In response to CRTC notice of consultation 2009-129 paragraph 20, I filed with the CRTC “A Framework for Emergency Calling in Canada“. This document describes a functional archetecture for location determination during emergecy calls placed from VOIP endpoints.
MTS released a zinger of a press release today attacking Bell and Telus. Here is a couple of highlights with my comments:
“Granting the Bell and Telus request would also put Canada directly at odds with the emerging international consensus that an open access model is the optimal means for broadening competitive choice for broadband customers.”
Open access?! This must have been written by someone on the Allstream side of the business because you can reset assured nobody at MTS even knows what open access means. But wait! It gets better:
“Compared to most of the industrialized world, Canadians already pay higher prices for slower Internet speeds.”
And nowhere is that more true than in MTS’s home territory. If MTS is so eagar to provide faster, cheaper internet, why don’t they start with Manitoba?
I’m floored by these statements, not because they’re wrong, but because they’re 100% right! MTS continues to be the beast with two heads. The Allstream head is a “nethead” that gets this whole internet thing, and the MTS head is a “bellhead” that represents the worst of “big telco” arragance and poor service.
I’m just glad that someone at Allstream understands what’s at stake and is doing something to counter the rest of the ILECs. Maybe there is hope for Canada after all?
If it wasn’t already obvious how badly Canada needs to lift it’s foreign ownership rules, this week, the Toronto Star is reporting that Telus has demanded that the CRTC re-examine how much foreign ownership there really is in new wireless entrant Globealive.
The ILEC’s know that there is no Canadian owned company that could afford to build a new wireless network big enough to compete and that’s why Telus is raising a red flag over Globalive. It well knows that no foreign company would pour hundreds of millions of dollars into building a wireless network it doesn’t own and my hunch is that Telus is right. There is something fishy going on there and the government should do something about it. It’s just that what I think the government should do isn’t what Telus wants.
Lets lift these ridiculous foreign ownership restrictions once and for all and get on with finally building a better, more cost effective network. If Globalive really is pulling a fast one with foreign money, then it isn’t fair to the other new wireless entrants who are playing by a stricter set of rules.
It’s also worth noting that the Canadian wireless spectrum auction that generated so much more money than expected, did so because foreign companies bid the prices up so high. If Canada really wants to get “fair market value” for it’s wireless spectrum, then by definition it needs to have a fair market. That means a market that isn’t artificially restricted by outdated ownership rules and where competition drives prices down so us Canadians get to use our public airwaves at a reasonable price.
The CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission) released a notice of consultation today which calls on interested parties to make further submissions on potential solutions for IP location determination for E911.
As the former president of the Canadian Association of VOIP Providers I was deeply involved in the process which has lead up to this point over the last few years.
VOIP providers who operate in Canada should be aware that the proposed “Canadian i2″ solution (named after NENA i2) has a litany of costly technical solutions which ultimately will drive up the cost of accessing 911 service.
** If alternatives are not proposed, you will have a solution developed by Bell Canada imposed on you. **
If you are interested in assisting with the preparation of a submission on alternative technological solutions or even just supporting it by adding your name to the document once it has been completed, please contact me directly.
Both individual and corporate participation is welcome.
The decision is here:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-194.htm
Critical Paragraph:
24. Parties proposing alternative solutions to the Companies’ proposed nomadic VoIP E9-1-1 service are to file with the Commission, serving copies on all other parties, submissions providing the information set out in Appendix 2 by 15 June 2009.
A story with background information:
The Australian government has made a stunning commitment to build a nation-wide fibre network infrastructure. But not only that, it will be an “open-access wholesale only” infrastructure. This is exactly what Canada needs; or maybe we should all just move to Australia? (well except for their draconian Internet Censorship)
The network will be “open access” so retail ISPs can build their own products to sell to businesses and consumers.
Calling it, the “single largest infrastructure decision in Australia’s history”, Rudd said the project would employ up to 37,000 people a year and help stimulate the Australian economy. Private industry would contribute up to 49% of the funds, and the government would sell the company after operating it for 5 years, he said.
According to this Globe and Mail story, the CRTC is going to order the telcoms to finally fix the cellular 911 network.
Unfortunately this exposes just what a sad joke the CRTC has become. They have known about this problem for years and they were warned that there would be deaths if something wasn’t done. It was obvious.
Result? Deaths. There have been at least three recent incidents where location determination of cell callers could have saved lives.
But the CRTC allowed the PSAPs and the ILECs to waste more than two years on a non-solution for VOIP location determination while doing nothing about wireless. And now that people are actually dieing the CRTC finally decides it should do something. What a joke. The people at the CRTC that have allowed this to transpire should loose their jobs.
Don’t get me wrong, VOIP location determination is needed but it pales in importance to wireless. More than 50% of calls to 911 come from cell phones while VOIP calls are less than 1% (it’s actually so small no statistics are kept). Furthermore, there are “off-the-shelf” solutions for wireless location determination. Nothing like that exists for VOIP. And let us not forget that the cell companies have been charging “911 access” fees which they just pocket instead of actually using them to implement proper 911 systems.
Finally someone in the media has looked beyond the hype about VOIP and 911 and done a decent job of assessing Canada’s entire 911 system. This story in The Globe & Mail finally seems to have grasped the reality that cell phones are a far more serious threat to the 911 system than VOIP will ever be.
While I fault the article for glossing over the VOIP location problem (it’s far more expensive and complicated than the cell phone problem), it does a good job of pointing out that the cell industry has a solution available for $50 million, a drop in the bucket compared to overall revenue and far less than the estimated $150 million the cell phone providers charge (and mostly pocket) for 911 access fees.
It is unbelievable that cell providers are allowed to collect and pocket $150 million in 911 access fees (over and above the profits they already make on wireless) while a ready made, $50 million solution exists that could save lives!
Rogers, Bell, MTS, and Telus should be ashamed.
This CBC story reports on the results of a study of broadband speeds across the world and Canada finds itself in 27th place. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Canada needs to take dramatic action to prevent falling off the chart altogether.
Yes, eliminating foreign ownership restrictions will help but it’s starting to look like that is not going to be enough. Legislation for that type of change hasn’t even been drafted (as far as we know) so optimistically it would be at least a year before the restrictions would be removed. Once that happens it would take years for new competitors to enter the market and a significant amount of time before it starts to have an effect.
How much longer can we wait?
Sometimes political posturing is so blatant that it just makes you cringe. When Telus and Bell announced they were going to start charging for incoming text messages, Industry Minister Jim Prentence decided it was time to make a move and stand up for the consumer.
Frankly it’s just too much to take.
This is the same Jim Prentice who’s government, just months earlier overruled the CRTC and ordered it to stop regulating prices on wireline phone service.
This the same Jim Prentice that just introduced Bill C-61 (known as the “Canadian DMCA”). A copyright bill written after consulting only with large (mostly U.S. owned) media companies and then trotted out as “striking a balance” on copyright. How do you strike a balance when you only consult with one side?
Jim Prentice is Industry Minister in a Conservative government and everyone knows what Conservatives stand for and it’s not consumers. They fight for big business, tax cuts, cuts to social spending, Christian family values etc. etc. We all know this because it’s printed right in their election platform.
So when they so transparently try and buy votes with these appeals to the people can we really do anything except scoff?
Were we actually supposed to take Jim seriously when he announced that he was going to express his concern on this issue? What exactly was he going to threaten? Price Regulation for cell phones? Ha!
So colour me surprised that after consulting with the head of both Telus and Bell, Jim decided he wouldn’t take any action.
I can’t help but imagine they sat around smoking cigars and swilling 10 year old scotch while smacking each other on the back and laughing how they’ve all “balanced” the rights of the consumer.
Thanks again for looking out for us Jim.
The government recently concluded its spectrum auction reaping an unexpected windfall of $4.25 Billion. While some immediately trumpeted this as a triumph for the government and taxpayers, I was heartened to see a number of pundits recognized the obvious problems with the high price.
As Terence Cocoran pointed out in the National Post, that $4.25 Billion would represent a $230 tax on every cell phone user in Canada. Since new entrants will only capture a small portion of the market, the cost of that “tax” will be much higher. Let’s try and run some numbers.
Lets take a wild guess and say that the new spectrum manages to capture 15% of the market (not likely). That would be approximately 2.7 million subscribers. That works out to $1574.00 per subscriber not including the cost of the infrastructure to utilize the new bandwidth. Spread out over 5 years (not including interest) that is a $26/month premium.
With a minimum $26/month “tax”, It seem hard to believe prices will be lower.
However, there is an spectrum auction model that would result in lower prices and more competition. It’s called “Open Access Wireless” (I’ve written on this topic before). While Open Access could still be done in the traditional highest bidder model, an even better idea would be a “lowest bidder” model.
Sounds crazy? Hear me out.
If the winner was the bidder who pledged to charge the lowest wholesale price and was limited to wholesale only Open Access, the spectrum “tax” would be $0.
Furthermore, since the spectrum owner would be limited to wholesale only, they would not have an incentive to tamper with prices or services they way current incumbents do with existing “third party access” style services such as in the Bell wholesale throttling debate.
In short 100% of the value-add would benefit the users of the spectrum and they don’t have to pay back the up-front “tax”. Not only that, but since the winner does not have a huge up-front cost they can invest that money in building a better more extensive infrastructure.
Would government ever go for it? Unlikely. Even though it’s in the public interest there is no way politicians can resist rolling around in $4.25 Billion.