This week I delivered the opening speech at the annual Spectrum 20/20 conference that focused on the state of Canadian wireless marketplace. As the title of this blog posts suggest, I believe that Canadian wireless is in a state of crisis, with limited competition and high data prices. The talk and slides have been posted to Blip.tv and are embedded below.
Note that I also covered the issue this week in my technology law column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, Vancouver Sun version, homepage version). I begin by noting that last week's announcement that the Apple iPhone will make its long awaited Canadian debut later this year generated considerable excitement. While analysts focused on the bottom line impact for Rogers Wireless, it may be that the most important effects have already been felt in Canada since more than any industry statistics or speeches, the iPhone's slow entry into Canada has crystallized the view that the Canadian wireless market is hopelessly behind the rest of the world with limited competition, higher prices, and less choice.
Several readers noted that the posting of my recent Osgoode Hall talk was in a limiting format. The organizers have now posted an embedded, flash version that should be more readily accessible.
Rudy Jahchan of Galacticast provides a creative take on the fight against the Canadian DMCA.
Last week's column on the Data Protection and Privacy Commissioner's conference has generated a fair amount of attention. As I noted in my blog posting, the column was based on my concluding remarks in the final plenary of that conference. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has now posted a video of those remarks on YouTube.
Over the past year, Canadians have faced a barrage of claims painting Canada as a "piracy haven." This video - the second in my collaboration with Daniel Albahary - moves beyond the headlines to demonstrate how the claims do not tell the whole story.
Update: Source documents for the film posted here.
We want to enhance competition and investment in this country, and this is why we adopted this policy back in 2008 for the AWS spectrum. Let me say that the price went down by an average of 11% since then, and we will continue this way with the 700 megahertz spectrum. We launched consultation with the industry to make sure that we enhance competition and provide better choice and better rates for our consumers.
