Sunday’s Toronto Star had a front page feature describing software called Psiphon, from the so-called Citizen Lab at University of Toronto. The software is designed, in theory, to help people in oppressive regimes circumvent national restrictions on free access to content by more easily offering proxy servers on the outside.

It is an interesting piece of ‘hack’-tivism. Not really news (the Globe and Mail carried a story about Psiphon in February). In some ways, I suppose that the intent of the software is a modern day equivalent of Radio Free Europe – spreading the word of democracy by opening up communications.

I’d like to look at an unintended consequences of this initiatives. Will Psiphon help spread child exploitation images? Do folks at the Citizen Lab believe that images of children should also be free of any restrictions in their transmittal on the internet or does the Citizen Lab agree with the concept that freedom to communicate can have some restrictions?

Michael Geist is quoted in the Star article saying “There are international instruments that override even sovereign governments, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Let’s not forget there are also international instruments that restrict freedoms, such as the Convention on Rights of the Child statements on child exploitation images.

As a father of young children, perhaps the director of the Citizen Lab, Ronald Deibert will turn some attention to the issue of reasonable limits on internet freedoms.

Illegal Content on the Internet isn’t clearly defined. We’ll be examining the issue in a special session at The Canadian Telecom Summit next month.

Other than the post office, is there another government institution that consistently attracts such public attention as the CRTC? In fact, only the Toronto Maple Leafs are subjected to more arm-chair coaching, although the Leafs are far more likely to benefit from wisdom-juice inspired commentary.

As many readers know, I have not always agreed with the CRTC’s outcomes, but it is unfair to characterize the decisions with the type of mean-spirited attacks that have become popular by some of the harshest critics. In particular, it doesn’t help the debate to be name-calling in refering to decisions as coming from “illiterates” and I think it is naive to believe that “it is impractical to regulate Internet-based services.”

Internet-based services can be regulated and should be regulated, where the public interested is best served by doing so.

It is far too easy to dismiss the fact that considerable thought and analysis goes into CRTC decisions. The Commission has operated without the kind of policy direction from the Government that is called for in the new post-TPR environment; in the meantime, the CRTC has adopted a policy of supporting choice as means to achieve the greatest consumer benefits.

The cabinet direction to the CRTC for a review of the VoIP decision is a signal that we are going to see changes – and likely a signal that many of the TPR recommendations for structural changes are coming soon. We’ll be listening to the Minister provide the direction at The Canadian Telecom Summit next month. Until then, go ahead and be critical. Complain, moan and whine.

But remember, there are at least 3 sides to every issue in front of the CRTC. It is pretty rare that the right answer is as obvious as some of the partison commentators would have you believe.

Among the themes being explored at this week’s telemarketing Do Not Call List hearings in Ottawa were ‘who pays’ and ‘how do we charge’? Do you think there will be a charge to people who want to be added to the list, after all, aren’t they the real users, like people who want to have an unlisted phone number?

When it comes to upgrading the emergency service bureaus for 911 calls from VoIP phones, we keep hearing the question of ‘who pays’? Do you think it should be the police departments?

Broadband service for rural markets? Who pays? Should it be telephone subscribers in the cities or regional economic development agencies?

See the trend? In the past, the telecom service providers were able to be a source of social welfare funding. After all, in a fully regulated, non-competitive environment, phone companies could easily act as Robin Hood to do all sorts of good deeds without any impact to the shareholders. Those days are gone.

Despite best efforts to continue to have various forms of cross-subsidies funded by a wider array of competitive service providers, there are too many types of service providers that are able to avoid contributing.

How do we create fair funding?

For more than 3 years, in our discussions around the world, the first question that used to be raised was ‘can you regulate VoIP’? After all, internet technology was considered to be beyond the power of regulators.

After we assured people that there were ways to detect and impose regulation on VoIP, our question back was ‘why would you want to regulate VoIP’? Even when offered by an incumbent, what characteristics are there to justify regulating Voice over IP?

More than a year ago, we offered a solution to the regulatory challenge of how to deal with VoIP. That paper is just as relevant today as it was last year. In the report, we suggest that dial tone service is an application that can be dissociated from the access facilities.

The paper suggests that the key factor for the regulator to examine is whether the access service is competitive or a bottleneck, regulated service. Economic (price) regulation is only required if the customer delivered service combines a regulated access service with the voice application. Using this standard, wireless services and VoIP would be forborne while traditional voice services would attract price regulation until access facilities are found to be competitive.

We wrote the paper as a solution for the CRTC to consider last year. Given the Cabinet direction to revisit the CRTC’s original VoIP Decision, we think our paper is worth looking at again.

As we suggested earlier this week, Cabinet has sent the CRTC’s VoIP decision back for reconsideration.

The Minister may be sending other indications about what he will be announcing next month at The Canadian Telecom Summit.

In addition to considering the progress that VoIP has made in the market, the CRTC will be able to reconsider the decision in light of the detailed work recently completed by the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel…

In order to encourage innovation and productivity, it is imperative that regulatory measures interfere as little as possible with competitive market forces… I look forward to reviewing the CRTC’s conclusions after it reconsiders this important decision.

Recall that the Telecom Policy Review panel released its final report and recommendations in March, making numerous recommendations to change regulation in the telecommunications sector, and to rely [to the extent possible] on market forces to achieve policy objectives.

Bell Canada’s response was swift to applaud the decision and it simultaneously announced that it will be appealing the recent Local Forbearance Decision to Cabinet:

The Minister is expected to respond to the panel’s recommendations in his June 13 address at The Canadian Telecom Summit.