Month: March 2015
Irving Gerstein explains Canadian telecom policy
/Irving Gerstein is the chief fundraiser for the Conservative Party of Canada. In the informal constitution he must rank closely behind the Minister of Finance and the Chief Justice of Canada in importance, as long as the Tories reign. He spoke about how the political system works a year and a half ago and I […]
Read more »In the history of dumb ideas
/Why does this idea keep being pushed: that combining the Broadcasting Act with the Telecom Act is the appropriate response to “convergence”? I gave an interview to a bright young thing this morning and her questions concerned this idea, largely because it is in the air. My response goes like this. One, there is no […]
Read more »A tip of the hat to Michel Morin as we go to “skinny basic”
/My former colleague at the CRTC, Michel Morin, ought to take a bow. Long before it was fashionable, he was arguing for the concept that the CRTC endorsed yesterday, the idea of “skinny basic”: an affordable, small package of cable services. It is difficult to promote conceptual innovation at a regulatory agency, for several reasons. Institutions […]
Read more »A reply to John Robson on net neutrality + FCC drops a brick on our toes
/When I have had time to absorb the monumental FCC decision on net neutrality, I shall have more to say. http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0312/FCC-15-24A1.pdf In the meantime, John Robson, fearless in his defence of market forces, published a column in the National Post why he was against net neutrality. Apart from any disagreement I may have with John on […]
Read more »The law surrounds the market and lets it work
/“The law surrounds the market and lets it work”. I wrote that 20 years ago for a study sponsored by the Competition Bureau on the effect of the Internet on markets. The study argued that the Internet would create, reconfigure and destroy markets with blinding speed. If only I had seen how much and how […]
Read more »Your app is increasingly paranoid
/In my previous posts I have criticized the legal habit of placing a label on something and thinking that the phenomenon has been understood. Thus, if labelled common carrier, then the rule is non-discrimination. If “broadcasting”, then discrimination is both lawful and desirable. More, if the “service” is “broadcasting”, then, according to some interpretations, it […]
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