[Advisors] Now what?

[Garth Graham]

Further to my post below on the BCE appeal of the CRTC’s fibre networks access ruling;

WILLIAM SANDIFORD. Bell playing politics with your Internet bill by appealing CRTC ruling.  The Globe and Mail, Published Friday, Oct. 30, 2015 5:00AM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/bell-playing-politics-with-your-internet-bill-by-appealing-crtc-ruling/article27030604/

Sanford is President of the Toronto-based Canadian Network Operators Consortium Inc.  I wasn’t aware of CNOC before I had the article.  A fast lap around their website <http://www.cnoc.ca> suggests they are as “struggling” as TC is  or maybe more so, but that we might have interests in common.

There’s a similar organization active in BC, the British Columbia Broadband Association: https://www.bcba.ca

Anything like that in other Provinces and Territories?

GG

> On Oct 22, 2015, at 12:17 PM, Garth Graham <garth.graham at telus.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Oct 21, 2015, at 6:37 PM, Brian Beaton <brian.beaton at knet.ca> wrote:
>> ... Are there any community-centric program people left at Industry Canada that anyone knows of? Or is everyone now only interested in finding private sector partners who claim they are the one can best take care of the communities for their programs and projects? Ie... is the public funding / subsidization of the private sector  the only game left at Industry Canada?
> 
> Good question, and I would assume “no” as a simple answer to the question of the existence of community-centric people.  However, looking to the future we shouldn’t assume “Industry Canada” continues to exit as federal department.  But, when a new Ministry does get structured, I think your other question, “is the public funding / subsidization of the private sector the only game left?” (without Industry Canada) still stands.
> 
> This morning’s Globe and Mail has ..... articles in the business section that telegraph how the new department’s take on public policy may get framed…..
> 
> 1. BCE launches appeal of CRTC fibre networks ruling:
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/bce-to-appeal-crtc-fibre-networks-ruling/article26901333/
> 
> “BCE Inc. is appealing a ruling from Canada’s telecom regulator to the federal cabinet, arguing the decision forcing it to give small Internet providers access to its highest-speed fibre broadband services will lead to lower investment. …. ‘The decision makes it unlikely that large-scale non-incumbent fibre-to-the-home networks will ever be built in Canada, or that many medium and most small towns and rural areas outside of Canada’s largest urban centres will see the benefits of competitive fibre broadband networks,’ BCE said in its petition.”
> 
> The prime carriers are already signaling they will build gigabit networks if left alone, and they will definitely not build if they have to carry independent ISPs. How the new government responds will go a long way to answering your second question.  But, as the article explains, if the policy response is to “balance” market forces then there’s no room in that for community-centric development strategies.
> 
> The article quotes OpenMedia calling the timing of Bell’s petition a “cynical attempt to see if the new government will cave to requests that the previous government would have rejected.”  Obviously OpenMedia is better prepared to leap rapidly into the policy abyss than TC.  Perhaps TC should be more open to OpenMedia than we have been, given that they occupy a similar policy space to our own, and given that they have reached out to us on occasion.  Speaking for myself, the good thing about OpenMedia is that they have proved a crowd-sourced model of funding policy advocacy can work, and the bad thing is that the model means you have to devote most of your time to crowd-sourcing.  I am not any good at that.