News

Leaving Millions on the Table: Pandora and Canadian Music

Pandora, the popular U.S. online music service filed for an initial public offering last week, provided new insight into hugely popular company that spends millions of dollars in copyright royalties. Pandora users listened to a billion hours of music in the last three months of 2010. Given U.S. laws, the […]

Read more ›

February 15, 2011 9 comments News

OC Transpo Backs Away From Open Data

OC Transpo has backed away from making GPS data available, expressing concern about potential lost revenues.

Read more ›

February 15, 2011 5 comments News

B.C. Court of Appeal Upholds Internet Ad Keyword Decision

The B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld a lower court decision involving Google AdWords and claims of misleading keywords.  I wrote about the decision last year.

Read more ›

February 14, 2011 Comments are Disabled News

TVO’s The Agenda on UBB

TVO’s The Agenda covered the usage based billing issue late last week. The debate is available here along with a commentary in support of overturning the CRTC decision.

Read more ›

February 14, 2011 1 comment News

CNOC on the CRTC UBB Review: It’s Re-Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

The Canadian Network Operators Consortium, which represents two dozen independent ISPs, has asked the CRTC to expand the scope of its usage based billing consultation.  Rather than limit the review primarily to UBB, CNOC says the review should:

include a comprehensive review of the regulatory framework applicable to all wholesale high-speed access services (“WHSAS”) provided by incumbent local exchange carriers and cable carriers (collectively “incumbents”) to their competitors and to include from the outset, in the expanded proceeding, an online consultation and a public hearing, and certain additional procedural steps.

The letter makes it clear that CNOC is seeking nothing less than a complete overhaul of the regulatory framework for broadband competition in Canada.  The organization argues that “incumbent wholesale high-speed services, including the last-mile access, constitute the broadband platform that competitors need to offer almost all telecommunications and broadcasting services to consumers.”  It adds:

Read more ›

February 12, 2011 25 comments News