The role of technology and policy in transforming online culture – chronicled by David Ellis
national digital strategy
To regulate, forbear or disappear: will the CRTC get starved out of existence?
180 days
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“There’s no such thing as summer any more.”
Michael Hennessy, Telus, June 30, 2011
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Over the months you may have noticed me finding fault with the way the CRTC does its job. Not only has the Commission demonstrated a highly skewed interpretation of the public interest. It has done so across an ever-expanding list of issues touching on consumer welfare: the new media exemption order, speed matching, ITMPs, UBB (times 2 or more), vertical integration, broadband target speeds, OTT content and Netflix, on it goes. It’s hard to gauge whether all this adds up to more than it used to be. Maybe it’s the writer’s cramp. A figment of my tired imagination? (more…)
Misguided assumptions behind the CRTC’s broadband target (1)
266 days
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A colleague of mine emailed me recently. He was responding to my April post on Rescuing Consumers from the Scourge of Netflix. He was amused. Then came this sobering thought: “Maybe things will change. Maybe. Keep pushing that rock up the hill.”
Thanks a bunch. Lately the soliloquies posted here have been sounding like a broken record and, yes, playing Sisyphus is a lot less fun than 
it looks. Why the annoying repetition? The problem has something to do with certain misguided policy assumptions that simply will not die – like those behind the CRTC’s May 3 decision, Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2011-291. As the press release says: “CRTC sets speed target for broadband Internet and maintains obligation to provide basic home telephone service.”
Here it is, one more time: having access to broadband and being a broadband adopter are from different planets (as I explained in 2 previous posts, here and here)
Reactions to the broadband target dwelt mainly on a) why aren’t we doing more for our poor compatriots in rural Canada; b) what particular speeds to target; and c) who’s gonna pay for any buildout. I was disappointed PIAC’s Lawford stayed mostly with the rural ethos, leaving too much room for the interpretation that broadband is all hunky-dory in urban centres:
“If there is no rural broadband now, there will not be any more thanks to this decision,” PIAC counsel John Lawford said in a press release (Wire Report, May 6). (more…)
Clement, arm’s length and really bad broadband policy
343 days
Artist's rendering of Canada's residential broadband system: deck chairs not shown
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Business as usual?
In the last two posts, I made the hopeful case that, this time, the conflict between the evil gatekeepers and the rest of us will be different. In 30 years as an observer of the industry, I’ve never seen anything quite like the furor over UBB.
Consumers seem to have a voice now. We have opposition politicians who get it. Bell and the other incumbents are getting exposed for the greedy pigs they are – not just through angry rants on discussion threads, but in quality analysis like you find, uh, here. But never, ever underestimate the ability of an old incumbent like Bell to bring back the old days. Especially one that controls the last mile and has been been handed a blank check to be whatever kind of content provider it wishes – so it has the motive and the opportunity to abuse its market power.
(Btw, let me clarify what I mean by “greedy pigs.” I’m referring to means rather than ends. I regularly have to explain to my students, who write
papers denouncing the profit motive, that profits are just fine. Even big profits. Makes the world go round. What is not fine is the means used by the incumbents to keep money coming in. This problem takes mild forms, like the obsession with ARPU, which encourages carriers to develop services that add little value yet make monthly bills run high. It also takes much more obnoxious forms – like data caps.)
Despite good reasons for caution in our optimism, Bell has to live for now with two unsavory consequences of the UBB blowout. First, some of the action has moved out of the old boys’ regulatory tent and into the court of public opinion. Second, an awful lot of Canadians have been getting an education on what was once one of life’s great mysteries: the inner workings of broadband. As Tim Wu suggests, certain highly concentrated and poorly regulated industries like residential broadband have built a business model around customer ignorance and apathy. So the more consumers know about what they’re buying, the less likely they are to be abused. Or that’s the theory. (more…)
Why Ottawa Must Learn to Love and Understand the Internet
724 days
Update: Sat, Feb.13 – This post prompted a valuable comment from Marc Garneau yesterday. In my post, I made the Liberals’ digital roundtable, held Thursday, sound as though it represented the sum total of the LPC’s consultations with Canadians interested in our digital future. I’m happy to stand corrected:
Thank you David for reporting on our Round Table and for providing some opinion. I just wanted to assure you that I receive valuable input from many interested groups on a continual basis. This is an extremely broad file as you know. Please don’t jump to the conclusion that the parties represented yesterday are the only ones we are interesting in hearing from or the only ones providing advice to my party. The number of groups is huge and my door is always open to hear from them, all in the interest of crafting the best policy.
Regards
Marc Garneau
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We’re hearing more and more rumblings from Ottawa about this thing they call a national digital strategy. (more…)
Imagining the Internet (6): institutions
764 days
My thoughts on this issue are focussed on Canada and its continuing issues. They’re not intended to address how other countries will adapt, mostly because institutional behaviors differ so much from one sovereign nation to another.
Q.6 – Will our relationship to institutions change?
A. By 2020, innovative forms of online cooperation will result in significantly more efficient and responsive governments, businesses, non-profits, and other mainstream institutions.
B. By 2020, governments, businesses, non-profits and other mainstream institutions will primarily retain familiar 20th century models for conduct of relationships with citizens and consumers online and offline. (more…)
Policy strategies for broadband: penetration vs quality
849 days
Thanks for your comments on my previous post, Elie. Some reactions follow.
First, let’s dispel any notion that getting us out of the broadband dark ages in Canada has one simple fix. You seem to suggest we need to choose between government investment in fiber and tougher ISP regulations. What we need is a combination of strategies that includes both public and private investment in infrastructure, especially but not exclusively in fiber.
We also need to re-regulate the Internet access market to prevent the broadband ISPs from engaging in undue preference and other discriminatory practices, smuggled in under the guise of network management practices. The ISPs will continue to fight off any such re-regulation if it favors network neutrality. (They’ve also recently invested in a consulting study that questions the claims Canada is a broadband laggard – from a list that includes the OECD, the ITIF, the ITU, Akamai and the Cisco BQS study. The author claims (p.87) that “these examples [of data from certain countries] demonstrate the dramatic differences that can occur when service speeds are measured using different methodologies.” That’s exactly the point. They all reach the same overall conclusion anyway: Canada is a broadband laggard, QED.) (more…)
