The CRTC needs to connect with Canadians, not consult with them
What follows contains some references for which links have disappeared since August 2010. Therein lies one of the most 
compelling signs that the way the Commission does research is in sorry shape. Canada needs good information about broadband collected and stored in databases where it can be accessed in the future, rather than evaporate overnight. As you’ll see, this is just one of many reasons to question why the Commission undertook this exercise and how it reflects on Ottawa’s misguided policy priorities.
Anatomy of a public consultation
Friday August 20 marked the last official day of the CRTC’s 4-week online consultation on the “obligation to serve” (link may die any time). In a previous post I looked briefly at the Pew Internet’s current Home Broadband survey, in particular, the things people say about why they’re not on broadband.
I saw a hook to the CRTC consultation, since the consultation is focussed heavily on a similar group in Canada: those who don’t have broadband because they live in rural and remote parts of the country. That’s where the similarities end.
The Pew survey, like all Pew’s work, is rigorous and empirical, yielding results that can form part of a policy-oriented discussion (even if you don’t agree with all their conclusions). It is a) a tracking survey, i.e. done on a regular basis to identify trends over time; b) based on a large sample (N=2,252), which allows for over-sampling of minorities, regional populations, etc; and c) done by random, which means the results are representative of the US adult population within known margins of error.
The CRTC consultation, on the other hand, was initiated “to hear Canadians’ thoughts about their access to basic telephone and Internet services” (About this consultation). That’s the stated goal. The truth is the consultation couldn’t make up its mind what it was. It turned out like a shaky combination of crowdsourcing (to unearth novel policy ideas); surveying (to see what Canadians think); and marketing (to inform visitors what the CRTC thinks).
PARTIAL SCREENSHOT OF CONSULTATION HOME PAGE
Pew Internet’s “Home Broadband” on non-adopters
This week, the Pew Internet Project released its indispensable annual survey, Home Broadband, 2010 edition. Both pdf and online versions are available here. The big headline for me is in the latest data about a) the attitude of non-Internet users to broadband as a policy priority, and b) the reasons non-adopters don’t adopt.
Surprise! High-speed access is a low priority for non-onliners!
This chart from the report (p.19) shows that, among non-users of the Internet, an astonishing two-thirds (66%) believe that expanding “affordable high-speed Internet access” is either not too important as a priority or should not be a priority at all, while another 15% of this group are in the DK category. Read the rest of this entry
The iPhone4: Gatekeeping Swings Both Ways
Photo by Abhijit Tembhekar
Last Friday I stumbled up to the Yorkdale Apple Store to have something looked at in my MacBook Pro. And I was suddenly reminded by the milling throng it was launch day for the iPhone 4. At one point, the lineup apparently stretched almost to the Rogers store… where there was no lineup. Just a hastily made sign warning customers Rogers might run out of units. How times have changed.
Battle of the control freaks
In the midst of the feeding frenzy, the Apple lady in charge of the front door found a Genius who wasn’t on phone duty. He pushed me past a phalanx of security guards, pronounced my MBP fan busted and ordered the replacement part. He apologized for not having the part in stock and insisted that being a month out of warranty was not a problem. Kids, don’t try that at your local cellular store.
In fact, three years ago I tried something along those lines with a handset I bought from my carrier. Even though I had been with them for over 10 years, their reward for loyalty was to lie to my face about the Bluetooth functionality in the unit. One or more profiles, including the Object Push Profile, had been crippled, probably for the purpose of forcing transfers of files like jpeg’s to run over the cell network (see ARPU). The vendor rep told me I didn’t understand how the phone worked and I should have read the 200-page manual in the store before I bought the phone. Read the rest of this entry
More evidence: in Canada, consumer connectivity is weakest link
The Connectivity Scorecard scores again
The Len Waverman team, they of Connectivity Scorecard fame, have given us a brand new version for 2010 – and as usual, plenty of things to disagree over. But today I’m going to pass on the fine print and go straight to this chart from the Canadian pdf (main Web page).
From the 2010 Connectivity Scorecard
This chart shows gaps in performance between Canada and the corresponding best performing country. The three pairs cover government, business and consumer variables respectively.
The really interesting part is where Canada’s consumer variables stand next to the best countries: significantly worse, especially for infrastructure. The numerical gap in consumer infrastructure (Canada vs the best performer) is double – 0.96 vs 0.48. Our business infrastructure is behind by a much smaller proportion – 0.86 to 0.79. (The Scorecard assigns a higher weight in the final scores to business variables, but that’s another debate.)
With this evidence in hand, would you start designing a national digital strategy devoted to ICTs for business – which never mentioned consumer welfare? Read the rest of this entry
Broadband as a legal right (part 2)
Why is this (Finnish) man smiling?
Finland’s new classification of broadband doesn’t just confer a legal right on consumers – the hook for all the news reports I’ve read. It also imposes a legal obligation on Finland’s ISPs to extend service to everyone in their licensed territory – and not just in rural areas. As FICORA (the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority) puts it, July 1 is the date when “telecom operators’ new universal service obligations enter[ed] into force.”
The regulator has given 26 operators their marching orders, apparently without having to spend years in court and Cabinet backrooms fighting appeals. This was accomplished by way of an amendment to the Communications Market Act. Read the rest of this entry
Broadband as a legal right (part 1)
Universality was one of the core consumer-protection principles that developed alongside monopoly telephone service. The dilemma facing policymakers now is when and how broadband should be classified as an entitlement or lifeline service.
This debate is being pushed along by the disappearance of wireline voice service from North American homes. The latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics show that by the end of 2009, one in four American homes had wireless phone service only. In addition, nearly 15% of homes were designated in the NCHS survey as “wireless mostly.” Although these homes have a landline, all or almost all calls are received on a wireless phone. These numbers mean that almost 40% of US homes have effectively cut the POTS cord. Read the rest of this entry
Comment in July Telemanagement: it’s the affordability, stupid
My latest comment has been posted on Telemanagement’s Web site – What the FCC and OECD can tell us about Canada’s broadband prospects. After reading it, a colleague told me I’d buried the lead. OK, the lead is something like this:
In Canada, we’ve gloated for years about our broadband penetration numbers, while avoiding any critical talk about our abysmal performance on the most important measure of long-term success – affordability. If we don’t focus our policy efforts on what end-users can afford, and how to expand adoption and usage, we’ll never regain a leading position internationally and the Digital Consultation will fail.
Below I’ve cherrypicked a couple of observations from the Telemanagement piece (with some edits). The first is Canada’s standing on prices from the numbers updated by the OECD in May. The second is a quick piece of content analysis I did on the word “affordable.”
The OECD has organized its pricing information in 13 different datasets (all data are available on the OECD Broadband Portal). Let’s look at two of these: average broadband monthly subscription price, by country (worksheet 4e), and average broadband monthly price per advertised Mbit/s, by country (worksheet 4f):
- Average monthly subscription price: Canada ranks 23rd out of 30.
- Average monthly price per advertised Mbit/s: Canada ranks 25th out of 30. Read the rest of this entry
Quoted: in Pew Internet’s “The future of cloud computing” and The Wire Report on the Digital strategy consultation paper
On June 11, the Pew Internet & American Life Project published another instalment in a series of reports on the Future of the Internet – this one on cloud computing. These reports are based on the experts survey conducted by Pew in December 2009. This is an extremely valuable resource, with links on their Web site to presentations, press mentions and related Pew research. I highly recommend The Future of the Internet to anyone devoted to understanding the miraculous Internet – and to helping others understand it.
In the section beginning on p.13, the report sums up one of the social tensions created by cloud computing as follows:
“Control over actions on the Internet will change with mass adoption of the cloud. When people store their information and applications on their own computers as they have been up till now, a certain amount of choice and control is distributed to the edges of the network. A switch to the cloud places users’ data and tools behind walls owned by others, and the people in control of cloud companies may take action that constricts individual choice and restricts openness and innovation.”
My survey answer is quoted on the following page:
“By 2020 we’ll still be feeling pulled in two directions: wanting the convenience of the cloud and the enhanced privacy, security, and speed of the local. But the local won’t be confined to the desktop and general-purpose PCs. That paradigm will be exploded by ubiquitous computing, IPv6, and the primacy of mobile broadband, which will define the local in terms of our personal space. Cloud computing will become important enough to transfer internet gate-keeping powers from ISPs to firms like Google and Apple. By 2020, Google’s vast array of well-made (and still largely free) products will create walled gardens based on customer consent rather than lock-in. The old- fashioned concepts of the desktop and general-purpose PC will fade away, hastening the demise of Microsoft, which will continue to lose share in growth sectors like mobile broadband. The iPhone and App Store will be the models for another kind of gate- keeping, in the local space – not in the cloud through MobileMe, because Apple’s consumer appeal will remain rooted in its physical products. Apple’s influence over application developers will continue to cross back and forth over the line between opportunity and exploitation.”
[Correction: The report editors have inadvertantly promoted me to “director of communication studies at York University.” A nice thought, but that should read “a course director in communication studies at York University.”] Read the rest of this entry
