{"id":1286,"date":"2006-09-05T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-05T07:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=1286"},"modified":"2006-09-05T07:05:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-05T07:05:00","slug":"did-the-crtc-snub-cabinet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=1286","title":{"rendered":"Did the CRTC snub Cabinet?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"CRTC\"<\/a>On Friday, I wrote a rapid initial assessment of the CRTC’s VoIP reconsideration. The headline in the National Post read “CRTC defies Ottawa on VoIP – Rejects federal advice.<\/span>” The story began: <\/p>\n

The CRTC snubbed the advice of the federal government yesterday and surprised the telecom industry by standing by its controversial ruling on Internet telephony, or VoIP, potentially setting up a confrontation between the broadcast regulator and the government, analysts say.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ll be clear and say that I don’t see grounds for a confrontation.<\/p>\n

\u200bNow that the weekend has passed, it is worthwhile reflecting a little further on the Decision. For the sake of simplifying the analysis, we’ll assume that Cabinet will accept the CRTC’s reconsideration.<\/p>\n

We think that pragmatism will outweigh concerns that Paul Vieira<\/a> raises in the National Post that the CRTC ignored the will of the government.<\/p>\n

When the CRTC issued Telecom Decision CRTC 2006-53<\/a> on Friday, its reconsideration of how to regulate VoIP, it was responding to a directive:<\/p>\n

to take into account the increase in demand for VoIP services and changes to the overall regulatory environment since the original decision was announced last year.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Was the CRTC really defying Cabinet, as the headline in the Post implied?<\/p>\n

Let’s look beyond the Industry Canada press release<\/a> issued at the time of the original Cabinet directive and look at parts of the preamble of the actual Cabinet direction. This can be found as an Appendix in the Public Notice<\/a> that led to last Friday’s VoIP Reconsideration Decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n