Canada falls behind from, lack of Telecommuniation Competition

VOIP via the Internet is the only phone we have. My family doesn't have a land line or a TV. Our computers are our phones, our TVs, our news papers and our library books.


My family relies exclusively on digital networks for phone service, news updates, entertainment and education. When we talk to friends and relatives over the phone our voice and video is digitized and sent over switched networks. Now even the oldest part of the telecommunication network the analog last mile has been effectively replaced by digital switch services, DSL, cable modem and wireless/cell. Analog television was discontinued this year in the United States and Canada is scheduled to end analog television in late 2011. Digital phone service can be delivered via PSTN and digital TV via ATSC. PSTN and digital TV require separately infrastructure. Where as all digital services can be delivered over the packet switch internet. As result it is cheaper for telecommunication companies to deliver phone, TV and Internet services over a single shared packet switched connection.

It is cheaper for consumers to purchase a broadband internet service and separately purchase VIOP and media services delivered over the packet switched broadband internet connection. High fidelity audio and video provided through PSTN are just another internet application with QoS guarantees. From a consumers perspective why buy broadband internet from a phone or cable company when they can be purchased for less from a local internet provider, who can purchase in bulk and deliver it via a local wireless/cell or building/block wired connection. The open competitive market place of local internet providers delivering local wireless/cell and building/block wired connections, realize a much more efficient market place with lower costs to consumers. The simple problem is billing benefits tremendously from economies of scale. In reality phone, cable and wireless companies are internet service billing companies which happened to also provide a local wireless/cell or building/block connection. Through the control of local wireless/cell or building/block provided broadband internet services phone, cable and wireless companies unfortunately vertically extended themselves into localized near monopolies. Allowing billing companies with very large economies of scale to extend themselves into localized near monopolies has resulted in limited local cellar data service competition. Lack of cellar competition has resulted in Canada having one of the highest cellar data access charges in the world. http://www.thomaspurves.com/2007/04/09/canada-worse-than-3rd-world-countries-when-it-comes-to-mobile-data-access/



There are a number of billing approaches which do not require internet service billing companies to be localized near monopolies exclusively providing local wireless/cell or building/block connection to broadband internet services.

The simplest is community internet service. An alternately is internet service billing companies charging customers for a sign on key. Which customers use to connect through anyone of number of local service providers the internet service billing company has an agreement with.

Community service works well when the majority are internet customers meet their of their internet needs from within the community area and the majority of the internet users are from the community. Community service can be used to provide store, school or city wide internet service.

The quality of wireless/cell or building/block internet services is insured through certification of local internet service providers. Certified internet service providers submit open bids to provide various types of service access in various areas. Users limiting connection to only certified internet service providers prevents a cracker providing temporary internet services gathering personal information for the purpose of identity theft. Redundancy is achieve by multiple service provider bids selected for service access in each area. Some suggested quality requirements include following spectrum usage requirements as laid out by CRTC, following Ipv4, Ipv6 service standards, meeting bandwidth and latency requirements. Local providers buy bandwidth from carrier providers and route customer bandwidth through multiple providers, in order to provide redundancy at the lowest bandwidth cost. The local providers summarize and publicly publish bandwidth consumption records. The community pays certified local providers according to the bandwidth they provided.

A limitation of community internet service is people outside the community may free load off the community internet service. This is not a problem for wifi wireless or building/block wired connections. Wifi is relatively short range. Wifi and wire connections require people outside the community to physically relocate themselves into the community in order to use the internet service. However it is easy for free loaders to abuse longer range wireless internet services such as cellar.

Community internet service cannot meet the needs of long distance mobile service and many communities may decided not to provide community internet service. In order to meet internet need where community internet service is not available, a customer buys a service sign on key from an internet service billing company. The customer would submit this key during the initial connection with a certified local cell/wireless provider. The local cell/wireless provider examines the sign on key and determines the issuing internet service billing company. If the provider has an agreement with the internet service billing company, the accepted sign on key is passed to the internet service billing company who authorizes access. The provider may have a dynamic agreement with the internet service billing company. Such agreements allow the internet service billing company to prefer lower cost providers first, enabling high cost providers after the lower cost providers are unavailable, being either full or off line. The quick rejection of the sign on key by the local provider enables the customer to quickly try multiple local providers until success.


As illustrated there are a number of billing approaches which do not require internet service billing companies to be localized near monopolies. Selling spectrum to internet service billing companies is selling them a monopoly to abuse the public and business who depend on internet services for their livelihood. http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/07/20/canadas-wireless-spectrum-auction-is-coming-to-a-close
Instead local internet service providers should be certified to use the spectrum and competitively provided local access to customers. Separate internet service billing companies with very large economies of scale provide cost effective customer billing.

According to professor Milton Friedman, laws against monopolies cause more harm than good, but unnecessary monopolies should be countered by removing tariffs and other regulation that upholds monopolies. The internet service billing companies have unnecessary near monopoly control of local wireless internet service as result of the artificial barrier to entry created through spectrum sales.

Unique Nature of Information and Intellectual Property

My perspective regarding the economic nature and businesses needs driving the development of Information Technology.

Information is unlike traditional renewable and non-renewable resources which diminish as they are consumed and suffer from over consumption. Information does not diminish as it is consumed. Instead information grows with wider distribution and consumption. With wider distribution and consumption the growth rate of knowledge increases. Unlike traditional resources rationing information does not preserve this precious resource, but ratter as access to knowledge is reduced fewer contributors are able to pass on their precious knowledge and knowledge is lost. Knowledge and information does not stand in isolation.

Much of how our Information Technology has developed and will develop is direct result of the particular nature of information. Much has changed since the early years of mainframes, to Unix workstations, to personal computers, to web enabled technology. Accessibility and low cost distribution are the hallmarks of success. Unix workstations provided a common OS interface expanding its users and contributors. Personal computers with its common OS put computing power into the hands of the people, enabling low cost software through the massive customer base. At the same time proprietary software companies restricted access to the knowledge required to build their increasing complex computers systems. This gave advantage to the largest corporation which could assemble the largest pool of knowledge and contributors. In areas where communication and storage standards were not defined the largest corporation had ability to define proprietary formats and insure these formats were propagated through the large user base. However with the traditional proprietary model the knowledge required to understand the systems inner workings was a deeply held secrete, which met outside contribution was highly restricted. The growth and economic benefits of Information Technology has presented an increasing demanded for engineers and scientists. Deep knowledge of proprietary licensed systems is restricted, driving contributors to explore open systems with either optional sharing or mandatory sharing, BSD licenses or GPL licenses. Proprietary technology may come and go, but openly shared technology which comes out of BSD and GPL licensed solutions will remain.

Information Technology businesses require access to engineers and scientists trained in the deep inner workings of Technology on which Information Technology is based. Information Technology spans virtually all industries; industrial and mobile control, manufacturing automation, finance, distribution, sales, communications, consumer electronics and entertainment. I believe Universities of Science and Technology have an important role to play meeting the business demand for skill engineers and scientists.