Columns

Regulated Wireless Roaming Fees May Be on the Way

The Labour Day weekend ended with a bang for telecom watchers as Verizon, the U.S. giant that was contemplating entering the Canadian market, announced that it was no longer interested in moving north. That decision represents a major loss for consumers, who would have benefited from greater choice and increased competition.

Yet days before the Verizon change of heart, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission released its own noteworthy announcement, issuing a request for information to all Canadian wireless companies on their roaming pricing. The request, which covers everything from roaming agreements with U.S. companies to roaming revenues and consumer costs, may be the start of a long-overdue effort to reign in Canadian roaming fees that the OECD has reported are amongst the highest in the world.

The Commission acknowledged mounting concern over roaming fees, which kick in whenever Canadians use their wireless devices outside the country (and occasionally within the country when a provider does not offer their own service). After attempts to gather data from publicly available information failed to provide a clear picture, the CRTC initiated the request for information, much of which has never been made publicly available.

Based solely on the readily accessible information, however, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that roaming fees render typical usage of cellphones when out of the country unaffordable for most Canadians.

September 10, 2013 — 9 comments — Columns

Canadian Universities Navigate Learning Curve for New Copyright Rules

As students and faculty prepare to head back to campus this week, many will be greeted by new copyright guidelines that clarify how materials may be used without the need for further permission or licensing fees. Just over a year after the Supreme Court of Canada released five landmark copyright decisions in a single day and the Canadian government passed copyright reform legislation over a decade in the making, the education community has begun to fully integrate the new copyright landscape into campus policies.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the new rules are significant since they grant teachers and students far more flexibility to use portions of materials without the need for copyright collective licences. The changes come as a result of the expansion of fair dealing, the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. fair use rules. The government expanded the scope of fair dealing to explicitly include education as a recognized purpose in 2012, while the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized the importance of a broad, liberal interpretation to fair dealing in order to ensure an appropriate balance in copyright law.

With those developments in hand, Canadian educational institutions crafted a general fair dealing policy last year confirming that educators can rely on fair dealing to use up to ten percent of a copyright-protected work (or a single article, a chapter from a book, a newspaper article, or a poem or photograph taken from a larger collection) without the need for a licence provided they meet a six-factor test.

September 4, 2013 — 1 comment — Columns

Time for Canadian Privacy Regulators to Take Action on Pervasive Surveillance

As the near-weekly revelations of pervasive surveillance activities generates both debate and mounting opposition in the United States and Europe, the Canadian reaction has remained somewhat muted. Following an initial flurry of coverage over the surveillance activities of Canadian intelligence agencies, the issue has largely disappeared despite evidence that Canadian data is regularly collected by foreign intelligence agencies, most notably the U.S. National Security Agency.

Interestingly, the battle over the potential entry of Verizon into Canada may have opened the door to greater public scrutiny of the privacy practices of all telecom carriers. The debate unexpectedly features a privacy and surveillance dimension, with the incumbents and their unions raising fears about the link between Verizon and U.S. surveillance.

Verizon may raise privacy concerns, but my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes it is worth asking whether the Canadian carriers can provide assurances that Canadian phone and Internet activity is any less prone to surveillance. The major Canadian carriers have been very secretive about many of these issues. In fact, a recent University of Toronto report found that none issue transparency reports (Google, Twitter, and Microsoft do), inform users about data requests, state where data is routed and stored, or avoid U.S. routing.

August 27, 2013 — 16 comments — Columns

CRTC Ruling a Small Step Toward Broadcast Overhaul

Coverage of last week’s Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruling on mandatory carriage of a couple of dozen channels may have focused on the future of the Sun News Network (no mandatory carriage that would have guaranteed payment from all cable and satellite subscribers) and the monthly cost of cable and satellite bills (a very small increase since virtually all new proposals were rejected), but the decision really represents a small step toward a complete overhaul of Canadian broadcasting regulation that is likely to unfold over the next ten years.

The Commission will hold a further hearing on how to treat news channels, telegraphing that it plans to adopt a must-carry approach so that all Canadians can subscribe to the news channels of their choice. Yet the entire process harkened back to a different world, when space on the television dial was scarce, access to Canadian content scarcer still, and consumer choice for broadcast content largely unknown.

The reality of the current environment is that none of these conditions exist. Cable and satellite providers have virtually unlimited space (my provider currently features a trio of channels that continually display a fireplace, aquarium, and sunset in high definition), Canadian content can be found through a multitude of venues including video-on-demand and Internet-based streaming services, and consumers can access broadcast content from anywhere on any device.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) argues the upcoming battle will not be about which channels benefit from regulatory handouts, but rather over whether there is a need for any broadcast regulation beyond basic principles of non-discrimination on what consumers can access through conventional broadcast and the Internet. These principles, now found in the Commission’s policies on vertical integration and Internet traffic management, will become an increasingly important part of the regulatory process.

August 15, 2013 — 3 comments — Columns