Pricing Discipline

July 12, 2006
Wireless service providers in Canada have been described as benefiting from an orderly, disciplined market.

As the regulatory filings start to come in from the industry in respect of the CRTC’s review of the Price Cap framework, the cable industry is calling for order in the wireline business. They concede allowing Bell and TELUS to have separate prices by province, but no targetted pricing. The last thing the cable companies want is for consumers to be caught in the middle of a price war in the communities that have competition.

Ever on the look-out for the interests of consumers in underserved territory, the cable companies are concerned that

This is anti-competitive because competitors only face the lower prices. Competitors do not benefit from higher prices as they do not yet operate in the non-competitive locations.

And besides, it would be un-Canadian to deviate from an orderly, disciplined market. Either everyone gets lower prices, or nobody does.

Three of the cable companies (Rogers, Shaw and Cogeco) put forward their initial position with a 9-page filing. Videotron came in with 13 pages, agreeing on the issues of rate de-averaging and discontinuing the deferral account.

A coalition of consumer groups (Consumer’s Association, PIAC and National Anti-poverty Organization) put forward an 85-page piece of economic evidence (ok – 14 pages of this were made up of the economist’s CV) that calls for a more aggressive productivity factor of 6% and an end to the deferral account mechanism. Translation: lower prices for all.

Bell, TELUS and MTS Allstream all filed their comments late in the day… we’ll talk about their positions at a later time.

It’ll be a battle of economists – not the stuff that makes great TV – but important in determining price competition for consumers and setting a tone for regulation of telecom in these changing times.

Mobile applications

January 25, 2017
ForbesForbes on-line is reporting that mobile users in the US are becoming heavier users of navigation, weather and travel related information,as well as music downloading.

According to Forbes:

Mapquest Mobile, which is run by Time Warner’s America Online, accounts for 22% of all revenue generated by downloadable mobile applications. The service costs about $4 per month.

On a different note, it is nice to see that Virtual Reach, a company that has been featured at The Canadian Telecom Summit in 2005 and 2006, has attracted the attention of Mark Evans. If you are looking to view RSS feeds from a mobile device, Newsclip is the way to do it.

On the move, again

March 5, 2014
TelusLast week, I mentioned TELUS’ recent announcements in Ottawa and Montreal.

Today, TELUS announced that it will be the lead tenant in the first new office highrise to go up in Toronto in more than a decade. A new 30 story, 780,000 square foot building will be built adjacent to the Air Canada centre with links to the arena and to Union Station.

As I said last week, it’s a morale booster to be part of a company making these kinds of announcements.

Trusting the income trust

January 25, 2017

AliantThe BCE and Aliant corporate rearrangements went through last week, clearing the way for the launch of Bell Aliant Regional Communications Income Fund today.

Income trusts are seen to be a way to “unlock additional value” for shareholders by getting rid of income taxes in the corporation and issuing taxable dividends to the unit-holders.

I have some issues with the income trust gyrations. First off, I’m not crazy about the financial engineering itself – it seems like a lot of cost and effort being expended that could be rendered moot by a federal budget. Second, I am concerned about the level of inter-dependence in the ongoing operations of the regional company.

Net neutering

January 25, 2017

The US Senate rejected the temptation to intervene in the market for internet services. I am waiting to hear from various quarters of how this is evidence of a conspiracy of telcos and cablecos and their power to manipulate legislators.

I don’t subscribe to that view. But, I’m willing to wait for the Oliver Stone movie before forming a final opinion.

The lack of a good catchy phrase to summarize their position is one of the challenges that internet infrastructure folks have had in their efforts to communicate their position.

‘Net neutrality’ is a catchy phrase around which their opponents rally. So is ‘Save the Net.’

Who wouldn’t want to save the Internet? Shame on you if you don’t. But let’s face it, ‘save the internet’ and ‘net neutrality’ are too simplistic to accurately describe an issue loaded with far more subtle complexities.

As described in a recent article by The Heritage Foundation

In recent months, the net neutrality controversy shifted focus after several major telephone companies announced their intentions to offer priority service to content providers for a fee that would enable these providers—such as Internet phone service operators, broadband video providers, and others—to purchase express service.

The article notes the irony of Yahoo! being a member of a coalition advocating net neutrality regulation. Yahoo! plans to offer a similar “certified e-mail” service for a fee. Yahoo! has already announced a deal with Research in Motion to provide preferred access to Yahoo! services on BlackBerry wireless devices.

Randy May has used the term “Net Neutering” to describe the impact of net neutrality.

Rendering broadband providers perfectly neutral by dictating that they be nothing more than dumb pipes, unable to treat any applications or content that use their network facilities in any way differently, would, in fact, neuter the Net.

I’m sure we’d manage to get by in a world with Net Neutrality legislation. But it could get boring being stuck with just plain vanilla. It would be like life in Pleasantville in the B&W. We’ll save that metaphor for later.

In the meantime, suggestions for a positive catch phrase?

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