COMMENTARY: Are our regs coming apart at the streams?

IF YOU THOUGHT THE “usage-based billing” debate was loud, just wait until the “regulate Netflix” debate.(Both of those arguments are inextricably linked, of course, but we’ll tackle that part another time.)In talking to many regulatory folks over the past number of days, it seems a virtual certainty that the CRTC will hold some sort of proceeding to look at the non-Canadian, unregulated video sector, otherwise known as over-the-top video (OTT). This rapidly growing segment (in terms of usage) encompasses Netflix, AppleTV, GoogleTV, Hulu, whatever video portal or digital locker service Amazon might bring to Canada, YouTube, movies rented via Facebook and...