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A new report was released last week by the World Economic Forum, written in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group, “Delivering Digital Infrastructure: Advancing the Internet Economy” [pdf, 6.3MB]. The report is said to be the first to undertake a comprehensive examination of the present threats to digital infrastructure, with input from representatives of government representatives, NGOs, communications services providers, content and digital-services companies, and hardware manufacturers active in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

The World Economic Forum’s “Delivering on Digital Infrastructure” initiative “sets the basis for a new vision for digital infrastructure by providing recommendations for policy-makers and industry participants to create a healthier environment for investment and innovation, and offer consumers a digital infrastructure on which they can rely.”

At a time when some people are looking to shape Canadian digital services markets to follow a European model, the report is sharply critical of Europe’s digital health, saying that Europe has gone from digital leader to laggard in less than a decade. “Current industry economics constrain investment in telecommunications infrastructure; consumers pay less for connectivity than in some other countries, but they are missing out on advanced services.”

In the report, policy-makers are urged to improve the infrastructure investment environment by allowing targeted consolidation and the report calls on operators to adapt business models to grow digital services. At the same time, policy-makers are told to encourage innovations taking place in “the last mile” to heighten competition and investment.

How does Canadian policy stack up against these recommendations? What measures do we need to take for Canada to lead in a global digital economy?

A number of sessions will explore these issues at The 2014 Canadian Telecom Summit, June 16-18, in Toronto. Save more than $250 by registering before May 15.

Earlier this week, CRTC Chair JP Blais took to Twitter to have a chat about the second phase of the Commission’s Talk TV consultation.

The chat took place during the Olympic quarter-final men’s hockey game between Canada and Latvia, and the timing itself was the subject of one of the questions.

The tone seemed chippy at times; when the Chairman was asked if the CRTC had the jurisdiction to regulate Netflix, the response wasn’t a simple “yes” or “no”. Instead, the answer was “I don’t want to debate jurisdiction online. See section 4(2) of the Broadcasting Act.”

Let’s look at Section 4(2) of the Broadcast Act.

(2) This Act applies in respect of broadcasting undertakings carried on in whole or in part within Canada or on board

(a) any ship, vessel or aircraft that is

1. (i) registered or licensed under an Act of Parliament, or
2. (ii) owned by, or under the direction or control of, Her Majesty in right of Canada or a province;

(b) any spacecraft that is under the direction or control of

1. (i) Her Majesty in right of Canada or a province,
2. (ii) a citizen or resident of Canada, or
3. (iii) a corporation incorporated or resident in Canada; or

(c) any platform, rig, structure or formation that is affixed or attached to land situated in the continental shelf of Canada.

Clear on that?

I’m not sure how many Canadians would be able to readily find the Broadcast Act, let alone understand what spacecraft, ships, vessels or aircraft have to do with a computer app. And that was just the second question asked by a member of the general public.

The question didn’t seem to be baiting the Chair for a debate. It would seem reasonable for a “conversation with Canadians” to be able to get a straight answer to a pretty basic question: In the view of the Chairman of the CRTC, does the Commission have the jurisdiction to regulate Netflix?

I thought it might be helpful to capture the Twitter conversation to make it easily accessible for review.

The following is the English language Twitter chat that took place on February 19, 2014 at 1:00pm [eastern].

Industry Minister James Moore told Reuters that the government’s wireless policy was focused on the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction.

Moore said the government was concentrating on an intensely watched auction of wireless spectrum, where it is encouraging new entrants to challenge the Big Three. “Our policy is the auction and we’ll see what happens through the auction,” he responded.

The Minister declined to provide any information about whether any new foreign companies had submitted bidding papers and preliminary deposits yesterday, saying that the list will be released next Monday.

According to the current auction list of key dates, Monday September 23 is when Industry Canada will publish a list of applicants, their “beneficial ownership and associated entities information”.

We will not get any information about the number of bidding points being sought by each company. That information would provide some insight into the company’s bidding strategy. Pre-auction bid points require $130,000 each; 1221 bid points ($158,730,000) are needed to bid on one paired block across the country. A minimum of 2 bid points are needed to participate in the auction for a prime paired block, or just one point for bidding on an unpaired block – that would let you play in the game for the three territories.

The applications needed to be accompanied by a down payment of only 5% of the bid deposit.

Keep this in mind when the list gets published next week. To appear on the list, companies may have only submitted a check for about $7000.

The balance is due October 29, a week after Industry Canada publishes the list of provisionally qualified bidders. To move from “provisionally qualified” to fully qualified simply requires physically delivering the 95% outstanding balance owed on the bid point deposit. The qualified bidders list will be released November 8, indicating only who has a seat at the table, with no disclosure of the size of their stack of chips.

Applicants can decrease the number of bid points between now and October 29, but they may not increase them.

Not a lot of money was needed to make the preliminary list that will be published next Monday, the provisional list on October 22 and the final list on November 8. Because Industry Canada elected to use anonymous bidding, there will be no information released about activity by each company during the auction.

Once the auction has concluded we will hear who the winners are and how much money was spent. We may not know much about what is happening for the next 6 months.

The CRTC is in the middle of a consultation on the development of a Wireless Code of Conduct. It asked the public for comments to be submitted by December 4, using two different methods: the usual submissions process; and, a special online consultation which are saved separately (French on-line comments are separate from the English). Reply comments are due on December 18 – a week from today.

The comments from the online consultation do not show up on the listing of the hearing documents. As a challenge, try to find the link to the on-line consultation by navigating the CRTC website without using the links I provide above. I cheated by using an old tweet from @CRTCeng.

There were 1043 comments filed as part of the usual submissions process. I can’t figure out how these comments will be reviewed. Assuming you succeed in accessing the full table listing the comments, each of the 1043 records requires a click on the “Related Documents” link, which opens a page dedicated to that record, in turn requiring another click on the “Comments” link. In Internet Explorer, this may offer a choice to open the submission or save the file, but many other browsers only offer to save the file, even though many are in html format. The document names (such as “1246y01!.HTML”) are indecipherable, not related to the proceeding nor the party submitting the comment.

In 2012, a single click should let us to view an HTML file without first having to download it.

Despite its invitation to Canadians to participate in the creation of a meaningful code for the wireless industry, I am concerned that the inaccessibility of the CRTC’s website creates an obstacle for citizens who want to follow along. I wonder if even the carriers will have the resources to download and review all of the interventions in time to submit a reply next week.

While a number of token interventions may be read into the record by the CRTC Chair at oral hearings, the inaccessibility of the CRTC’s database means that in practice the comments of Canadians may not be given the appropriate level of consideration by the people crafting the code.

Quick action is needed by the CRTC to make its website more accessible in order to keep the confidence of consumers that their voices are being heard and that their concerns are able to be considered. As a start, there should be a link to the online consultation discussion in the listing of hearing documents.

Yesterday, comScore released its 2010 Canada Digital Year in Review. The whitepaper is a free download [pdf, 4.6MB]

It is 44 pages filled with data on how Canadians are consuming digital media and it provides an important snapshot of 2010 with comparisons to the previous year.

• How are Canadians consuming digital media, and how does this compare to other countries?
• Which trends dominated the digital landscape in 2010?
• How does media consumption differ across age and gender segments?
• What trends are we seeing in the social networking space, and what impact does that have on email activity?
• How has digital advertising shifted in the last year, and how has social media played a part?
• Which content categories are serving up the most videos? Who’s watching online video in Canada?
• What is the current state of the search market?
• How will mobile media consumption in Canada stack up against other markets?

The headline – Canadians again are the world’s most engaged consumers of digital media, spending double the global average amount of time on-line and about 20% more than the runner-up, the United States.

It is an important and timely injection of hard data that challenges some of the assertions being made about of Canada’s digital economic capability. Given that usage tiers have been a part of mainstream Canadian retail internet for the past 4 years, comScore’s study appears to shoot down charges that usage sensitive pricing inhibits Canadians from heavy use of internet services. Further, the data gives credence to why Canadian internet access networks may be experiencing different levels of stress from that experienced in other countries. More study is required, but it is helpful to have new quantitative analysis added to what has recently been an emotional discussion.