I like to think of myself as being somewhat technically literate. I can program VCRs and can figure out most software without a manual.

I have a confession. I don’t like the menu systems I have used so far for digital TV. I think the set top box industry is trying to force a computer application into a TV remote form factor and it just isn’t working for me. My wife? Ha!

Scrolling through hundreds of channels? No thanks.

And when I want to search for a program, there has to be an easier way than selecting characters awkwardly with the arrow keys. Why isn’t it predictive? The system knows the names of all the shows – when I enter W, the search subsystem should offer a menu of shows that begin with ‘W’.

If I find difficult, then what about all the non-geeks out there who still haven’t changed the clocks in their cars to Daylight Savings time?

IP-TV service providers take note. As Apple proved with the iTunes/iPod combo, there are great returns for a company that provides an easy user interface.

I was reading about the massive payout to former Exxon chief Lee Raymond and I couldn’t help but wonder why the telecom sector is so much against being turned into a group of commodity providers. After all, the oil sector seems to have made out OK churning out barrels of oil that look an awful lot like the barrels churned out by their competitors.

Sure, they have a little bit of differentiation – I only buy Petrocan gas in the winter because they have succeeded in convincing me that Petrocan’s blend of Winter Gas is best for my old beast.

I think most shareholders would be thrilled to have oil industry returns on their telecom stocks.

Tyco is paying $50M in civil penalties to the SEC for its previous management’s cooking of the books. Nortel settled a shareholder class action suit for $2.5B in February. What do these events have in common?

In both cases, shareholders are paying the price for management misdeeds. Notice that there aren’t payments from the Board of Directors. These aren’t payments from the management teams that misbehaved. The audit firms haven’t refunded their fees.

Instead, in some warped sense of justice, shareholders are paying fines and settlements for the transgressions against themselves. Perhaps it is supposed to be a form of penance; self-flagellation to achieve a higher level of forgiveness in order to move forward.

Sorry – I don’t feel cleansed. I’d like to see the Boards and the auditors held accountable. If the Board fell asleep at the wheel, despite their tens of thousands of dollars in retainers and meeting fees, then hold them accountable for these fines and settlements. Individual shareholders rely on and pay handsomely to have auditors and the Board look after their interests.

Yet individual shareholders have again paid for the failure of both groups to do their jobs.

Andy Abramson writes about a concern that the EU has imposed new data retention rules that could have an immense impact on VoIP service providers. He suggests “Toss in a little port blocking, some packet shaping, add some IP address tracking and you have 1984 in 2006.”

I’m not sure that is fair. His concluding statement, “More importantly it shows that governments, telcos and likely the investment communities are all very interlaced” certainly doesn’t follow – at least not in my logical thought process.

What is the fuss about? The European Union is requiring that service providers retain “data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication”. In the case of conventional or mobile telephony, that means having the calling number, name and address of the caller and called party and relevant cell sites or location information as well as equipment information such as the IMSI and IMEI. For email and internet telephony, IP address information will need to be retained.

Interestingly, “No data revealing the content of the communication may be retained pursuant to this Directive.” In other words, the EU directive does not ask to have the messages themselves retained, only the header type information. It is looking at the outside of the envelop only. Note that the clause says “pursuant to this Directive.” Presumably, another Directive, or an order by one of the National Regulatory Agencies, could require the retention of the content.

The latest EU directive is pretty clear in limiting how such data can be accessed:

In other words, it looks a lot like providing law enforcement officials with access to the same information they would have in a paper environment. Looking at the outside of the envelop. As I have suggested in other posts, the EU is removing a digital loophole in its application of law.

After 15 years of anarchistic rule (or lack thereof) in the internet world, isn’t it time for a little law and order?

With the coming merger of Aliant into Bell’s regional income trust, BCE has put forward the first indication of its management team. Jay Forbes, the current CEO of Aliant will be stepping aside on July 1 to make room for the return of Stephen Wetmore to Aliant. Wetmore has been a past president of Aliant and at NewTel – so this is a return to the Atlantic region for him, having grabbed a hold of much of the land mass of Ontario and Quebec as a prize to bring back with him.

By replacing Forbes with Wetmore, BCE keeps east coast credibility in the Aliant home base. In many cases, Aliant is seemingly inextricably linked with the provincial governments. With the level of competition coming from the cable companies in Aliant’s home turf, leadership is required who fully appreciate the way consumers, businesses and governments respond. His time at BCE has provided a base for assuming control of an integrated Bell / Aliant trust.

Stephen Wetmore was a keynote speaker at our very first Canadian Telecom Summit in 2002. We wish him luck trying to stem the tidewaters of competition – heading back home to Aliant.