Post Tagged with: "crtc"

Competition Bureau Recommends New Regulations To Address Wireless Competition Concerns

The Canadian Competition Bureau has filed a submission to the CRTC’s wholesale mobile wireless services review in which it reaffirmed its view that the Canadian wireless market is uncompetitive and would benefit from regulation. The Bureau finds that a more competitive market would deliver $1 billion annually in benefits to the Canadian economy:

incumbents appear to have the ability and incentive to profitably raise the rates they charge their retail competitors for wholesale roaming services, and potentially other wholesale arrangements, above competitive levels. The incumbents’ wholesale customers may be passing these price increases on to retail customers. These retail price increases may be harming competition in retail mobile wireless services markets in Canada. In particular, more competitive markets could deliver approximately $1 billion in benefits to the Canadian economy.

May 16, 2014 — 12 comments — News

Why Isn’t the Government Backing the CRTC on the Wireless Code? [Update: They Are Now]

Update 5/7/14: Government reverses course and announces it will back up the CRTC in court.

The Canadian Press reports that the federal government appears ready to walk away from the CRTC’s proposed enforcement of the new consumer wireless code. While the government has touted the code as an example of a pro-consumer approach, the CRTC’s attempt to ensure the code applied as quickly as possible may be lost due to the government’s decision to stay out of a legal battle over the issue. With the major telcos looking to limit the power of the CRTC and a federal court ruling that the Commission cannot advocate for itself, it falls to the federal government to do so.

The issue was raised yesterday in the House of Commons, yet the government refused to respond directly:

May 7, 2014 — 3 comments — News

Is the CRTC Ready to Hit the Reset Button on Television Regulation in Canada?

The Broadcasting Act is a complex statute that lists more than twenty broadcasting policy goals. Yet for decades, Canadian policy has largely boiled down to a single objective: Maximizing the benefits from the broadcasting system for creators, broadcasters, and broadcast distributors such as cable and satellite companies.

Consumers were nowhere to be found in that objective and it showed. Creators benefited from Canadian content requirements and financial contributions that guaranteed the creation of Canadian broadcast content. Broadcasters flourished in a market that permitted simultaneous substitution (thereby enabling big profits from licensing U.S. content) and that kept U.S. giants such as HBO, ESPN, and MTV out of the market for years in favour of Canadian alternatives. Cable and satellite companies became dominant media companies by requiring consumers to purchase large packages filled with channels they did not want in order to access the few they did.

Canadians may have been frustrated with the broadcast system, but there were no obvious alternatives and their views hardly mattered in a regulatory system dominated by the established players. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that last week, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission sent an unmistakable signal that these longstanding rules are about to change.

April 28, 2014 — 6 comments — Columns

Is the CRTC Ready to Hit the Reset Button on Television Regulation in Canada?

Appeared in the Toronto Star on April 26, 2014 as What Would You Do If You Could Hit the Reset Button on TV Regulation? The Broadcasting Act is a complex statute that lists more than twenty broadcasting policy goals. Yet for decades, Canadian policy has largely boiled down to a […]

April 28, 2014 — Comments are Disabled — Columns Archive

Different Regulations, Different Regulators: Behind Canada’s Net Neutrality Advantage

Last week, many in the Internet community were outraged by a U.S. Federal Communications Commission proposal that would significantly undermine net neutrality. The commentary on the (still unpublished) U.S. proposal says it all – The FCC’s New Net Neutrality Proposal is Even Worse Than You Think, Is Net Neutrality Dying, How Open Will the FCC’s ‘Open Internet’ Really Be?, Goodbye, Net Neutrality: Hello, Net Discrimination, and Net Neutrality Dead for Good?. The FCC responded with its own post that did little to assuage the concerns, stating that the U.S. rules will propose:

1.    That all ISPs must transparently disclose to their subscribers and users all relevant information as to the policies that govern their network;
2.    That no legal content may be blocked; and
3.    That ISPs may not act in a commercially unreasonable manner to harm the Internet, including favoring the traffic from an affiliated entity.

Transparency and no legal blocking are hold overs from the earlier Open Internet order. The third issue is where net neutrality would be harmed as the FCC is proposing to shift toward a “commercially unreasonable” standard for treating similar content in different ways. That approach would certainly permit paid prioritization, where deep pocketed content owners could pay to have their content sent on a fast lane, while everyone else is stuck on the slow lane. Moreover, given that the earlier Open Internet order was struck down by a U.S. court, even transparency and content blocking presently fall through the cracks.

Given the widespread attention to the U.S. developments, many have been asking about the impact in Canada.

April 28, 2014 — 5 comments — News