This week, there has been press coverage of the Danish study of the impact of the incidence of cancer among long term cell phone users. The study concludes:

We found no evidence for an association between tumor risk and cellular telephone use among either short-term or long-term users. Moreover, the narrow confidence intervals provide evidence that any large association of risk of cancer and cellular telephone use can be excluded.

In addition, the study found no trend that associates cancer rates with years of mobile phone use.

A couple of interesting notes from this study. First, this week’s publication is actually a follow-up to a study published more than 5 years ago. The 2001 report had similar findings.

In 1968 Denmark adopted a unique 10-digit identifier for each citizen, and a central population register to verify personal data and information. This tag enabled researchers to work with the phone companies to identify more than 420,000 long term users in whom information about mobile telephone use could be linked to a Danish cancer registry. More than 85% of the subjects were men.

Both studies found that cell phone use was associated with a reduced incidence of smoking related cancers (such as lung cancer). Why? The effect is likely associated with the group that was studied: long term cell phone users. As observed by the study, such users appeared to have a higher income and smoke less than the general population.

Maybe smokers are talking instead of inhaling!

Technorati Tags:
mobile, cancer, Denmark

Industry Minister Maxime Bernier introduced legislation in the House of Commons to give the Competition Bureau powers to fine dominant carriers up to $15M in cases of abuse of dominant position.

The proposed legislation seems to open the way for an increased role to be played by competition law in disciplining the behaviour of the incumbents, rather than the CRTC. This is consistent with the elements of the report of the Telecom Policy Review panel. The amendments to the Competition Act are specifically in the part dealing with Abuse of Dominant Position. Section 78 of that part defines a number of anti-competitive acts that should be helpful in a forborne regulatory environment.

Competition Bureau chief Sheridan Scott is already confirmed to speak at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit in June.

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Update: [December 7, 6:25 pm]
I did an interview with Bloomberg this afternoon.

On October 30, TELUS filed an application with the CRTC to review and vary its decision that retroactively adjusts the rates that competitors pay for a number of wholesale access services. Collectively, TELUS says that the CRTC wants it to rebate more than $20M to the competitors.

Part of TELUS’ complaint is the length of time that the refund covers – leading to refunds of 4-6 years worth of over-payments. In a reply filed last night, Yak blames TELUS itself for part of the delay, charging that

TELUS, not having an interest in seeing lower costs to competitors… contributed significantly and intentionally to the delay in establishing final rates

Yak provides at least 3 examples of TELUS’ delaying tactics.

In an interview with Network Letter, TELUS argues that it doesn’t want to be a savings bank for the competitors. TELUS’ application characterizes the refund as a “windfall to the competitor” and “gifts from the regulator”.

I am pretty sure that the competitors didn’t want TELUS to be their savings bank either. Most of them needed the money – they didn’t want to have it tied up. Ask the bankrupcy trustees.

Let’s be perfectly clear: a return of the competitors’ money isn’t a windfall. It is refunding what is rightfully theirs.

A windfall “gift from the regulator” would be the case of the CRTC telling TELUS that the rates all along were wrong, but keep the change. That would be a windfall for TELUS. That would be how you define a gift from the regulator.

I wonder if TELUS has the same view about tax refund cheques in the spring.

Technorati Tags:
CRTC, TELUS, Yak, Mark Goldberg