The city of Riverside, California has entered into an agreement with AT&T to provide city-wide WiFi tol cover the city’s 80-plus square miles. The project will develop the largest Wi-Fi network in the US designed for both public and municipal use.

Users will be able to choose from a variety of connectivity options, including free advertising-supported access or a higher-speed access service offered by AT&T. AT&T will deploy its equipment on city light poles and fixtures throughout the coverage area. Most importantly, AT&T will be responsible for maintaining and upgrading the network and all equipment, as well as handling customer service.

In addition, the city of Riverside will use a parallel Wi-Fi system, built by AT&T, to support municipal and public-safety communications needs. After testing this system across a three-square-mile area, the city will have the option to use the parallel system or the citywide public network to support municipal services. The parallel system will run over a separate frequency to enhance communications for police, fire and public works employees.

OK – it isn’t quite the launch of full unbridled competition. But we have moved a step closer.

TELUS has filed an application with the CRTC for local services forbearance in Fort McMurray, Alberta.

The application represents the first by one of the major ILECs and it is the first application to have been filed since the CRTC released the formal rules in Decision 2006-15 last April. The TELUS application claims that it has already lost more than 25% market share in Fort McMurray. Recall that the 25% threshold is under review by the CRTC, on its own motion.

However, TELUS acknowledges in its application that it does not meet the competitor quality of service criteria as currently set out in the CRTC’s 2006-15 rules. On October 5, TELUS filed a separate application to modify certain aspects of the competitor quality of service criteria. The Fort McMurray application is contingent on the CRTC accepting TELUS’ arguments that the competitor QOS criteria be modified.

It would have been nice to see a clean application conforming to the 2006-15 criteria – but at least this is a start.

Evidence of rivalrous behaviour? After two weeks of CRTC public hearings on Price Caps and appearing in front of Parliamentary Committee, it will be good to look at activities in the marketplace.

The government’s proposed policy direction to the CRTC is being reviewed by the House of Commons in committee today. There are 3 panels appearing – each with 45 minutes: ILECs (Bell, Bell Aliant, TELUS and Sasktel); Cable companies (Rogers, Shaw, Videotron and Cogeco); and, New entrants and the public interest (MTS Allstream, Primus, Cable Systems Alliance, PIAC, Quebec Coalition of ISPs and L’Union des consommateurs).

Interesting groupings, with MTS Allstream not appearing as an ILEC and CCSA not appearing with the other cable companies.

Recall that at The Canadian Telecom Summit last June, Industry Minister Bernier announced a proposed direction to the CRTC that it should rely on market forces above other objectives set out in the Telecom Act.

Darren Entwistle spoke at an Ottawa lunch hosted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce yesterday, calling for “a regulatory revolution in Canada” to bring changes at the CRTC.

While I support the intent to have regulation migrate to an increased reliance on market forces, I would ask ‘will it make a difference?’ What aspects of which decisions would the CRTC have dealt with differently with this policy direction in place versus the way they ruled?

Do we actually think that the CRTC ignored the potential for an increased reliance on market forces? Is it possible that the CRTC considered whether market forces would be sufficient and decided ‘no’? Will the policy direction change these results?

Take a look at the VoIP reconsideration Decision. In that instance, the Cabinet sent the CRTC’s VoIP Decision back for reconsideration with a specific view to increase the weight of market forces. On September 1, the CRTC came back endorsing its original conclusions [note: Cabinet has until the end of November to decide if the CRTC’s confirmation of its original conclusion is acceptable].

So what will be the difference with the government’s policy direction in place?

If Cabinet wants to end up with specific results on the CRTC’s decisions, then it appears it has to issue specific directions. For that reason, elements of part (c) of the proposed direction will be the most contentious:

(c) in order to promote efficient, informed and timely operations the Commission should adopt the following operational practices:

(i) provide for maximum efficiency in regulation by using only tariff approval measures that are as minimally intrusive and as minimally onerous as possible,

(ii) with a view to providing increased incentives for innovation, investment in and construction of competing telecommunications network facilities, conduct a review of its regulatory framework regarding mandated access to wholesale services, in order to determine the extent to which mandated access to wholesale services that are not essential services should be phased out and the appropriate pricing of mandated services to encourage investment and innovation in network infrastructure,

On a prospective basis, if government wants the CRTC to change its overall approach, then we should be watching for changes to the CRTC and the Telecom Act itself.

There are a number of Commissioners of the CRTC with terms expiring soon. We’ll be watching for a shift in the direction of the CRTC in appointments of the Chair and Commissioners.

On the opposite side of the issue from the editorial in yesterday’s Toronto Star, I have been receiving mail from Bowmans, a gaming website, warning about Ontario’s plan to limit advertising of websites that offer gambling.

Bowmans warns that the Ontario legislation (which may be introduced today) could extend to include what could mathematically be described as including a second derivative: making it illegal to advertise a domain name or URL that has on it a link to a real gaming site.

If the bill passes, then the link to Bowmans website from this blog posting could put me offside.

As you know, I am 100% behind the ability and desirability for governments to exert sovereignty over the internet within their jurisdiction. There should be no digital exemptions for conformance with the codes of behaviour we or any other jurisdiction should seek from its citizens.

But let’s make sure the legislation doesn’t take things too far.

Bowmans’ letter suggests that the legislation

could make the advertisement of “Google.com” or any other search engine illegal as they all link to gaming sites.

That is a pretty extreme reading of the plain language of Bill 60, the private member’s bill upon which today’s legislation will apparently be based:

No person shall print, publish, distribute, broadcast or telecast an advertisement or representation that includes an Internet gaming business website address unless the person believes in good faith that the Internet gaming business has been licensed or otherwise granted permission to operate in Ontario or Canada by the appropriate authority and is operated in accordance with the applicable laws of Ontario and Canada.

We’ll want to watch this file as it proceeds through the legislative process. There are a number of Canadian companies that have been active in the internet gaming sector.

And I may have to disable the link to Bowmans in this posting!