One of the typical tests for loosening of regulation has been to demonstrate evidence of rivalrous behaviour.
A non-scientific measure would be the pure entertainment value from the level of banter in the jousts taking place at The Canadian Telecom Summit.
There are quantitative tests that need to be cleared, but you can put a check mark next to evidence of rivalry.
Robert Depatie delivered a passionate and insightful rebuttal to the positions that had been advanced by the telco CEOs over the past 3 days at The 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit.
A lot has been made of the 25% threshold for telco forebearance, versus 5% for cablecos. But M. Depatie pointed out that Videotron started from only 63% market penetration.
And contrary to statements that cable is deregulated, he pointed out ‘the fascination with placement on the dial.’ The point hit home when he showed a photo of an old TV dial and asked if any of us had seen a TV tuner with a dial recently.
Great speech – great positioning. We need to hear more from Videotron!
Interesting that the philosophy of Yogi Berra has been brought up twice on the third day of The 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit, by both Assistant Deputy Minister Michael Binder (“the future ain’t what it used to be”) and Nortel Chief Strategy Officer George Riedel (“when you reach a fork in the road, take it”).
Hmmm.
Message delivered by Nortel’s Chief Strategy Officer, George Riedel, at The Canadian Telecom Summit: in the Clinton administration, the slogan was “it’s the economy, stupid.”
His view for our industry: it’s video.
With 3 simultaneous sessions, I obviously couldn’t be everywhere at the same time on Monday. A guest post from a colleague who was at the Wireless Number Portability (WNP) session:
Some interesting data from this year’s WNP Panel.
Canada lags each major country in the penetration of wireless services, yet leads the world in the number of customers who have signed up for 3-year contracts. Virgin Mobile Canada (VMC) reported that 41% of Canadians are on 3-year contracts.
This will diminish the impact that WNP will have on the Canadian marketplace once WNP is launched on March 14, 2007 – IF the industry stays on track.
VMC feels that because the industry has less incentive to launch WNP, there needs to be stiff penalties for those carriers who don’t launch ontime.
There are exactly nine months between now and March 14, 2007 – let’s see if this baby will come out on time.