I haven't had much direct exposure to the CRTC's process, but I don't know that I would call the entire structure completely irrelevant. I for one am glad that there are Canadian content requirements for the broadcasting industry, and that foreign investment limitations in our telcom industry prevent it from being a direct subsidiary of a foreign corporation.
I would say though that what's needed is a lean and fast division that's able to make timely decisions about fairly simple issues. Taking a year to decide whether 911 service is required for consumer VoIP service and then mandating compliance within 90 days seems hypocritical. I also wonder if the suit brought against Vonage in Texas [1] "accelerated" the process ;-) Someone mentioned to me the other day that a commission of prominent Canadians has been put together to evaluate the effectiveness of the CRTC, but I haven't found anything on the web yet. re, spd [1] http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/release.php?id=850 (hmm. they seem to renumber the id's of their news releases, it moved since I last posted a link) On Apr 5, 2005 4:54 PM, Henry Coleman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In reply to general questions about the CRTC: > > The CRTC are like all regulators in this global industry, the problem > they were created to fix no longer exists. > Back in the early days of deregulation, governments encouraged CLECs to > enter into the telecom business without fear of > predatory pricing by the "big boys". So the regulators, (in their > infinite wisdom) decided to control the incumbent carrier by upholding > price tariffs and schedules > based on AT&T's "air circuit miles" for Long Distance calls, in this > respect CRTC were in "lock step" with the FCC rules. > This enabled lots of carriers to offer Long Distance and International > calls at very competitive prices, however, the incumbent still > maintained the advantage in being able to charge for the line rental > which accounts for about 72% of the overall subscriber bill. > (considering the age and quality of infrastructure this is money for old > rope!) Regulators were now being pressed to deregulate the last mile > (local loop) by CLECs who could see that outright > competition in the LD market was leading to ever increasing customer > "churn' and lower profit margins. ( they wanted a slice of this rental > market too!). > Now, with the advent of VoIP the deregulation rules are "moot" since the > general classification is a "Data call" and not a "Voice call". > So where is this going? > It won't be long before the traditional telephone company concept will > be supplanted by the ISP business model and voice will be just another > IP service. The large ILECs like Bell will move their customer base from > analog voice (PSTN) to VoIP via ADSL lines. At some point they will offer > to "upgrade" your phone line for free and the ILECs it will finally be > free of the regulator (they hope). > The roll of the regulator should then become one of insuring equal > access to products and services and networks for the consumer. > ISPs will rely heavily on bundling services like VoIP, Broadband and > Cell phones to gain (and keep) market share. > > The Crystal Ball .... > We live in a bandwidth hungry environment with much more capacity than > demand . The conversion of all voice calls to VoIP would not pose any > serious > bandwidth problems, therefore we can expect to see even lower pricing > for VoIP than voice grade analog lines especially in the Long Distance > and International markets. The analog voice paradigm as we know it, > (where the longer the distance the more it costs) is now an outdated > concept. > And the Canadian Radio and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) ? ...well > like most government run departments, being completely irrelevant and > expensive to maintain does not guarantee that we will see it's demise > (this lifetime). > > TTFN..... Henry L.Coleman (http://www.dragnetics.com) > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- * Simon P. Ditner / ON-Asterisk Mailing List / http://uc.org/asterisk *
