KELOWNA – A dozen informative seminars dotted the schedule of the CommTech trade show, held over two days here at the Coast Capri Hotel.
Below are notes from two of the 12 training seminars, which talked about subjects such as reducing locate costs, network synchronization, fusion splicing techniques, air-blown fibre, safety, Ethernet troubleshooting, IPTV testing, WiFi, OTDR testing and third party VOIP providers.
This morning, delegates were treated to an hour with Telus regulatory vice-president Willie Grieve, who expounded on where he believes the regulatory system is headed (and maybe should be headed).
He pointed to the crowd of technicians (telco and cable) and drew a parallel with cars and the highways they drive on. "You guys work on and drive the cars," he said. "We work on the highway… the rules of the road."
With the capabilities of today’s cars however, the rules of the road in the telecom and cable world seem anachronistic, scarcely able to manage the traffic, the speed and the ever-growing list of capabilities – or applications – embedded in the autos.
Grieve pointed to the three different pillars of regulation: economic; technical; and social/cultural. All are changing – and must change, he added – pointing to the recent Telecom Policy Review Report as a blueprint for such regulatory reconstruction.
The problem legislators and policy makers must juggle, however, is that so many existing business plans are centred around certain assumptions on industry regulation but with both the broadcasting and telecom world in an ongoing collision, those assumptions no longer hold true for many. "Somebody’s ox is going to get gored," said Grieve.
The TPR report, as reported by cartt.ca, addressed those concerns and set out new ways for the telecom industry to reach deregulation and suggested the same for the broadcast world. "This is quite an important document," he said. "it’s a new world, difficult for incumbents and independents," where certain segments, like wholesale line leasing, "does not need to be regulated as much."
In hindsight, all of the unbundling the CRTC forced ILECs to do to facilitate leasing of lines to third party telcos, made sure that no company built new facilities. If they could rely on telcos – and to a later, lesser, extent, cable, why build new plant?
So, an item like this should be left up to market forces, Grieve added. If existing plant owners like telcos and cablecos don’t want to see overbuilders in their spaces, it’s in their interest to lease access.
Grieve’s informative presentation also touched on "the religion" of network neutrality, copyright, privacy, the impact of the Competition Bureau, the differences between how telecom companies are regulated compared to broadcast and cable and the VOIP decision. "The regulatory rules can have a very different affect, depending on your network," he added.
Those networks are being widely used to deliver voice over Internet protocol to consumers, which Capella Telecommunications’ Tim Penner talked about in his seminar on Wednesday.
He pointed to the huge potential for revenue which exists for cable operators if they can take even a tiny chunk of the voice revenue in the marketplace. He cited research that said cable telephony revenue will hit US$10 billion by 2009.
But, given the rapid growth in customers among Canadian cable operators (Videotron signed up 200,000 VOIP customers in a year), that shows they are not all disgruntled Bell customers. Many are keeping their traditional wireline company and adding to it. "They are adding a second line to take advantage of the bundle," of voice, Internet and video, Penner said.
In a test case, Penner pointed to the value of testing, testing and testing before rollout. The case was of a cable company with 16,000 voice customers which was experiencing a 16.2% monthly trouble report rate – very high. Much of the trouble was thanks to faulty customer premises wiring, which had to be replaced so he cautioned the carriers in the room to ensure that even though it works in the office, or the lab, test thoroughly when installing in customers’ homes,
Contest winners
COMMTECH SILVER SPONSOR draw winners of $100 at Future Shop were:
Jason Atkinson of Mascon Communications
Karl Aschenbrener of SaskTel
Rick Carlson of Telus
Terry MacCormac of Telus
The winners of the cartt.ca draws for $100 at Golf Town and a lifetime cartt.ca subscription were:
Martin Bedford of Mil-Sted Communications won the Golf Town Gift Card
Murray Webster of Omineca Cablevision won the lifetime subscription.
