I don’t think I’ve posted anything recently about the Conservative government mandate to the CRTC to rely on “market forces”. So here is an article in the Globe & Mail.
Once again it points out that the only “market force” in a monopoly is to push competitors out of business. So relying on market forces to foster competition is idiotic.
Though this is a U.S./FCC centric article, it’s still worth linking to. In an op-ed piece for the Huffington Post, United States senator Al Franken calls Network Neutrality “The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time”.
Wow. When I wrote yesterday about the pending demise of Cable and broadcast T.V. and expressed concern that cable companies would probably begin to fight back, I didn’t realize that the battle was already well underway! Slashdot has a story today about a U.S. cable company (Comcast) is attempting to charge high fees to distribute Netflix.
This demonstrates how nonsensical peering arrangements are as well as exposing them for the threat to network neutrality they really are. But more on that in a future post.
Ever since the Conservative Government overrode the CRTC, ordering it to rely more on “market forces”, Canada’s already anemic competition in telecom has been eroding even further. A story in the Globe & Mail explains how yet another “market forces” CRTC decision continues the trend.
Two related stories on the lack of competition in Canadian telecom.
- Canada is the most expensive place to own a cellphone
- Seaboard Group urges feds to scrap foreign ownership restrictions for telecom
The Internet was shocked when Google and Verizon teamed up and released a statement which outlines network neutrality rules for wireless. It appears that Google has reversed it’s previous position that the network should remain neutral and is now backing the idea that wireless providers should be able to manipulate wireless data. The key passage from Google’s policy blog:
“Sixth, we both recognize that wireless broadband is different from the traditional wireline world, in part because the mobile marketplace is more competitive and changing rapidly. In recognition of the still-nascent nature of the wireless broadband marketplace, under this proposal we would not now apply most of the wireline principles to wireless,”
The logic here seems to be that because, at any given location you can obtain wireless service from several different providers, market forces will keep the wireless providers in-line. If your provider is slowing access to a service you want, you can easily switch to a different provider.
This is a surprising and disappointing statement from Google. Fundamentally the importance of a neutral network does not decrease based on the medium it’s transported over nor the amount of competition. Furthermore, history shows that there is a strong likelihood that wireless providers will merge into fewer & larger companies decreasing competition over time. As our experience in Canada demonstrates, having only a handful of wireless competitors does not make them especially competitive. On the contrary, they tend to all offer more or less the same thing.
Google was previously the most important supporter of network neutrality and this statement is basically an admission that a neutral network isn’t actually all that important. The network neutrality movement has always faced strong opposition and this just might cause it to unravel.
Netflix and Sony roll out Canadian download movie services, Rogers lowers bandwidth caps. Coincidence?
Rogers is no doubt starting to feel threatened by the Internet. Rogers TV and move rental businesses, which includes pay-per-view, DVD rentals, and TV movie specialty channels, can all be replaced by the Internet.
But, never fear! Canada’s lack of competition to the rescue!
Since Rogers is also the Internet provider in a market with no serious competition, it can just ensure that internet access remains slow enough and expensive enough to dissuade people from using it to rent movies.
Switch to another internet provider you say? That would be Bell who is also in the movie rental business (Expressview) and who recently started throttling internet traffic, but of course, not to it’s own online movie download service.
On June 30th, the CRTC issued Telecom Decision CRTC 2010-445 which sets out the rules for traffic shaping on wireless networks. In short, the CRTC decided to apply the same rules to wireless data as for other internet services.
From the perspective that, up until now, wireless has been a black box and allowed to do whatever it wants with regard to the internet, this is good. It should force wireless providers to reveal how they are blocking or shaping internet content which will be valuable for any business hoping to do business over the internet using wireless devices.
On the down side, the previous CRTC net-neutrality ruling had some serious flaws so applying it to more aspects of Canadian telecom isn’t great news. Still, I’m actually surprised the CRTC decided to do anything. In Canada, cell phone companies have been allowed to do pretty much whatever they want so at least this is a sign the CRTC is starting to see the importance of wireless data and is no longer treating it as a regulation free area.
After a 5 year battle, I can finally declare victory over the incumbents telco companies 911 plans.
Back in 2005, I got involved in committee meetings at the CRTC regarding the implementation of 911 service for residential VOIP users. At the time, VOIP was hot and some were predicting it would have a major market share displacing wireline. The incumbent telcos were scared.
I was just starting to get invovled in the VOIP business and I was concerned that the incumbents were going to convince the CRTC to impose harsh restrictions on VOIP providers in an attempt to keep them from grabbing up market share.
It probably would have worked but for the efforts of just two independent voices, myself and a technician from Quebec named Francois Menard.
Though we worked independently, we both inherently understood that the proposals being tabled by the telco’s were based on old-school ways of thinking. It was the “Bell Heads” vs. the “Net Heads” all over again.
In the end the CRTC agreed with what we were saying all along; “the Commission concludes that the implementation of Ci2 is not viable due to Ci2’s technical limitations…”.
To put this into perspective you have to understand that traditionally the CRTC committees are made up of lawyers and senior regulatory policy analysts from the ILECs (Bell, Telus, Sasktel & MTS). Usually they all get together and make suggestions to the CRTC which are in all their best interests. Usually these suggestions are accepted. It’s a comfortable little system that has kept the Telcos rich and uncompetitive while Canada slips ever further down in the ranking of the worlds most connected countries (but I digress).
This time it was a little different. The one strength of the CRTC committee process is that absolutely anyone can participate. All you have to do is express an interest and be willing to sit through days and days of conference calls and meetings filled with bureaucratic and technical jargon. Trust me, it’s absolutely mind-numbing!
There were periods where I was spending more time on CRTC 911 business than on my own business.
Of course, the committee members and the CRTC (which, is mostly made up of former ILEC employees) still ignore you as best they can (the final CRTC decision only mentions us as “other parties”). But it was the only way to ensure that the committee and the CRTC had another perspective. One part of the decision in particular is almost a copy & paste of my own submission:
“[other parties] submitted that implementing Ci2 would lead Canada to a technological dead end and would result in costly retrofits to convert a highly customized solution to one based on international standards.”
There is no question that myself and Francois had an impact and I’m happy to say that we saved Canadians millions (the CRTC estimate is 190 million).
Thanks Francois, I’m patting us both on the back. Now lets start on NG911! On second thought, I’d rather swallow razor blades.
