Telecom Trends

The last of the major wireless carriers released their first quarter results yesterday. We can now see what happened with wireless industry growth last quarter.

Bell has finally started to turn things around in its wireless division, but it still lags significantly behind its competitors. Bell added around 28,000 postpaid subscribers, compared to 97,000 at Rogers and 72,400 at TELUS, for a total of about 200,000 new postpaid subscribers. Contrast this with only 165,000 subscribers added a year ago. Last year, Bell had an abysmal first quarter with only 10,000 net postpaid additions.

Some of the media reports show TELUS having the most wireless additions this quarter, which is true if you include prepaid subscribers. Rogers had a net loss of 29,000 prepaid subscribers, pulling down their total net activations. But that was a good thing.

Why?

Because Rogers significantly raised its prepaid ARPU over the past year, so they seem to have shed the lower value subscribers to other service providers while increasing their total prepaid revenue.

The other numbers to watch in these quarterly reports are postpaid ARPU and postpaid churn, again led by Rogers with better than $72 and 1.1% respectively. Data is now more than 15% of Rogers' revenue. TELUS also experienced a 50% increase in its wireless data revenues and its data represents about the same percentage of its wireless revenues.

MTS Allstream reports later today, providing some visibility into the performance of one of the most promising potential new national wireless players.

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Bell, Rogers, TELUS

Today, Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary of nationhood.

The amount of news space that this small country occupies is somewhat remarkable, of which not enough is usually devoted to its contributions to business and industry. Those of us involved in telecommunications are likely more exposed to Israel than most other sectors of the economy - although bio-tech is another major source of exports.

In reading the National Post this past weekend, I noticed that Israel has now displaced Canada as the foreign country with the greatest number of NASDAQ listed companies.

Israel's impact on information and communication technologies and services has been immense: if you have deployed VoIP or mobile services, you are using Israeli technology. Most of the world's biggest carriers are using Israeli developed enhanced services platforms and most Canadians receive their phone or cable bills from an Israeli developed billing system.

Israeli firms will be represented on a number of panels at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit. In addition, there will be a contingent from Israel in attendance at the event.

On Tuesday June 17, we have a special international evening planned, featuring international recording artist Mosh Ben Ari performing at a reception for all delegates at The Canadian Telecom Summit.

Plan to linger that evening for some good music and international networking.

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Canadian Telecom Summit, Mosh Ben Ari

On Monday, the CRTC rejected an appeal by Bell Aliant / Bell Canada that had questioned the way the CRTC calculated competitor share of the business services access market.

The way the calculations go, the CRTC has the ILEC provide its number of buildings in a wire centre with at least one high speed connection and each competitor provides its number of buildings with at least one high speed connection. The CRTC rules, set up in Footnote 7 of Decision 2007-35, say that at least 30% of the buildings need to have a competitor presence, but the method of calculation is described as:

competitor network presence is the ratio of buildings connected to the competitors' highspeed DNA capable network, divided by the total number of buildings connected to all service providers' high speed DNA capable networks. Multiple competitor connections to a building are counted as one connection, while ILEC and competitor connections to a building are counted as two connections.

You can get some strange but consistent results from this formula. Let's say there are 25 buildings in a wire centre and the ILEC is in all of them and there is a competitor in 10 of them. One might think that this surpasses the 30% threshold (10/25 = 40%) but that isn't how CRTC arithmetic works. According to the CRTC, the competitor presence is 10/35 = 28.6%.

The CRTC's rationale is that the calculation is the same without having to consider whether the competitors are in the same buildings as ILECs - an important potential labour saver in doing the calculations.

For example, in a wire centre in which the competitors' high-speed DNA-capable network is connected to 10 buildings and the ILEC is connected to 30 buildings, adopting Bell Canada et al.'s approach would lead to an assessment of competitor network presence ranging from 25 percent to 33 percent – 25 percent under a scenario in which the buildings reached by the ILEC and the competitors are entirely exclusive of each other and 33 percent under a scenario in which the ILEC's high-speed DNA network is connected in all buildings reached by the competitors.

However, the CRTC calculations do consider whether multiple competitors are in the same building (and counts them just once). Let's say in this CRTC example there are two competitors, each connected to 5 buildings. The results will range from 14% to 33%, depending on whether the competitors are mutually exclusive of each other.

According to the CRTC in its rejection of the Bell / Bell Aliant appeal:

The Commission notes that from the perspective of market power analysis, an approach that provides a consistent assessment for an identical number of competitor network connections, regardless of the particular configuration of the networks of the ILEC and the competitors, is to be favoured over an approach that does not.

It is not clear to me that the CRTC's math is any more consistent. The Commission's methodology also needs to consider the configuration of the competitor networks.

Just not sure how clearly this all adds up.

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CRTC

Fixed mobile convergence is the common industry term for handsets and technology that allows inter-operable communications flow between mobile devices and a fixed network. It allows customers to roam-to-home: avoiding mobile network charges when the handset is used to originate calls within range of a WiFi network.

Rogers is continuing to leverage its GSM infrastructure advantage to launch innovative devices ahead of its competitors. Tomorrow, Rogers will be formally announcing its first fixed-mobile converged handsets - allowing customers to roam from mobile onto WiFi networks - and Rogers will announce its Fido Uno and Rogers Home Zone rate plans.

These are plans that make more sense for Rogers than its competitors, since Rogers is less likely than Bell or TELUS to be cannibalizing its wireline home phone revenues.

Rogers has bundled in a voice optimized WiFi router at no extra charge. Their router is designed to simplify the security pairing between the handset and the home network and its features are said to improves battery life on the mobile handset.

The service allows UMA-equipped handsets to hand-off calls seamlessly between the WiFi / GSM networks. Billing will be based on where the call originates - calls started on WiFi will be free for their duration; calls started on the mobile network will incur charges for the duration. The service allows use of any WiFi network when located in Canada, but it is especially easy to synch with the WiFi router supplied by Rogers.

In case you were wondering, emergency calls will be handled by the mobile network, not VoIP, even when the phone is in its WiFi mode.

Is this UMA product launch another step in preparing Rogers for the launch of iPhone 2.0?

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Update [May 6, 11:10 pm]
See Peter Nowak's take on this story, which includes an interview with me, in his posting on CBC online.

Technorati Tags:
Rogers, FMC

We have received word that Professor David Johnston, president of University of Waterloo, has confirmed that he will join the cadre of distinguished keynote speakers at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit.

Besides having served on many provincial and federal task forces, he chaired the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Federal Government's Information Highway Advisory Council and its Blue Ribbon Panel on Smart Communities. More recently, he chaired the National Task Force on High Speed Broadband Access and the Broadband National Selection Committee.

Among other things, he will be speaking about a couple projects underway at Waterloo that are enabling a peek into the future of information and communications technology and services. The University has launched a Media and Mobility Network Project, to provide its students with access to the most advanced communications, media access, mobile computing and network services.

In September, the school will open its VeloCity dorm: a place where some of its most talented, creative and entrepreneurial students will be brought together under one roof to work on the future of communications, web and new media.

David Johnston will be speaking on Tuesday morning, June 17 at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit.

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David Johnston, Canadian Telecom Summit

Craig McTaggart from TELUS released a paper last week at the Law Society of Upper Canada's National Conference on New Developments in Communications Law and Policy.

It is a scholarly approach to examining Net Neutrality and Canada's Telecommunications Act and it is worth reading.

Craig begins with an examination of the legitimate concerns of 4 stakeholders:

• internet users, concerned about whether they will be able to continue to experience the Internet in the manner in which they have in the past;
  
• content and application providers, concerned about potential changes to the terms on which they reach their audiences while anticipating upgrades to infrastructure to enable even better applications and services;
  
• ISPs, concerned about dealing with technological change disrupting their economic assumptions and searching for ways to differentiate themselves; and,
  
• governments, wanting to ensure public access to robust, competitive telecommunications services and under pressure to appear to act in respect of net neutrality concerns prior to significant problems arising or harm to consumers being proven.
  

As you have read on this website before, Craig asserts that there is already sufficient legislation in Canada for the CRTC to safeguard consumers' interests, although he appears to disagree with FCC Chair Martin on whether the same holds true for the United States:

this paper seeks to demonstrate that, unlike in the United States, Canada’s existing Telecommunications Act provides the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) the authority it needs to address any problems that may arise.

The paper concludes that Sections 27(2) and 36 of the Telecom Act are sufficient to provide protections for all stakeholders' interests and allow the Internet to evolve as it always has.

There is no need for premature legislation that would prejudge what models of Internet access will best satisfy Canadian Internet users’ diverse preferences in the future.

On June 18, The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit will host a panel discussion looking at Net Neutrality.

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Craig McTaggart, net neutrality, Canada

I find that I can usually tell when there are escalated levels of malicious activity on the internet because there are multiple updates of my virus definition files in a single day.

With a growing number of internet service providers moving to impose download caps on their broadband service, it seems to me that there are going to need to be carve outs for certain kinds of downloads, such as anti-virus and operating system software updates.

It is in the best interests of the service providers for their users to keep machines current.

I don't think the ISPs want users to even consider deactivating their automatic update features as a means to preserve from headroom on their download caps. Such a move would inevitably drive more activity to their call centres and increase the likelihood of infected devices on the edge of their networks.

And that isn't in anyone's interest.

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Update [May 2, 3:10 pm]
Peter Nowak looks at download caps from a different perspective in his posting today on CBC online. His article asks "Are download limits anti-competitive?"

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download caps, Canada

It is the nightmare scenario for every telephone service provider.

What happens if an emergency service call doesn't get routed the way customers expect?

A story out of Calgary is pointing to a breakdown in communications that may have contributed to the death of a toddler.

Are customers fully aware of how their service provider handles emergency calls? Do they know about risks associated with power-outages?

This appears to be another are where full disclosure and transparency is critical. Most consumers have options, including mobile phones, if their voice service provider can't handle 9-1-1, but they need to be fully informed. In many cases, the purchaser of the phone service may know about limitations, but their baby sitter may not realize what is happening to their call.

Will all forms of VoIP (fixed cable; nomadic; PC-based) all get lumped together in the minds of consumers?

Technorati Tags:
911, VoIP

Communications Direct from PwC is among the on-line digests that I like to scan.

There was a recent story about research by Nokia, working with Berkeley and Rutgers, that uses GPS-enabled mobile phones to monitor real-time traffic flow while preserving phone users' privacy. Using data uploaded from the phones to estimate speeds and travel times, researchers are able to picture real-time traffic conditions.

The article also has a brief discussion of how privacy concerns have been accommodated.

While commercial launch hasn't been announced, when it becomes available, the environmental and economic benefits could be substantial. In the U.S. alone, traffic congestion leads to 4.2B hours in extra travel time, an extra 2.9B gallons of fuel, for a total cost of $78 billion.

Theresa Tedesco, Chief business correspondent for The National Post will be the moderator of a panel looking at Green IT at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit on June 16.

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Green IT

It seems that problems with busy period engineering affects the government as well as the private sector.

Canada Revenue Agency has had to extend the deadline for e-filing tax returns because its servers have had trouble keeping up with traffic loads this week. It is a scene reminiscent of Boxing Day blues for some Canadian retailers.

An announcement showed up on the CRA website yesterday, announcing an extension to May 6 - for e-Filers only (I am linking to a CBC News page because CRA's home page is so bogged down, we don't need to contribute to their trouble).

I was doing some business research on CRA's website yesterday and noticed painfully slow response times. I'm waiting for someone to comment that CRA should blame their ISP for traffic shaping.

It certainly raises questions about CRA's web architecture when even information pages can't be reached.

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Canada Revenue Agency

The subject of net neutrality came up in a meeting I had yesterday and the conversation turned to current affairs in Canada and various hearings in the US.

Our discussion included an examination of the vocabulary being used in the discourse and one of the meeting participants spoke of network fairness associated with the intelligent management of traffic.

Some would have the network treat all bits as they come - first come, first serve without any triage even in times of peak network loading. Such people say that the carriers just need to pry additional capital from their wretched fingers: invest in more network assets and then there will be no congestion.

I read lots of comments from people who believe we just need the government to nationalize the access networks - that will fix things. That camp believes that a benevolent government will pour whatever capital resources are required to provide limitless capacity.

Hospitals, a public resource in this country at least, experience times that emergency rooms are crowded and other times that there is no waiting time. We don't expect hospitals to take patients on a first come, first served basis. We expect the emergency room to prioritize patients based on their condition - their tolerance of latency.

There are off peak periods - increasingly rare - where even sore throats get seen without delay. But during the rest of the day, we still consider it to be fair to apply intelligent emergency room management.

Is network fairness a more important goal than an unachievable network neutrality?

We'll be looking at all aspects of net neutrality at a special session at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit on June 18.

Technorati Tags:
net neutrality, Canada, network fairness

In a statement released this morning about the iPhone, Rogers has announced that it has reached an agreement with Apple to launch later this year.

Ted Rogers is quoted in the very brief statement, saying:

We're thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can't tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.

As I wrote recently, there appears to be imminent plans to release an upgrade to the current iPhone.

Wouldn't it be great for Canada to be part of the launch of iPhone 2.0?

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Apple, Rogers, iPhone

On a superficial level, if you asked someone on the street if they want their internet service provider to interfere with the content being delivered, I suspect most would immediately answer "No."

Would the results be the same if the questioner started off by saying: "some ISPs will block spam and viruses from reaching your computer at no extra charge. Is that a valuable service?"

It is pretty clear that there is some content that we want ISPs to block.

Is there other content that should be required to be blocked?

Does the law even permit ISPs to transport or cache child exploitation images? Canada's major ISPs are blocking identified illegal content; should the smaller ISPs be required to?

Does the CRTC have to pre-authorize such blocking under S.36 of the Telecom Act?

There will be a public consultation on New Media later this year. These content issues and others should be part of the discussion.

Technorati Tags:
CRTC, new media, blocking, Cleanfeed

I am going to guess that every one of us has thought of saying something to a customs or immigration official and then held back, because we figured we could wait until our next doctor's appointment for the response that might ensue.

Last Wednesday was an interesting day at the BDU hearings, with Shaw in the morning and a panel in the afternoon that included Channel Zero, The Fight Network, High Fidelity HDTV and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.

When preparing their comments, the folks at High Fidelity HDTV acknowledged that their written comments were written in a stream of consciousness.

Sometimes the mood in which you write depositions like this is not the mood in which you deliver it.

While they cleaned up some of the language from their prepared written version, they didn't stop to think about how a series of lines like the following would be received, especially when the Commissioners were reading along with the original version in front of them:

We think there are many areas in which the Commission is remarkably in the dark...

The CRTC chair listened patiently and finally responded:

Each time you make a submission to us, it is more abrasive and more offensive. To be called shamefully in the dark, woefully ‑‑ I'm failing to understand, et cetera.

You can obviously say that, but in my hearing and that of the Commission, our willingness to accede to your arguments does not increase with the level of attacks that we receive from you. I have no problem with you saying that we are wrong, et cetera, but I think that kind of language is uncalled for.

I think our mothers tried to teach us to remember our manners. It is reasonable advice for all of us who participate in public proceedings. Read it over again in the morning and stop to think about how the message will be received.

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CRTC

The Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has filed its reply to Bell's answer to its application to the CRTC asking for Bell Canada to be ordered to provide their customers with un-managed internet access service.

Michael Geist suggests that the reply pulls no punches and adds a few "new allegations."

I am not going to get into the merits of one set of arguments versus the other. Read the file with a critical eye.

There was a better approach to resolve a technical interconnection issue in an expedited fashion. But, the process is now what it is.

We'll be looking at all aspects of net neutrality at a special session at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit on June 18.

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Bell, CRTC, CAIP, Canadian Telecom Summit

This is blog posting number 1000 for me. One thousand pieces of my mind in just over two years.

Back in February 2006, I launched this blog with a piece entitled "It's a start".

I quickly followed up with a posting about the newly released Decision from the CRTC on the Deferral Account and another posting later that evening that described the public notice on the telemarketing Do Not Call List. Who would have thought that two years later, both of those proceedings continue to provide fodder for this site - DNCL scheduled to be implemented later this year and the recent Commission, court and cabinet appeals for the deferral account's followup Decision 2008-1.

Thank you for your loyal readership, your comments, your calls and email messages. Thank you to itWorld for recognizing this site as one of Canada's top 10 technology blogs.

Thanks as well for visiting the advertisers and thereby supporting my caffeine addiction. The cheques from Google buy me a bag of good espresso beans each month.

I hope I can continue to provoke you to come back for perspectives, musings and every so often, a little entertainment.

One thousand pieces. Not a bad start.

I have been troubled by the allegation that the use of deep packet inspection for network management purposes by Internet Service Providers is an invasion of privacy. The issue arises in the dispute over traffic shaping of customers of one of Bell's wholesale shared internet access products.

One commentator says that CAIP "rightly" notes that a privacy violation arises since there is no contractual relationship between Bell and the customers of the independent ISPs. CAIP's application said:

By examining the packet data and packet header information of GAS customer traffic, Bell can identify, inter alia, the type of data being transferred, the ISP upon whose network the data is being transferred, an end-user’s intention to acquire certain types of Internet content and the IP address and, hence, the identity of the end-user customer who is sending/receiving the data. The collection and use of such information by Bell, which in this case would have clearly been done without the prior consent of the end-user customers so affected, violates the privacy of such individuals.

It seems to me that the privacy complaint is predicated on carriers actually collecting and using individual information. But all of the statements seem to indicate that carriers don't actually use any personal information. The DPI technology looks at packets and treat all packets associated with certain applications equally. The network management is non-discriminatory on an individual level.

Isn't this precisely why traffic shaping has impacted both legitimate and inappropriate file transfers without differentiation?

Is this any different from compression technologies that were historically used in long distance telephone networks? Such technologies looked at the nature of the traffic and applied appropriate compression algorithms based on whether the call was fax, voice, dial-up data, broadcast audio, etc.

Think of enforcement of high occupancy vehicle lanes during peak traffic periods. The police can quickly look in the windows to see if there are 2 or more passengers in the car without pulling over the car, determining where the people are from, where they are going, who is in the car, the purpose of the trip, etc.

We can have an intellectual discussion about the rights of service providers to manage their networks and the methods that may or may not be appropriate. But, the invasion of privacy claim set out by CAIP makes little sense and serves to create noise that interferes with being able to hear a more fundamental, focussed discussion on internet access policy.

Technorati Tags:
privacy, CAIP, Bell, traffic shaping, net neutrality, Canada

Last November, Bell Aliant launched a series of residential internet support services under the banner of Aliant Expert. The service was brought to my attention this morning by a reporter who was following up on it.

When the service was launched, Aliant was the first telco in North America to offer such services. For many consumers, setting up home networks, connecting digital entertainment is a non-trivial task.

It seems to makes sense for a telco to try to build upon or re-establish the trust relationship with its customers. These services leverage the fleet of service vehicles and human resources that communications companies have deployed throughout their service territory - a greater presence than any chain of electronics retailers.

Will we see more carriers following Aliant's example in the consumer space?

The theme of The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, taking place June 16-18, is Maintaining Relevance for the Customer.

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Bell Aliant

A recent article on CNET reports that AT&T is warning that the internet will hit full capacity by 2010. It is an attention grabbing headline.

Of course, there is a catch.

When you get into the body of the article you see that Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T, warned that at least $55 billion is needed in new infrastructure investment in the next three years in the U.S. on top of $75B needed worldwide.

Before you go running for cover, Cicconi said that AT&T is doing its part, with plans to spend $19B on its network infrastructure. Some audience members asked if the hidden motivation behind Cicconi's speech was AT&T's position on net neutrality. He responded by saying he believed government intervention in the Internet was fundamentally wrong.

There is nothing magic or ethereal about the Internet--it is no more ethereal than the highway system. It is not created by an act of God, but upgraded and maintained by private investors.

The CNET story includes a quote from the US Department of Justice that merits reproducing, especially given my post from Monday on the NDP perspectives on government interference in network management:

However well-intentioned, regulatory restraints can inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation, and diminish consumer welfare, and there is reason to believe that the kinds of broad marketplace restrictions proposed in the name of 'neutrality' would do just that, with respect to the Internet.

William Archer, CMO of AT&T Business will deliver the luncheon keynote address on June 16 and Eric Loeb, AT&T's VP International External and Regulatory Affairs will be speaking on Network Neutrality at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit on June 18.

Have you registered yet?

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AT&T, Jim Cicconi, William Archer, Eric Loeb, Canadian Telecom Summit

A little more than a year ago, I wrote that no additional laws are needed to protect the internet from discriminatory practices by internet access service providers.

Today, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told the US Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that his agency has all the authority it needs and that new legislation is unnecessary. He was speaking at a hearing on the future of the Internet.

He reiterated the FCC's Internet policy principles and included a comment on the application of network management:

To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet,

• Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice;
• Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement;
• Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network;
• Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

The Commission explicitly noted that these principles were subject to reasonable network management.

The full text of his statement can be found here.

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FCC, net neutrality

The last few weeks have featured a who's who in Canadian broadcast parading past the CRTC as part of the BDU hearings.

It should be interesting on Wednesday with Jim Shaw due up at 9:00.

Last week, he launched a preemptive strike (possibly preparing for a for a future cabinet appeal?) with a letter to the Prime Minister that said:

Instead of focusing on meeting customer preferences for open access to programming, cutting subsidies that reward broadcasters for the wrong behaviour, removing restrictions on programming and cutting onerous bureaucratic rules that limit customer choice – all of which are realistic and reasonable doorways to the future, we are forced again to look backwards to the past.

The CRTC review does not mark a movement toward a light at the end of the tunnel, but rather a fumbling toward deepening darkness.
...
The CRTC`s historic approach to cable as a mere instrument to promote Canadian content is outdated. Cable, in competition with the telcos, is building Canada`s information superhighway and our telecom and broadcasting policies should encourage not hinder this development.

What is really needed are not more subsidies and micro-regulation by the CRTC, but rather a made-in-Canada broadband policy.

This is the final week scheduled for presentations. Wednesday morning's appearance by Shaw should be especially entertaining. You can watch the hearings on CPAC on-line or listen to an audio feed by clicking here .

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Update [April 23, 9:30 am]
Jim Shaw was a no-show at the hearing on Wednesday, sending Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette to head up what the CRTC chair called a "B-team", reminiscent of Shaw's critique during the Canadian TV Fund proceeding.

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Shaw, CRTC