I THINK WE’VE ALL HIT the point of severe fatigue when it comes to talking about telecom policy.
A number of senior telecom executives rehashed their recent regulatory presentations this week in Toronto during the third annual Canadian Telecommunications Forum, put on by Insight Communications.
The sessions featured all the usual suspects from Telus (EVP Janet Yale), MTS (SVP Chris Peirce), the CCTA (president Michael Hennessy) and others. But in their sessions on Monday, let’s just say the spark was missing that has been there at other times this year.
Bell’s main regulatory honchos, Lawson Hunter and Mirko Bibic actually bailed on the event.
You got the distinct feeling these folks have gone through these arguments so many times before that it was hard to muster much emotion.
The incumbent telcos want de-regulation immediately. Cable doesn’t. The big guys are too big and would target-price in markets like the giant predator it is. No way, says the incumbents. We want rational pricing to maintain revenue.
There are a number of items before a number of panels right now. The Telecom Review Panel just wrapped up its information gathering and is to file a report with Industry Minister David Emerson before the end of this year. Thousands of pages.
The end of September saw the CRTC’s local forbearance hearings. It has set a 150-day deadline (so, March sometime) for a decision there. More paper. More speeches.
Don’t forget about the incumbent telcos’ appeal to Federal Cabinet the CRTC’s restrictive win-back rules that say they aren’t allowed to contact a customer – for any product – for a year after they’ve decided to go with another telecom provider.
Then, there’s the incumbent telcos’ appeal to Cabinet of the CRTC voice over IP regulatory decision. Cabinet has a year from the date of the decision (May 12) to figure out what to do and will probably take its lead from the CRTC and TRP. And, that’s if government even lasts long enough to make a decision, given its minority status and the Prime Minister’s statement that he’ll call an election within 30 days of the next Gomery Report, due in February.
The big picture has been hammered on over and over but there are numerous other issues that old and new telcos alike must face. They are complex and must be dealt with outside of the bigger issues.
For example, a bill will come before Parliament very soon on wire-tapping. The current system involves the police getting a court order and then bringing their gear to the telco in order to listen in on a bad guy’s calls. The proposed bill, said those leading the session (including the CCTA’s VP legal affairs Jay Kerr-Wilson), will demand that telcos install their own listening gear and turning it on for the cops whenever the police get a court order.
Who’s going to pay for this? What are the privacy issues? What about network security and stability? What about the new VOIP providers? What do they do if it’s not their network?
All good questions. Few answers as yet.
Think 911 is sorted out? Think again. The issues here are myriad, beginning, often, with the older systems in place in municipalities’ emergency call centres.
Couple this with new roaming broadband phones and wireless technology which can point out where people are only sometimes, and 911 is an enormous challenge.
Judy Bloomfield, the 911 co-ordinator for Toronto, said at the conference there are 500,841 street addresses in the city. Thirty percent of the population uses English as a second language. Major challenges on their own – without new technology.
Her operation fields a million 911 calls a year (2,500 to 3,700 a day, depending on the day) and so far this year – thanks, or no thanks, to technology – the Toronto 911 call centre has fielded calls from Arizona, Pennsylvania, Montreal, Peterborough and London, Ont.
Those nomadic IP phones that can be plugged in anywhere – or the way people can now have a Calgary phone number, for example, and be living in Toronto? “It has been a struggle,” said Bloomfield.
And what of getting broadband to everyone in every region? It’s coming, but as Rogers Communications VP regulatory Ken Englehart said: “The problem with getting broadband to remote communities is the fact they’re remote.”
Getting broadband into the far north and other hard to reach places is taking and will take government funding. Saskatchewan and New Brunswick are the most recent provinces to fund programs and Alberta, with its Supernet, was cited as the best example.
There simply isn’t a business case yet for bringing high speed Internet to “towns” of a dozen homes, for example.
So it’s not all about predatory pricing and deregulation. There are many deeper issues if you’re a telco – or about to become one.
