The CRTC issued a Decision on mobile TV that should make the folks at XM and Sirius nervous.

The Decision exempts mobile TV from regulation on the basis that it falls under the New Media exemption. It is an interesting finding, considering that it appears to hinge on the delivery of the content over an IP network.

Part of the Wireless Association consultant study relied upon by the CRTC stated that the video and audio quality of the service is different from broadcast TV because of the limitations of the wireless handset. Intriguing, since so many of the new wireless handsets feature high fidelity MP3 audio. I’m not convinced that cellular audio is anything less than first rate.

So, here is the issue: Why wouldn’t the wireless carriers start a subscription radio service right away? We know that people are buying Sirius and XM subscriptions for $15 per month – that sounds like an attractive piece of ARPU enhancement for the wireless industry. While we have no idea how much people are willing to spend on a 2-inch TV picture, we know that people are lining up to buy subscription radio (at least according to XM’s latest press release issued this morning).

If I were an executive with Sirius or XM, I’d be concerned about this new unregulated source of competition. After all, isn’t radio just TV without the picture?

Intellectual Property is the other ‘IP’ – some would say a threatened species – in an Internet Protocol world.

An article in the Toronto Star suggests that file sharing ‘saved the music industry.’ At the same time, a University of Toronto panel expresses concern about Canada facing an Intellectual Property shortfall due to internet piracy.

Are these contradictory conclusions? Not really. The Toronto Star story correctly identifies the oriental bazaar nature of the internet, with a seemingly infinite array of choices available to the consumer. The U of T panel correctly identifies the problems associated with theft of other people’s property.

Unfortunately, the Star’s writer doesn’t distinguish between the availability of goods in the internet enabled marketplace and shoplifting the digital merchandise. Perhaps if the punishment was as severe as that meted out in the bazaars, there would be more respect for intellectual property owners.

With the Telecom Policy Review panel now having suggested a formal “Broadcast Policy Review”, it may be only a matter of time before Heritage Canada takes on such a project. How does June 14 sound for an announcement?

Not that the TPR Panel should get any particular credit for this. A source of ours hears that Heritage officials are apparently not very happy about the “gratuitous” comments from the Panel on point. The reality is that with a former CRTC Commissioner / Broadcast Exec as Minister of Canadian Heritage (Bev Oda) and a former CRTC Broadcast Executive Director as the Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for broadcasting (Jean-Pierre Blais), Heritage Canada has all the motivation it needs to start flexing its muscle on the what, when and how of the CRTC’s future direction in Broadcasting. The real help from the TPR comes in its suggested “get out of the way” approach to telecom.

A broadcasting colleague of ours suggests that “getting in the way” is exactly what Canadian Heritage and the CRTC need to do if the Canadian Broadcasting Act is to have any future.

Bev Oda broke the ice to broadcast executives at the Banff TV Fest last year. Gone was the traditional CBC and CRTC bashing; instead, the language was “stable long term funding” and “efficiency”. Watch for a triumphant return of Minister Oda to Banff in mid-June this year, perhaps announcing ways to bridge the historic conflict between Industry and Heritage.

We suspect that Heritage Minister Oda would like Industry Minister Bernier’s Quebec support for her program and, in any event, we suspect that this PMO will not tolerate the kind of public disagreements typical of former Heritage and Industry Ministers.

There is a nice possible one-two punch being set up here. Minister Bernier announces his response to the TPR at the Canadian Telecom Summit on June 13 and on the following day, will Minister Oda announce a Broadcast Policy Review during her speech at Banff?

Fox News is reporting that a Malaysian man, Yahaya Wahab, received a phone bill for 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit – the equivalent of about $250 Trillion from Telekom Malaysia. Of course, the accounting department at the phone company is right on top of this – with that kind of money at stake, I would hope so – they added a note to settle the account within 10 days or face legal proceedings.

Any suggestions for him? By the way, Malaysia is a competitive telecom market. Mr. Wahab may want to look into lower cost alternatives from the competition. Now that is a candidate for VoIP.

While Jeff Pulver may be trying to reinvigorate his VON franchise by changing the V to Video, I think there is still much to be done with voice. Not that there isn’t a lot of interesting work to be done with video, given its special data characteristics – it’s just that we have still barely scratched the surface with voice over IP services.

Andrew Hansen used an interesting term – PoIP – in his comment on my weekend posting. Too many service providers – or just plain confused customers – seem to be using POTS over IP: Plain Old Telephone Service over Internet Protocol. Many customers are swapping out their phone lines or PBXs and just putting in VoIP technology without any change in the way they are doing business. If you are just going to use your new equipment the same old way as before, then I think you are wasting time and energy going through a change.

It might explain why the CRTC thinks that VoIP is the same as POTS and it has therefore been continuing to apply the same regulatory framework to VoIP as it has to POTS. In the eyes of the CRTC, it’s just a different engine purring under the hood.

For all of the talk that VoIP transforms Voice into another computer application, the industry itself hasn’t done a great job promoting new services with all sorts of new capabilities.

If all we are doing is selling VoIP because “it’s cheaper” then we are wasting a lot of time and energy. There is a session at The 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit looking at Next Generation Voice and another talking to the leaders of today’s VoIP service. Another session will include the heads of Consumer Services for all of Canada’s leading carriers and yet another features the leaders of Business Services.

The Canadian Telecom Summit covers the full range of XoIP – Voice or Video – and looks at all of the issues, including Community Broadband outreach and dealing with the scourge of illegal content. It’s the only conference you need to attend.