTC proceeding to last the next 2 years, competitors could have used the current consultation to ensure the linkage between forbearance and essential facilities is maintained.
Many of the submissions seemed to be trying to get Industry Canada to do an about-face – reverse the course completely. I have to believe that isn’t going to happen. These arguments were made and rejected over the course of the period leading up to the December proposed variance. I am at a loss as to why these companies didn’t put forward more concrete, constructive suggestions during the current consultation.
I am intrigued by the coordinated submissions of four small ILECs: WTC, Wightman, NRTC and Execulink that seem to propose changes that could limit the flexibility of their own competitive activities as ILECs. I applaud them for their involvement in the process.
The Minister is trying to put forward clear, ‘bright-line’ tests and rules for the market. Still, I sympathize with the frustrations expressed by some who want broader reform, including legislative changes, as I discussed in yesterday afternoon’s posting.
As I pointed out in December,
Recommendation 9-5 of the report of the Telecom Policy Review panel recommends that the ability to launch cabinet appeals be eliminated.
A little ironic, isn’t it, that these initial implementations of the report’s recommendations are derivatives of appeals that may not be permitted when reform is completed?
It was a tight timetable including the Christmas – New Year’s holiday period. Perhaps that is why some important implementation issues were missed.
Still, I just don’t think it was productive for some parties to kvetch, wring hands and pine for the good ol’ days of regulatory handcuffs on the incumbents. Why weren’t more submissions based on helping write specific rules to enable consumers – both residential and business – to benefit from a free marketplace?
In December, I wrote about the desire by Minister Bernier to move forward on Telecom Act amendments in order to implement more the of the recommendations of the report of the Telecom Policy Review panel.
Some of the interventions on the Local Forbearance direction call for a legislative approach, such as the intervention by Cogeco-Eastlink-Rogers:
What is needed to address these issues is legislative reform – not piece-meal ad hoc interventions by the Governor in Council.
Despite these calls, as well as from others such as MCI, for a legislative approach changing the Telecom Act, we need to be somewhat realistic, given that this is a minority government.
Telecom policy reform was a process launched by the last Liberal government. Will the Dion Liberals, with new Industry critic Scott Brison, demonstrate a willingness to adopt the complete portfolio of legislative reforms called for in the report of the Telecom Policy Review panel?
The Toronto Star, like many traditional media outlets, must be having a hard time selling papers. That may be why it resorted to a sensationalized article on Tuesday about Apple TV.
Among my favourite linesfrom the article? From the ‘duhhh’ department, the article quotes Colin Dixon (no affiliation given in the article, but he is from Dallas-area consultancy TDG Research):
I don’t think that traditional broadcast – cable and satellite – are going away tomorrow, but they must change to maintain market share.
Cable and satellite have pretty darn close to 100% market share. In reality, they can change all you want, but they can’t maintain that kind of market share. No former monopoly expects to retain that kind of share.
The article continues:
“Cable is notoriously slow to move until they see a big impact on the bottom line,” says Dixon, who predicts that if the cable companies don’t get on board with digital distribution, the first public bankruptcies could be seen by 2010.
No idea what the basis is for any of the 3 concepts in this paragraph: slow moving; unwillingness to adapt to digital; public bankruptcies (as opposed to private ones?).
There are obvious signs of a disruption underway to broadcasting caused by user-defined timeshifting. I described the Kobayashi Maru approach to IPTV last August. Apple TV is only part of the disruption. Tivo, Joost (the new name for The Venice Project), Xbox Video, and new Canadian entrant Eye Rock Digital all contribute to a shift away from traditional broadcast TV, beyond the impact of bit-torrents.
Will traditional broadcast distributors develop business models that permit them to share in disintermediated revenues?
What are the implications on bandwidth consumption at the edge of current broadband networks? Can users expect current pricing to be sustained? If a broadband services provider offsets download caps through a revenue sharing agreement with a video service, will Net Neutrality advocates shout “foul”?