OTTAWA – A number of Canada’s leading information technology companies (Rogers and Bell, for example) have united to urge the government to modernize the Telecommunications Act in order to promote the government’s entire agenda of competition, investment and commercialization.
The urging comes in a submission to the federal government’s Telecom Policy Review (TRP) delivered by the CATA-CAIP TelecomACT Working Group, a high-level panel drawn from the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), and its parent organization, the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA). Industry members included: MTS Allstream, Bell, Ericsson, MCI, Nakina Systems, Rogers, Telesat, Telus, Eagle.ca, AOL, Orbit.com, NetIdea., Execulink and IBI Group.
“Communications technology is the engine for the growth of every other sector,” said John Reid, president, CATA. “The Telecommunications Act should be a catalyst to drive all of the government’s agenda. Our submission includes a call for modernization and streamlining of government processes. As an example of a new way that industry can work with government to achieve more rapid modernization, the submission cited the success of an initiative by the CAIP Carrier Relations Committee, which created consensus on an issue and then received CRTC approval — cutting the time required for a decision by a factor of four."
The CATA-CAIP TelecomACT submission is part of a six-month advocacy campaign to encourage the adoption of advanced information and communications systems, in harmony with other priorities and policies. It is one of the key planks of Canada’s high tech industry’s growth platform.
"This is a very significant collaboration," added Joanne Stanley, vice-president of CAIP. "The industry players consolidated their views and put their strength behind a call for a competitive and innovative agenda for renewed communications growth — the ultimate prerequisite for Canadian competitiveness. All the other activities in our economy rest on the foundation of information and communications technologies."
The TelecomACT Working Group’s overall objective "is to harness the energies of the participants in a way that expands the total wealth of the Canadian nation," said Stanley in the press release. "In an era of fundamental technological change, where traditional business models are being overthrown, the challenge for Canadian policy makers is to draft frameworks, which clearly articulate their bias towards innovation, competition, openness. A similar debate is ongoing in the U.S., and the bias is clearly towards pro-competition and consumer choice."
Highlights of the industry’s submission include:
Re-thinking the Telecommunications Act
As a result of change agents like Internet Protocol, an unprecedented rate of innovation is happening in the industry. This means that the regulatory regime has to cope with rapidly evolving issues in a way that engenders meaningful competition, more consumer choice, better open access, and increased security. The submission noted that, “a new Act should broaden its conception of the relevant forms of competition in services to include the new kinds of services and competitors made possible by the Internet and re-examine the restrictions and prohibitions that have been in place since the 1990s. This could include a rejection of the current statutory assumption that every service is regulated by a tariff.”
Creating a new way of dealing with dispute resolution
Over the last decade the number of companies subject to regulatory oversight has increased dramatically, and the CRTC’s ability to deal with requests in a timely manner had diminished. "One viable method of further reducing the time it takes to achieve regulatory approval is to allow parties to first attempt to resolve their own disputes, with the regulator becoming involved only when independent resolution is not possible," says the submission. CATA-CAIP’s Carrier Relations Committee negotiated a new wholesale tariff for ADSL services with Bell Canada. The negotiating process took less than three months to complete and the new tariff was approved within thirty days of the final agreement. This was an unprecedented approach to seeking changes to the wholesale environment."
Advancing Canada’s Connectivity Agenda
Broadband is the infrastructure underpinning a 21st century knowledge-based economy. The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that broadband access is extended to all communities throughout the country. This access can be achieved almost entirely from market forces. With the deployment of broadband and other high-speed technologies such as satellite and Wi-Max that are commercially viable throughout Canada, there may be limited instances in which government intervention is required to reach full coverage. When it is required, it should not be funded by imposing an obligation or tax on the telecom industry alone, when the benefits are felt throughout the economy.
Making the most of technology
Canada is one of the top five broadband-connected countries in the world – an impressive achievement considering Canada’s enormous size and population distribution. The challenge is to ensure that Canada continues to remain at the leading edge in the deployment of information and communication technologies. “In our view,” says the submission, “a policy that supports and promotes competition in all forms is the key. Creativity and the quest for differentiation have always been enhanced by competition.
The government’s strategy of providing incentives for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to adopt and develop leading-edge innovations clearly illustrates this point. Small firms that reported a high level of web connectivity saw their revenues rise about twice as much as (approximately 2.25 times more than) firms with no web connectivity. Competition drives further advances in ICT, forming a "virtuous circle" of innovation/R&D, services/applications development and delivery, and demand.
Competition also opens the door to new and appropriate levels of investment. The potential for progress is immense: our fundamentals are sound and our ambitions are great. For example, Canada ranks second in the world (after Sweden) in "E-Learning Readiness", which indicates a country’s ability to produce, use and expand Internet-based learning."
Telecom Policy Review and commercialization
CATA-CAIP believes that the goal of the telecom policy to create the proper environment for Canadian businesses to be competitive, both domestically and on the world markets, is paramount to strengthening Canadian industry and is closely tied with the topic of commercialization.
"The telecom policy can provide the impetus for Canadian businesses to experience sustained growth by creating the proper policies to address both macro factors dealing with national and general industry issues as well as with micro factors related to individual companies,” says the submission.
Key issues include the protection of IP in international markets where IP protection policies are not always strictly enforced, the encouragement by government to invest in innovation for products for worldwide markets, and the encouragement by government for new innovation.
