Hard rain falling on CRTC

Next time I share some corporate sushi with my good friend Phil Lind I am going to have to explain how it was I came to the defense of the CRTC. Now usually when Phil and I get together and talk about the CRTC the topic of the best way to blow it up for crimes real (fee for carriage)or imagined (cant think of any right now :-)usually comes up in the conversation. Luckily Phil being a mellow force in the media world usually calms me down. But even so how to explain this blog to Phil where in the midst of corporate nashing of teeth over fee for carriage and potential ISP taxes, I find myself actually challenging an online petition called disolvethecrtc.ca aimed at shutting down the CRTC and replacing it with some secretariat or politburo with delegated authority to speak on behalf of the people.

The premise of the petition seems to be that the CRTC is too reflective of corporate interests and not concerned with the public voice. Now this comes as a surprise to me since I measure my effectiveness from various cuts and bruises recieved from regulators ( I should be out of hospital soon,thanks for asking). That's why on bad days I yell like some corporate anarchist about blowing up the CRTC,Industry Canada or whatever government body has upset me.

Yet I must admit as a revolutionary, I am clearly not worthy . For as reported through the blogoshere and on cbc.ca the petition to disolve the CRTC has legs .The CRTC's crime you ask having waded through 3 paragraphs to get here? Well crime of the century. The CRTC approved a Bell tariff that included consumption -based rates for wholesale services. Now maybe I am old fashioned and out of touch (don't comment back, your repartee would be too obvious) but when did it become a crime for an economic regulator to approve a bulk rate that varied on volume consumed? Isn't that how most products are priced ? Take other regulated products like electricity or water.

The petition shows the power of the Internet to change things . And it is a powerful tool indeed but also a dangerous one . As powerful as the Internet is for the power to communicate and share ideas it is also a powerful tool to affect political power in good and bad ways depending on who manipulates the tool. In this case what egregious crime was commited? None that I can see although as in any regulatory decision affecting price there are winners and losers (and I have seen lots of losses ).

Stuff that comes out of the Internet like disolvethecrtc is often good as quick news and fun for those of us that increasingly process information in tweets and blackberry messages. The validity of the arguments behind this petition only make sense if you dont think about them ;actually a new type of thinking now popularized in a world of instant messaging where reason is made sacrifice to speed, emotion trumps rational thought and gossip and inuendo can have as much force as fact.

Not thinking too hard is a recipe for chaos. As powerful as as the Internet is for a rebalancing of power in a democartic sense, it is also open to manipualtion in a world where the time for sober second though gets lost in the noise.

Thus my support for the CRTC on this one .It is well within their mandate to do this . And yes maybe we do need a new approach to regulation, but surely before we do that government,users and suppliers in the ICT and digital media realm need to keep working towards some consensus on a national strategy . The design of regulatory bodies should follow the strategy not lead it.

The Internet is a powerful tool for change. It has been used to provide voice to those that had none in an analog world. It was used to elect a President. But its a tool that often sways opinion without fact or attribution. As the Internet becomes a tool to affect power it will be increasingly adopted by the powerful (like political machines in Chicago). Its a two edged sword and it enables quick learning. Imagine a couple of old GR warhorses over some corporate (yet sustainable ) sushi suddenly seeing the light. Imagine if they decided that rather than advocating blowing up the CRTC when it did bad things to their interests ,they help fund viral campaigns to blow up the CRTC for totally unrelated reasons that the Internet rebels thought were their own .Hmm welcome to the future where it will be increasingly hard to figure out who's agenda is whose .

Note to self .Call Phil .Got an idea.

Lets spend as much on ICT as Obama is spending on cash for clunkers

Yesterday Tom Jenkins wrote an op-ed in the Globe lamenting a lack of any ICT strategy for Canada (agree) and once more echoing the concern of all who repeat the mantra the Canada is falling behind in our broadband leadership. The problem is that I do not buy the thesis (not to say we dont have huge investment challenges) . I sometimes think that with all the cutbacks in the newsrooms of the Country that what now passes for fact is often what was once rumour online but subsequently repeated often enough to attract a patina of dogma. I have ranted on this before but let me try again.

A lot of the concern on our broadband gap stems from a recent OECD report that showed Canada dropping in the global broadband ratings .That is concern indeed when once the Industry department under John Manley, Kevin Lynch and Michael Binder was able to brag that Canada was numer 2 or 3 in the world when it came to broadband penetration. Oh woe is Canada for now we have dropped fast and can no longer boast that we are world leaders. But wait according to the data we are still best in the G8 but who gives a toss about that eh?

One could argue that canada leading larger G8 economies is an accomplishment. But what about those irritating Danes who score above Canada. Will the insults never stop . First they steal our cod and then place nefarious land claims to rocks somewhere in the Artic. How can a country with a land mass the size of Denmark have rolled out more broadband than Canada. Shameful indeed.

Worst still we trail Luxemburg a country the size of Missassauga. What is Hazell McCallion to do about this insult to our sense of nation.

Ok so Tom has a point . ICT is critical and government should spend more time on that than propping up the old economy. But let's figure out a way to measure the "problem". I would submit that our measurements are unsophisticated and outdated. The OECD reflects the world of 2008 but even there its not clear what's measured is valid.

• Most cable modem service is not reflected in the OECD report even though cable has more broadband share than DSL (add in the real cable count and speed and penetration jump)
• By 2010 Canadians wil be able to access multiple HSPA networks delivering the fastest speeds in the world(HSPA will deliver broadband at speeds in excess of some landline speeds today
• In order to assess our ability as an economy to benefit from broadband we need better measures of the quality of our enterprise networks (total broadband penetration is great for bragging right but business access is a bigger driver of productivity)
• If we were to measure what our broadband penetration will be by 2010 in a way that includes cable penetration, new wireless broadband and our enterprise infrastructure then I bet we would still top the G8 (although the US would be at the top as well). We would still lag Korea or Japan for pure speed but that's a result of industrial strategy and intervention more than business investment.

So I can agree with Tom Jenkins that we need to focus on ICT in this country. And he and the ITAC community can count on support from TELUS on pushing an ICT agenda. I also believe we can accelerate investment with less regulation and fees and more improvements in capital cost allowances and tax credits for commercial development . That would sure help drive our efforts to increase investment in fiber to the home (which is a challenge) .But I am tired of the continued references by opinion makers to problems in broadband that dont exist or are overstated.

So step1 in Canada's new ICT strategy. How about our government working with the OECD to actually input reality into these global scorecards we so emotionally tie ourselves to? And bigger step 2 ,lets incent as much investment in broadband and IT as Obama is spending on cash for clunkers.