Post Tagged with: "crtc"

Behind the Scenes of the Digital CanCon Consultation: No Netflix Regs, CRTC Review or Copyright Overhaul

Canadian Heritage Minister Melanie Joly launched her review of CanCon rules last spring by stating that “everything is on the table.” The pre-consultation revealed a sharp divide between industry and the public with industry stakeholders emphasizing more public and government support and the public focusing on efforts to promote Canadian content.

This week I obtained government documents under the Access to Information Act that provide some interesting insights in the behind-the-scenes process that brought a major government consultation from concept to launch in a matter of weeks. The roughly thousand pages show Canadian Heritage officials worked long hours to develop timelines, consultation documents, communications plans, and advisory committees. Given the time constraints, it is an impressive effort.

The documents also highlight internal thinking on several major issues, including Netflix regulation, the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV rulings, and copyright.

September 16, 2016 — 3 comments — News

Vigil At The White House To Save Net Neutrality 1 by Stephen Melkisethian (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/pXJ7P4

Canadian Battle over “Zero Rating” Places Net Neutrality Safeguards at Risk

Net neutrality emerged as a top Internet policy issue over 10 years ago as some Internet service providers openly discussed creating a two-tier system with a fast lane for websites and applications willing to pay additional fees and a slow lane for everyone else. The companies maintained that consumers would benefit from the two-tier approach by gaining faster access to premium content.

Internet users and emerging technology companies banded together to oppose the approach, arguing that all traffic should be treated in an equal manner regardless of content, source, or destination. They noted that the two-tier approach could lead to unfair competition and an inability for start-up companies to challenge established players.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that Internet users won the policy battle and years later net neutrality rules can be found worldwide. Indeed, the importance of an “open Internet” was recently affirmed by Navdeep Bains, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Development, who told an international conference that the economy depends upon it.

July 5, 2016 — 7 comments — Columns

Montréal (Île des Sœurs) by JasonParis (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/a2nnAu

Ignore the Scare Tactics: The Real Future of Bell Investment in Fibre Networks

Bell’s defeat this week at the Federal Court of Appeal over its MobileTV service marked the second high profile regulatory loss in recent months for Canada’s largest communications company. Last month, the government rejected Bell’s cabinet appeal of a CRTC decision on broadband infrastructure. The CRTC ruling means that companies such as Bell will be required to share their fibre networks with other carriers on a wholesale basis.

Bell’s appeal (and accompanying lobbying effort) was premised on the notion that CRTC regulation would force the company to reconsider its fibre investment. Indeed, its cabinet appeal stated:

June 22, 2016 — 4 comments — News

iPhone TV by Wesley Fryer (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/98ZUNZ

Federal Court of Appeal Upholds CRTC Ruling That Bell Mobile TV Service Violated Telecom Law

In the fall of 2013, Ben Klass, a graduate student in telecommunications, filed a complaint with the CRTC over how Bell approach to its Mobile TV product. Klass noted that Bell was offering a $5 per month mobile TV service that allowed users to watch dozens of Bell-owned or licensed television channels for ten hours without affecting their data cap. By comparison, users accessing the same online video through a third-party service such as Netflix would be on the hook for a far more expensive data plan since all of the data usage would count against their monthly cap.

In January 2015, the CRTC released its decision in the case, siding with Klass. The Commission expressed concern that the service “may end up inhibiting the introduction and growth of other mobile TV services accessed over the Internet, which reduces innovation and consumer choice.” While Bell argued that the mobile TV service was subject to broadcast rather than telecom regulation, the CRTC ruled that mobile television services effectively invoked both broadcast and telecom regulation, since a data connection was required to access the service.

June 21, 2016 — Comments are Disabled — News

CBC Vancouver - Wanderin'-The-Corridors by kris krüg (CC-BY-SA 2.0), https://flic.kr/p/2jXse

Forget a Netflix Tax: How The Digital CanCon Review Can Shake Up the Status Quo

Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s digital CanCon consultation is likely to spark calls from the cultural establishment for new levies and taxes to fund the creation of domestic content. The Internet will be the primary target with demands for a Netflix tax along with legislative reforms that would open the door to additional fees on Internet providers.

Yet an unimaginative approach that seeks to regulate the Internet imposes costs that would make Internet access less affordable and create a regulatory environment that runs counter to fundamental principles of freedom of speech and access to information. Joly should reject efforts to recycle stale policies and instead embrace the opportunity to shake up Canadian cultural policy.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) argues that the starting point should be a shift in funding for Canadian content creation. The current model, which relies heavily on mandatory contributions from the Canadian broadcasting community, is in decline as revenues from the sector slowly shrink (the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission recently reported that conventional television revenues declined by 2.4 per cent in 2015).

May 10, 2016 — 12 comments — Columns