In memoriam

CNCPUnitelI don’t usually read the obits in the paper… I’m not sure what drew me to that page in the Star yesterday afternoon.

It was with great sadness that I read of the passing of James Christian McDaniel, an anchor of consistency in the turbulent waters of competitive telecom in Canada.

Jim was Mr. CNCP – a dignified gentleman who personified customer service and attention to detail. Always impeccably dressed, I recall that he usually had a cigar in hand when I would see him in the garage at 200 Wellington early in the morning when we both would get into work.

The obituary sums up his career:

Jim began his career in 1934, in the heart of the ‘depression’ as a telegraph messenger with what was then known as the Canadian National Telegraph Company. Jim rose through the ranks to become Head of Sales and was at the heart of the last century’s technology revolution from Morse Code through to fibre optics. During the 1970s and 1980s, Jim was a pioneer in the way he acted as Chief Customer Advocate in television commercials – for what had come to be known as CNCP Telecommunications – becoming Mr. CNCP. Later in the 1990s, after a brief retirement, Jim agreed to become a member of the senior management team at Unitel Communications, where he contributed his powers of persuasion and national presence to the effort to bring competition to Canada’s long distance telephony market.

Those of us who worked with Jim – and there are lots of us still involved in Canadian telecom – learned much from him, not the least of which were the importance of consistent customer focus and respect for colleagues in shaping a corporate culture.

Jim symbolized the transformation of Canada’s first telecommunications carrier – from telegraph to telex, through Facsroute to long distance competition and a complete portfolio of converged solutions. Thirty years before the telephone was patented, the company that would become CNCP carried the first telecommunications message of any kind in Canada.

CNCP/Unitel alumni hold leadership positions in every telecom company in Canada. On behalf of all those who shared being part of an inspired team, let me say that we will miss you, Jim.

Net User Bill of Rights

I’ve said in the past that the sign of a balanced CRTC decision is one that equally annoys the incumbents, new entrants and consumer groups.

I don’t think the same measure can be used for legislation. A Senate Committee in the US has proposed the Communications, Consumers’ Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 and it promises to provide lots of fodder for my writings this summer.

Let’s start with the Consumer Internet Bill of Rights that appears 145 pages into the document:

SEC. 903. CONSUMER INTERNET BILL OF RIGHTS.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Except as otherwise provided in this title, with respect to Internet services, each Internet service provider shall allow each subscriber to:

  1. access and post any lawful content of that subscriber’s choosing;
  2. access any web page of that subscriber’s choosing;
  3. access and run any voice application, software, or service of that subscriber’s choosing;
  4. access and run any video application, software, or service of that subscriber’s choosing;
  5. access and run any email application, software, or service of that subscriber’s choosing;

These are well meaning and they even sound good, until you stop to think a little bit about item (1): “access and post any lawful content…”.

What does it mean to allow each subscriber to post any lawful content of that subscriber’s choosing? To start with, it would invalidate Acceptible Use Policies and force ISPs into hosting content that they find to be offensive, unless it is actually illegal.

Extremists, purveyors of adult content and their ilk are interesting bedfellows for the ‘Save the Net’ crowd that are behind this provision.

In a non-digital world, this section says that the manager of a local grocery store would be forbidden from taking down ads for escort services that get posted on the community bulletin board at the store’s entrance.

Sounds to me like the store is losing control of their private property and their ability to apply discretion over the type of business they want.

Exactly which consumer’s rights are being defended in Section 903(a)(1)?

Downtime

Mike Urlocker has a posting on his blog about 7×24 accessibility versus downtime.

His conclusion merits discussion.

As a self-employed, independent consultant, one of the services I offer is always being available. As a result, I find that mobile access is an enabler of downtime, not a detractor from family time.

In my pre-Blackberry days, I can recall helping a client negotiate a contract during the weeks leading up to the school March break. We planned a vacation in Colorado with the kids. The contract wasn’t signed, but I had my cel phone and my client knew how to reach me.

On the slopes at Loveland, the phone rang and I stopped to deal with an issue that arose during the drafting of the agreement. 15 minutes later, I was done and got to enjoy the rest of the vacation.

The point: accessibility didn’t interfere with my ski trip; it enabled me to go on the vacation. The alternative was for me to stay in the city waiting by the phone.

Voice is voice

The CRTC has decided to review its own Decision on local forbearance and it has issued Public Notice 2006-9, Proceeding to examine whether mobile wireless services should be considered to be in the same relevant market as wireline local exchange services with respect to forbearance, and related issues.

Catchy title, eh?

In some ways, the CRTC was put in a difficult position by Statistics Canada. On the very day before the Commission rejected considering wireless a substitute for regular phone service, StatsCan released its Residential Telephone Service Survey which showed that there was far greater substitution than the CRTC had previously considered. In Vancouver, mobile wireless has replaced home phone service in 10% of households.

It is good to see that the Commission has decided to conduct a review of its Decision on its own motion, rather than delay by a more lengthy process by way of an application.

In its VoIP Decision, the CRTC had stated that Voice is Voice, independent of the underlying technology. Mobile wireless had been a service that had regulatory treatment somewhat inconsistent with this approach.

Will the results of this Public Notice take advantage of our view that unbundles voice from access; to look at the underlying transport independently of the voice application? It may help the CRTC uphold its view on voice, by considering the regulatory treatment of the bundled service based on the competitiveness of the access delivery.

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Busy doing nothing

Mike Urlocker contacted me yesterday, while I was at the cottage, reading the paper, listening to the waves lapping up on the shore.

Mike was asking my views on whether 7×24 availability via Blackberry, cel, etc. makes for more or less family time.

I’ll reserve my answer until Mike publishes his piece on the subject. But I note that I was reading a piece by Jim Bawden in the Star Week magazine section on the BBC documentary about Queen and her portrait by Rolf Harris.

HRH has sat for 139 portraits. She says that she likes sitting for them because “People can’t get at us. We’re busy doing nothing.”

I like that: Busy doing nothing.

Anyone want to paint me this summer?

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