Unable to innovate, T.V. providers beg the government for protection

Following a pattern that often repeats itself, when an old-media company is unable to innovate and compete on its own, it goes begging to the government for protection.

And so it is with Canada’s media and cable companies. With the end of the cable monopoly in sight, they are begging the CRTC to regulate over-the-top services.

These companies (Shaw, Bell, etc) control virtually every aspect of Canadian media delivery. Everything from the content itself all the way down to the physical wires and airwaves that beam the content to homes. Yet, they are so fat-and-happy with their position that even the mere thought that they might need to do something to compete sends them crying to the CRTC for relief.

Like the music industry before it, their demise can’t come soon enough.

Microsoft not a player in tablets

Gartner is declaring that Microsoft will not even have a 1% share of the tablet space until at least 2015. Their reasoning is that since nothing Microsoft has today is suitable for tablets, Microsoft will have to wait until Windows 8 to re-launch their tablet strategy and that isn’t due until at least 2012.

But as I’ve said before, if Microsoft is going to put “Windows” on it, they might as well not bother.

Linux vs. Microsoft: It’s over…

Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin said in a recent interview that Microsoft is increasingly irrelevant. “I think we just don’t care that much [about Microsoft] anymore … They used to be our big rival, but now it’s kind of like kicking a puppy.”

Zemlin points out that Linux is dominant in every sector except the Desktop. And while the desktop is certainly not an insignificant portion of the market, this is also likely to change dramatically over the next 5  years as mobile devices start to replace laptops and desktops.

Think of it this way, is your next purchase likely to be another $1000 home computer with windows, or with some other device like a $300 tablet? There is no longer any compelling reason to buy a home computer with Windows so the trend is inevitably away from desktop PCs.

It won’t happen overnight but I’ll bet that sometime over the next couple years you’ll cast your gaze over to your home PC and realize it has a layer of dust on it. At that point you’ll realize that your beloved PC, the one that you thought you could never live without hasn’t even been turned on for weeks.

It could be worse…

A comparison of broadband caps and usage charges in various countries. The article has comments from a user in the Kingdom of Bahrain where users are subject to “ruinous” bandwidth caps. Elsewhere, the comparison shows that Canada’s caps are among the most restrictive.

The bottom line is simply this; high telecommunication costs reduce productivity and stifle innovation.

Bell drops per-user usage-based billing proposal

Feeling the heat from the consumer backlash, Bell has withdrawn it’s UBB application with the CRTC. This must certainly come as a relief to the CRTC which can now slip out the back door without having to conduct a public hearing into the proposal risking the ire of both the Conservative Government and the public.

One interesting detail from the proposal is that the wholesale rate for data transfer is 19.5 cents per gigabyte. This confirms statements by critics such as Netflix that data caps on home internet users are there to prevent competition.

Netflix says ISP data caps are all about profits

“Netflix says Canadian Internet providers are using data caps to inflate their profits, not provide better service.” From CTV.

Rogers bungles throttling

According to a complaint filed with the CRTC, Rogers has implemented traffic throttling on it’s network which is so primitive it can’t distinguish between World of Warcraft and Peer-2-peer traffic. If it can’t tell the difference between WoW and P2P, then what else is it accidentally being caught in it’s traffic shaping?

Where is the transparency that the CRTC ordered the IPSs provide in exchange for allowing throttling in the first place?

If the CRTC was a real regulatory body then they would have ordered Rogers to immediately fix the filters, or remove them. But no, that’s not the way it works. The CRTC just pats the consumer on the head and tells them to run along. And after sharing a good laugh and a round of high-fives with Rogers over having successfully thwarted another petty complaint, they put their feet back up on the desk.