Government needs to move quicker, do more on telecom issues: panel

TORONTO — The federal government and the CRTC must pick up the pace and do more on critical telecom issues in order to make a much-needed impact when it comes to pricing and competition, a panel of regulatory experts relayed on the final day of the ISP Summit. “We do this panel every year, and ... it is the same delays every year,” University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist said on the final day of the three-day conference in Toronto. “And while it may be this is just the way things work, I wonder for how long politicians and those who have focused on pricing and competitiveness and affordability will be content to say this is good enough.” The ongoing issues and policies brought up by the panel include consultations on mandating WiFi-based mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), current obstacles in implementing the disaggregated regime, as well as future reviews of the broadcasting, telecommunications, and copyright acts, the latter of which was initially projected to begin this week. “We've now just seen a consultation on Copyright Board reform, where industry came and said, the kind of delays that we see, which actually has real parallels ... on the telecom side, aren't good enough, and we need to change the system in order to ensure that there is greater certainty, faster for the industry and a bigger and better impact more quickly in the marketplace,” Geist said. Lawyer Christian Tacit argued on the panel that some of the delay may be attributed to the recent turnover of commissioners at the CRTC and other “gaps in periods of time” that effectively slowed down some Part 1 applications. He added he would “certainly love to see those expedited,” despite preaching the importance of accuracy over speed. “Are we going to get some transitional relief in the West and the East and possibly even Quebec and Ontario if, during this time, we’re kind of paralyzed in working with the interim regime?” Tacit asked. “We kind of need to know that fairly quickly.” Tacit raised issues with the the current environment surrounding the disaggregated regime, which had interim rates set in a CRTC decision in August that allows smaller ISPs to gain mandated wholesale access to fibre-to-the-home (FTTH). On Tuesday, Michael Garbe, president of the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC), which organized the conference, broke down the high costs of that fibre delivery. “On the tariff terms and conditions, basically accepted what the carriers had proposed as the starting point—that’s a bit of a problem,” pointing to high overhead costs being incurred. The panel converged on the issue of MVNOs, making the point that the big argument brought forth by the incumbents’ — that allowing WiFi-based MVNOs would harm investments in their networks — is not supported by evidence. Geist raised the point that in its initial decision, the CRTC “made the case” for mandating MVNOs but “stopped short” of actually doing so. At the Telecom Summit in June, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains announced that he had ordered the decision back to the CRTC for reconsideration. “It seems to me that at both a political level and at the policy/regulatory level an acceptance of these arguments and yet we still haven't had the extra push to actually make it happen,” Geist said. For Timothy Denton, former CRTC commissioner and current chairman of the Internet Society of Canada, “we can only hope that Ian Scott ... will arrive at the right conclusions.” Denton added each time the CRTC comes close to making a decision “that might actually benefit consumers,” they come up short, flippantly reiterating an argument that so-and-so decision would impact the incumbents’ financials. Tacit said he hopes the regulator will deliver a decision that is “more than the status quo,” arguing that the impact of mandated Wi-Fi-based MVNOs would definitely influence competition, despite it only being a start in shaking up the industry. The panel also weighed in on the reviews of the broadcasting and telecommunications acts, which were indicated as part of Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s strategy for Canadian content in the digital age. The participants urged the government not to merge the two, saying doing so could have dire consequences on the market and what Tacit called infringements of thought and expression. In a letter earlier this year to Joly and Bains, Denton argued that the CRTC should, in fact, be split into separate broadcast and telecom regulators. On Wednesday, he said merging the two is “a very bad idea and we don't want it. Thank you.” Tacit also expressed concern about security and privacy for internet of things (IoT) devices. He noted that a lot of connectivity components in appliances don’t let you upgrade the software to harden it against security breaches. Politicians in the United States have made moves to address IoT security in a proposed bill earlier this year and Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) told the Wire Report that it is watching the development. But Tacit said he’s concerned that this won’t be discussed in due time. “It's interesting that the ISED Minister does have the ability to set technical standards, I'm wondering if we're not going to see a debate in the coming months and year or two about setting technical standards for IoT devices,” he said. All this being said, both Denton and Tacit had relatively optimistic outlooks on how the government would handle these issues. The former said the government is doing a reasonable job and asking the right questions on competition and pricing, but said he would like to have “greater conceptual clarity on certain questions.” Tacit, for his part, said the line that the government is taking is a “great vehicle to score political points” with its talk on affordability and competition, calling it a “wonderful opportunity” to do what’s right for the economy “if they choose to have the courage to act and move forward on that.” He also said he agrees with Denton that they “need to take it forward more and they need to be clearer on their objectives.” As for Geist, it will take a little bit more convincing and one speech at the Telecom Summit in June is not going to do it. “I’d like to be optimistic, but actually I don’t think I am on this,” he said, despite admitted there is a “recognition of the issues” at ISED. Bains is “not a minister that has, from my perspective, engaged in a meaningful way on almost any policy at all, with all respect to Navdeep Bains.” “A clear connection between the number of the kinds of policies that we're talking about and a forward-looking innovation strategy, I don't think has been made,” Geist said, adding the minister was “nowhere to be found” on issues including internet tax for CanCon. “And, from my perspective, it's pretty concerning.” — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Government needs to move quicker, do more on telecom issues: panel

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Government needs to move quicker, do more on telecom issues: panel

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