I never cease to be amazed at how creative the university campus environment can be. Taking technologies and finding serendipidous uses.

A story on the AP wires speaks about the way a number of faculty at Georgia College & State University are using podcasting as a way to distribute course material. A history class has made better use of lecture time by having films downloaded to the small screen that otherwise would need to be seen in class.

A psychology professor has found an iPod supplement to office hours and tutorials: he podcasts the week’s most asked questions. Other ideas could turn iPods into portable yearbooks and replace campus brochures with podcasts.

At Duke University, incoming freshmen handed iPod devices as welcoming gifts; foreign language students use iPods to immerse themselves in coursework.

There are trends here worth considering, beyond the move to upgrade the quality of correspondence courses. As websites start generating podcasts, storage requirements will increase, there will be room for a content mediation business to emerge – kind of an eBay for podcasts.

Telecom and technology executives and product development folks need to go back to university – just to spend time watching what is happening on campus.

I’m not sure that it is fair to say, as Mark Evans does today, that Canada and the CRTC lags the rest of the world in addressing Net Neutrality issues. A number of such issues came up in the original VoIP proceeding in 2004 and 2005 and the CRTC addressed them. You may not like how the CRTC resolved the issues, but it isn’t fair to say that the issues are being ignored.

For example, as early as 1997, the CRTC made statements about technological neutrality for network interconnection. This principle was upheld in 2005 in requiring IP interconnection and ongoing monitoring to ensure carriers are playing nicely. One of those monitoring reports came out earlier this week.

During the VoIP proceeding, the CRTC specifically addressed a few issues that are part of the Net Neutrality debate. They ruled that tariff restrictions for both cable companies and telcos that limited voice services being offered by competitors over cable and DSL broadband pipes had to be removed.

In assessing the issue of discriminatory access, the CRTC reviewed submissions and determined that it already had sufficient tools to guard against abuses of neutrality. For example, Section 27(2) of the Telecom Act already forbids unjust discrimination.

Just because the CRTC chose not to come out with a new rule called ‘Internet Neutrality’ doesn’t mean that elements of the principle aren’t already enshrined in our laws and rules.

It is on the basis of these existing rules that Vonage filed its complaint against Shaw. We have due process in this country – both sides get to air their positions.

In dealing with the new frontier, we don’t necessarily need to throw out all the old rules and start writing new ones. We have been looking for consistency and predictability from our regulator.

Its position on net neutrality is pretty good for an agency that was one of the first in the world to address VoIP.

The rumour is that Qwest might be the next major acquisition in the US consolidation sweepstakes. It is ironic that the first Baby Bell (US WEST) to get hooked up with a long haul provider (Qwest) is the last one standing in search of a suiter.

The word on the street is that Verizon, the company that beat out Qwest in bidding for MCI, may be looking at bulking up across the northwest to better prepare to go to battle against the new AT&T.;

At what point will US cable companies tie up with Sprint to offer a competitive triple/quad play? Cable needs the wireless and Sprint needs local access. Sounds like a match to me.

My brother mentioned to me that his office installed a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) recently and he says that it is saving him 20-30 minutes per day. Now that his corporate mail is completely tied into his Blackberry, he only reads a message once – either at his desk or on his mobile, but not both. He files messages once, deletes them once.

The time saving is the big benefit to the user; but the BES represents major handcuffs on users looking at alternative solutions for mobile email. That is a bonus for RIM.

At the end of the day, mobile devices are consumer electronics – subject to fashion and style trends (the “cool” factor) as much as they rely on having raw capabilities. Technology advantages can be transient – creative manufacturers will add features to match or beat their competition. Cool is harder to copy and cool makes it harder to stay on top: look at the current wave that Motorola is riding and ask Nokia about suddenly losing consumer momentum.

It seems to me that BES is an answer to how RIM can insulate themselves, in part, from some of the fickleness of the marketplace. Analysts should look at the percentage of subscribers that use carrier Blackberry Web Clients versus subscribers with Blackberry Exchange Servers. It is a metric that will help understand how secure is the Blackberry client base.

Latest news for The 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit is that Industry Minister Maxime Bernier has been confirmed as a Feature Keynote. He is scheduled to speak on June 14, the closing day of the 3-day schmooze fest. The Minister joins 20 other top leaders who will appear as keynote speakers. More than 50 other key personalities will appear on panels.

Early Bird rates expire April 1 – Book early!