Success Through Understanding Technology
Commentary and insights on policy issues in telecommunications and the Internet.
Yeah, I know. I know nothing. But I keep having this strange uncanny feeling. Maybe 5G is not the coming thing. Maybe the intensification of equipment that is necessary to make high frequencies work cannot be successfully installed at a cost people are ready to afford. Maybe it is pushing the possibilities of technical advance to the point where we arrive at the Concorde.
I have been reading the Prime Minister's mandate letter to Navdeep Bains, the Minister of Industry, Science and Economic Development. After pages of fluff (or quasi-religious ideology for those who believe it), we get to the juicy stuff.
France, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, Finland, Israel, Japan, Korea, China: these are some of the countries that have adopted policies granting competitors access to the facilities of larger telecom carriers. Yet all these countries are wrong, according to the Montreal Economic Institute (see “The CRTC needs to get out of the way,” Gael Campan, Oct 31).
When people tell you who they are, you should listen.
Sometimes the only sensible way to look at corporate behavior is as if companies were like crocodiles. Crocodiles need to eat, and any flesh will do: you, your daughter, your dog, your cow, or a deer in the woods. You are just lunch. Nothing personal.
Then at times the crocodile gets angry, and it becomes personal, intentional, and political.
With the publication yesterday of the revised terms of the government's direction to the CRTC, the Internet Society and Canadians have gained a significant victory. Or so we hope.
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