Telecom policy direction

August 16, 2006
MTS AllstreamTomorrow is the deadline for comments to be submitted in response to Minister Maxime Bernier’s policy direction to the CRTC, that was issued at The Canadian Telecom Summit in June.

Allstream has released its comments and plans to have a conference call on Monday to discuss its views. I’ll comment at that time. Among the questions I have are looking for support of the following paragraph from their press release:

In its submission, MTS Allstream notes that the very specific and prescriptive language of the Wholesale Directive is at odds with the broadly-based public policy goals expressed elsewhere in the Order. Of greater concern, the Wholesale Directive appears to ignore the significant market power Canada’s largest former monopolies continue to wield, and would embrace a failed US model of deregulation that has resulted in decreased competition, reduced network investment and innovation and higher prices for American consumers and businesses.

Hmmm. I think some of us would argue that Verizon’s $20B fibre-to-the-home plan is an example of some pretty substantial ILEC investment, not to mention competition from cable companies and others for consumers.

Stay tuned for more on Allstream’s submission and others.

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Having fun

January 25, 2017

I recall that Dave Hagan, when he headed up residential services at Sprint Canada, used to say that he had so much fun doing his job that it’s not right to call it work. He’s now at Boingo, and I hope he is still having that kind of good time.

When we were together at Sprint Canada, he invited me to spend an hour on the phones in the customer service centre, back when I was heading up the network services group. I realized then how tough it is for those customer service reps to try to exude a smile through a telephone line, no matter how aggravated the customer may be.

I just got off the phone with the Virgin Mobile call centre in Moncton and those people love their jobs. They must take some kind of happy pills. As the woman who helped me said, “hey, we work for Richard Branson – doesn’t that say it all!”

That smile coming through the the telephone receiver is part of their competitive edge.

Keep smiling!

The Wildblue yonder

January 25, 2017

My friends at Barrett Xplore have been continuing to advance their business, without government handouts. Their government relations activities have been trying to block the competition from getting a free ride, trying to stop the carriers from using our money to compete against them.

WildblueToday, Barrett announced a deal with US-based Wildblue Communications. The deal leverages Wildblue’s network of value added resellers who can sell Xplorenet services in Canada to US-based businesses.

Policy makers: help me understand what we still consider to be unserved territory. Until Barrett runs out of capacity, do we really need to be spending my tax dollars when there is high speed service available?

Market dynamics

January 25, 2017

In looking at Videotron‘s pricing strategies, we have already mentioned the unique market position that is found in Quebec, with cable penetration rates running about 10% lower than the rest of the country (see Statistics Canada publications here).

In most of Canada, telcos and cablecos look at service bundles as a way to leverage their existing customer base to offer more products at marginal incremental costs. In Videotron’s case, basic cable is far from saturation levels, with about 40% of homes passed opting not to subscribe. For Videotron, the quadruple play represents an opportunity to add brand new customers to leverage the existing cable plant.

Wireline telephony is more of a zero-sum game. Most subscribers won by the cable companies were at the expense of telcos. On the other hand, there are still a large number of homes with no cable TV. Many of the early wins for Bell Expressvu were in unserved, often rural territory. There are still many who are living with over-the-air signals.

Digital, HDTV and video-on-demand are the kinds of services that will help to convert non-believers. How do phone companies respond to serve homes with multiple HD feeds?

is spending billions to install fibre to the home. Will the current strategy by Canadian carriers to build fibre to the node be sufficient?

Network computing

August 14, 2006
It seems to me that there are business opportunities arising from the changes in airport screening: Prepare for a renewed demand for network computing.

With the new restrictions on airline carry-on baggage, I suspect that we could see notebook computers and even memory sticks coming under more severe scrutiny. It would make sense for more widespread server-based storage and computing.

Among the challenges: tools for network security systems, user authentication and higher levels of network availability.

Think about changes to business travel. Hotels are going to need to add mini-tubes of toothpaste to the soap and shampoo waiting in our rooms. And the better hotels will have computers waiting in each room.

Corporate software applications may already reside on servers – but we may be coming to a time for all files to be uploaded, possibly changing the symmetry pattern of the access pipes feeding hotels or offices.

While large enterprise users may be able to quickly adapt to such methods, there is little in the way of such discipline among small and medium business users.

Opportunity calling.

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