Nethead Invades Bellhead Home Base

On May 16th, the government of Canada appointed Tim Denton to the CRTC. Ordinarily, CRTC appointments don’t generate much interest even for a CRTC watcher like myself, but this one was different.

For one thing I happen to know Tim Denton from the time I spent trying to convince the CSCN CRTC working groups that ENUM was a worthwhile thing. Tim has been a long time proponent of ENUM and is the maintainer of the www.enumorg.ca website.

But more importantly, Tim is a Nethead. And not just any nethead. Way back in the ancient internet time of March 1999, Tim wrote a report for the Federal Department of Industry entitled “Netheads Versus Bellheadsкомпютри.”

With the value of hindsight, we can see that some nine years latter the report predicted with startling accuracy exactly where the Bellhead mentality would lead.