Interesting article in Red Herring that was brought to my attention by my colleague Brian Gordon.

The article cites U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales saying that:

Internet service providers aren’t doing enough to fight the child pornography traded and sold over their networks

The article says that he plans to introduce legislation to get US ISPs to crack down on such illegal content. We have been concerned about this for some time and have suggested that ISPs need to do more than simply support end-user education and blocking tools.

In our view, it isn’t enough for ISPs to wash their hands after simply chasing the content off Canadian servers. We are looking at this issue in greater depth in a special session on June 12, to be moderated by Hank Intven [from the Telecom Policy Review panel] at The Canadian Telecom Summit. You can read more about this session by searching some of my earlier postings.

A colleague steered me to the Branham 300 list of Canada’s top technology companies.

The problem with lists is that they are almost immediately outdated. But I think there are more fundamental problems with this list. I’m happy to overlook whatever glitch or typo led to RDM Corp being listed as number 97 and number 101. But there are more fundamental problems that seem to infest this particular listing.

I can understand how it must be difficult to gather financial information about private companies. But there are a lot of private firms that make the list, and a fairly abbreviated list of companies that are excluded from the listing in a note on the front page. This is hardly an inventory of software firms of any measurable substance. Keep in mind that company number 250 has revenues of less than $2.5M.

In addition, there are a number of public companies that are mysteriously absent from the list. Companies that are listed on the TSE, the London Exchange, the Venture exchange. Some independent phone companies appear to be missing, despite SEDAR information that confirms internet revenues that would put them into the top 250. [It is unclear why Branham chooses to ignore wireline voice revenues, despite including, for example, Nortel’s and Aastra’s equipment sales that support voice services].

Why take the time to point out these problems? Because policy makers may try to draw conclusions based on these flawed studies. The Branham Group claims “The listing has become pre-eminent the world over as the authoritative indicator of the health of the Information Technology industry in Canada.” An article on the Branham website presents some conclusions of its own that must be challenged based on missing company information.

Since it was so easy for me to find obvious problems in the list, it makes me wonder what else may be missing, if we were to take some time digging. Maybe the right conclusion is that there is tremendous activity in ICT going on in Canada, so much activity among the medium and smaller firms that we can’t produce an accurate listing.

A flawed inventory can be a problem for initiatives such as ICT Toronto. If they start with a list such as Branham’s, that understates the current level of activity, then it will be difficult to accurately measure the efficacy of their new initiatives. We would not want bad data to take the credit in 3-5 years for new ICT activity, when all they may have actually achieved is a better census.

I recently met with John Maduri, who is now heading up a company with a rather unique approach to rural broadband, Barrett Xplore.

What’s unique? He isn’t looking for a government handout. He hasn’t gone to government agencies saying ‘Give me $$$ and I’ll deliver broadband to the unwashed, underserved, your down-trodden.’ Instead, Barrett is delivering a 99.99% available, city-quality broadband experience to anyone in Canada who wants it, no matter where they live or work.

What Barrett Xplore has done is built a viable business plan that uses various solutions, including Motorola Canopy technology where appropriate or Telesat Ka-band in other areas. They are actually adding customers at a respectable clip, with reasonable prices, and a positive NPV. The entire country is within their potential serving area.

Unfortunately, the CRTC’s Deferral Account Decision has created problems for Barrett. That Decision told the incumbent telephone companies that they could and should use excess payments (that subscribers made to prop up local rates in urban areas) to subsidize the incumbent broadband roll-out to rural areas. It was a Robin Hood decision – taking money from one group to give to another. Bell has appealed a part of the Decision to the courts; we can expect to see an appeal (or more) to Federal Cabinet in the next few weeks.

With the best of intentions, it seems that whenever we see these kinds of programs, there are problems. As I mentioned in my post about ICT Toronto, it just seems that we need to avoid trying to pick winners and we need to resist the temptation to intervene in the market. Like it or not, rightly or wrongly, Decision 2006-9 made it tougher for John and his venture to go out and compete. And it was all with the best of intentions by everyone concerned.

I’d like to think that we should be clearing out of the way of entrepreneurial ventures like Barrett Xplore, not putting obstacles in their way. Hopefully, John and Barrett Xplore will be able to look back at this as just a speed-bump, not a barricade, as they continue to bridge the digital divide.

Jeff Pulver has started a campaign to Save the Internet. The objective, in the words of Jon Arnold:

Hmmm. Who are the people who have controlled the Internet so far? Hasn’t a free-market, business-oriented approach been the main driver of the innovation to date? Even the most anarchistic software developers appear to have been seduced by the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I can’t figure out what kind of Net Neutrality rules Jeff wants from the government. On one hand, he is looking for guarantees of wide open access – no interference in anyone’s bits. But use government interference to provide those guarantees. An internet world with no rules would mean that anyone can have anything, which sounds good on the surface. But that also means that someone could steal everything.

Think of the Internet as a public library. I suspect that in Jeff’s view, the doors never close and there would be no requirement for a library card. No one would even need to sign out a book – to maintain complete anonymity for the users. Users would return the books when they are done, because it is the right thing. Not because the operator of the library charged a fine for overdue books. And extra copies of the books in greatest demand would magically appear, so there was never a shortage of supply.

It is an interesting utopian view of the world and I hate to wake the dreamers – but there need to be reasonable limits. You want non-discriminatory access, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be fees associated with certain applications that have atypical requirements. In the context of the Shaw/Vonage dispute, it seems to me that, as long as Shaw isn’t purposely interfering with Vonage users’ bits, there is nothing wrong with offering a premium service that has quality of service guarantees in exchange for a fee.

For as long as I can remember, and I have been using the internet for more than 20 years, there have been Acceptable Use Policies to apply a semblance of order. Open, but not free. That is where I draw the line.

There is no such thing as free. Someone always pays the price. The advocates for open and free internet are generally looking for someone else to be paying their bills. If we want the internet to thrive, let market forces figure out the rules.