ITAC president Bernard Courtois used a line at one of our conferences saying that he was concerned that fighting about telephony competition was similar to creating competition for buggy whips: we’re fighting over an obsolescent product.

His words are gaining momentum as a report comes out from Technology Futures about their forecasts for transformation of the ILEC networks. In the report, TFI states that ILEC access lines in the US fell from their peak of 187 million in 2000 to 169 million at year-end 2004. The total is forecasted to fall to 71 million by 2010!

The report predicts that by 2010, about 75 percent of U.S. households will have broadband service, and about 12 percent of households will subscribe to very high-speed broadband (at least 24 Mb/s). “Since we last updated the report in 2003, a major change in perception has occurred in the industry,” Dr. Vanston said. “Before, our forecasts of distribution fiber, very high-speed broadband, VoIP, IP video and HDTV video were regarded as speculative. Now, it’s a question of how fast. That’s what this report addresses.” As an aside, I note that Cable TV has a broadband pipe into the majority of Canadian homes already, delivering HDTV, VoIP, very high speed broadband.

The research was sponsored by the Telecommunications Technology Forecasting Group (TTFG), a consortium of telephone companies comprised of AT&T;, Bell Canada, BellSouth Telecommunications, Qwest and Verizon.

I find it interesting that the report, Transforming the Local Exchange Network, won’t go so far as to predict the answers, or hints of answers, for how ILECs should upgrade. In other words, with competing visions of different fibre architectures, wireless, etc. – ILECs need to place some hefty bets on transforming their networks to what? All the report says is “the best way to do it depends on a number of factors and the ultimate winner is still unclear to the dispassionate observer.”

In the meantime, should the telcos be seeking equal access to the cable plant? What if cable companies were forced into an unbundled network elements regime? That would let the telcos use a reseller economic model to build customers and upgrade their network as a network optimization strategy. It would also buy the telephone companies some time for a winning technology solution to emerge.

Unbundling the cable loop. Now that would be a fun regulatory battle!

Last summer, I learned that Blackberries don’t float – at least not in Lake Muskoka. I thought that was the biggest design flaw in the device.

However, I am getting ready to see how far they fly. My service has been off the air now for about 14 hours and it is only now beginning to show signs of life: spam is coming through encouraging me to get low cost Canadian pharmaceuticals and performance enhancers.

For a device known as the Crackberry, they need better reliability than forcing us all through a 14 hour withdrawal – cold turkey. I sure hope that this had nothing to do with people trying the NTP work around!

The Canadian Human Rights tribunal has ruled against an ISP finding it liable for hate messages hosted on their site in what is believed to be a precedent setting case.

Specific findings included a determination that material sent over the Internet is a ‘communication’ within the meaning of the Canadian Human Rights Act and finding an ISP, Affordable Space.com, responsible for the illegal material that it knowingly hosted.

The CHRC levied fines of $13,000 and damages of $5,000 in connection with the case.

Warren Kinsella, a Toronto based lawyer and author of Web of Hate, says that the case shows that the CHRC has been willing to step up and apply regulation to parts of the internet despite the CRTC’s unwillingness to do so.

On one hand, it is good to see the CHRC dealing with such matters. However, their jurisdiction likely does not apply to websites hosted in Canada. In our humble view, the CRTC has to take on the role of keeping material found to be illegal out of Canada.

That viewpoint will be explored at The Canadian Telecom Summit in its special panel looking at “Illegal Content on the Internet.”

The saga of Nortel’s accounting woes seems to have more sequels than Rocky… except that the underdog – in our case, the shareholders – never seems to win.

We are now hearing that the the restated numbers from 2003 and 2004 and early 2005 were wrong – again. “This revenue is real – it was recognized in the wrong periods”

Help me understand this, please! Nortel overstated their earnings – they held up their financials for a year, supposedly to get their house in order. Now, we are being told “oops, we still didn’t get it right?”

Can someone tell me what the auditors are getting paid for? Exactly what did their sign off mean? Why did the shareholders pay off some other shareholders (and mainly lawyers) to the tune of $2.5B, rather than the directors and the auditors who apparently fell asleep on the job.

It seems to be too easy an excuse – like the story of the new CEO who finds 3 envelops in his desk. At Nortel, Envelop 2 seems to say “Blame the old accounting.”

The CRTC is bent on regulating VoIP offerings by the Canadian incumbents, whether it needs to or not.

In its Decision today, a number of glaring inconsistencies continue to emerge from the way VoIP is regulated in Canada.

From the beginning, the CRTC has taken the position that it is regulating VoIP because VoIP is a new technology for an old service. Since local phone service is regulated, VoIP-based local service will be regulated. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…

New services shouldn’t have to match plain old phone service in order to fit a regulatory model. Unless the telcos are forcing people to give up their old services, phone companies should be able to offer new services that they think will sell – not be forced to perform contortions in order to artificially fulfill objectives for which the new service was never designed.

By this logic, iPods would need to be modified to play vinyl records (kids – ask your parents about those black dinner plate sized things in the basement). Digital Satellite Radio would need to conform exactly to the same regulations as AM and FM.

In today’s decision, the CRTC acknowledges that Bell’s access independent VoIP service doesn’t really quack the same or waddle the same as plain old phone service. For some reason, they are refusing to acknowledge that access independent VoIP might really be some other kind of bird.