[Advisors] Telecommunities Canada -- are we letting it go?

[James Van Leeuwen]

Garth,

the community broadband trend is now off the hook in the U.S.

Community interests have become highly organized, well-informed and aggressive in their advocacy:

www.bbcmag.com
www.ftthcouncil.org
www.muninetworks.org
www.ilsr.org 			(this site is particularly relevant to the theme of autonomy)


Pushback against ILECs and State governments that have encumbered community/municipal broadband has become intense. 

Some communities are ganging up to mount legal challenges against governments.

The FCC is also questioning the constitutionality of legislated encumbrances.

The consensus of informed opinion is that the legislation will be struck down as unconstitutional.

I've been watching the State-level battle unfold in California, where incumbents are lobbying the State legislature like there is no tomorrow.

Industry players are still winning some battles, but they are losing the war... the writing is on the wall.

Comcast has been the worst abuser, and they are now getting publicly roasted for their anti-competitive tactics and their overall failure to behave as a responsible corporate citizen.


The FCC is now under intense pressure from both sides to take a clear position on community broadband.

There is also strong advocacy for Obama to build his legacy out of this opportunity:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Politics-Abundance-Technology-Establish-ebook/dp/B00A4OAH5U

The lead author of this work is a former Chairman of the FCC, the second author developed Obama's broadband strategy, and now heads up GigU. 

This all looks encouraging on the State and federal policy front, but the real driver underneath it all is municipal policy. 


The rock-bottom line is that broadband has already become an essential economic and social utility, and it needs to be highly accessible, scalable and affordable. 

Communities that don't have competitive broadband will find themselves unable to foster and attract new businesses, or to retain the businesses they already have. 

"We can't afford to that" was once the prevalent attitude among communities, especially rural communities. 

Now the prevailing attitude is, "We can't afford NOT to do that". 


Over the coming years, the broadband conversation in the U.S. will shift away from 'thresholds' (e.g., ubiquitous 20 Mbps download) to 'scalability' (future-proofness).

It will also shift away from 'solutions' to 'impacts'.

We are still rather far behind in Canada, but if we embrace these learnings from the U.S., we have a golden opportunity to leapfrog. 

The name of the game is engaging, fostering and supporting leadership at the community level.


CRTC Commissioners have now visited Olds, Coquitlam and other community broadband initiatives in Canada. 

During one of these visits, a Commissioner mused out loud about the benefits of broadband as a municipal utility. 

I am also hearing from people close to CRTC Chairman Pierre Blais that he is quite sincere in his objectives to serve the needs of customers rather than network operators. 

If the CRTC is sincerely interested in supporting the community broadband trend in Canada, they will need political cover for it. 

If we respond with an effective solution for rallying and supporting community/municipal leadership wherever it exists across the country, we can help provide it. 


My hope was that iCANADA would become this solution, but this hasn't happened. 

I'm not sure it could ever happen now, because of how iCANADA has aligned itself with industry (= $$). 

CNOC can't do it, because they represent supply-side interests... not demand-side interests.

OpenMedia is too strident and reactionary... focusing on industry and government distracts from the real opportunity, and the real progress that is being made there. 

The door is wide open for positive and visionary advocacy initiatives that focus on the impacts of community broadband and where it can take the entire nation.

James


On Sep 29, 2014, at 11:17 AM, Garth Graham <garth.graham at telus.net> wrote:

> I'd be interested in learning more about that US shift, James.  Since the purpose of leadership is the protection of convention and thus the survival of the institutional basis of its power, I suspect that "unconventional leadership" is an oxymoron.  Castels and others have made recent reference to a culture of autonomy, a shift in the role of the individual.  "Civil society" hates this because autonomous individuals threaten the conventional "balance" among business, governments and civil society without which civil society doesn't exist. I suspect that US leadership reflects that very threatening increased individual autonomy in some way.  I know of no such intellectual reframing in Canada.
> 
> GG
> 
> On 2014-09-29, at 8:57 AM, James Van Leeuwen wrote:
> 
>> The problem is conventional leadership, Garth.
>> 
>> Where there is real progress, it is the result of unconventional leadership.
> 
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