A student at work at the Toronto Reference library. Plans for a public review of broadband accessibility and a recent staff report by the CRTC has some in the wireless industry concerned.Ryan Enn Hughes
Two weeks after the CRTC called for a public review into the booming world of high speed wireless services, the watchdog's chairman is already fending off accusations of a regulatory power grab.
"There is a little bit of paranoia here," Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said in an interview. "Obviously, I am very concerned about the impression that the regulator is reasserting itself more than is necessary."
The paranoia started in late January when the CRTC said it would hold a full public hearing to review its hands-off approach to the business of high-speed wireless data or broadband transmissions. Anxieties grew last week with the release of a CRTC staff report that suggested the need for a new "regulatory framework" to "ensure all Canadians have access to affordable broadband service."
In an industry that has been virtually unregulated by the CRTC since shoe-sized cellphones were first introduced in the late 1980s, the watchdog's recent actions have been interpreted as something of a declaration of war on the wireless industry's freedom.
"I look at this document as being a regulatory manifesto for the perpetuation of regulation in the face of the incredible choice and diversity and individual freedom that the Internet has provided Canadians," said Michael Hennessy, senior vice-president for regulatory and government affairs at Telus Corp.
Mr. Hennessy said it was "inappropriate" for the CRTC to issue a staff report ahead of the planned hearing. "It's like you're about to go to trial and the judge puts out a general view of what he thinks the answer should look like."
Mr. von Finckenstein retorts that his critics are overreacting and there are no plans to extend the CRTC's complex web of media and telecommunications regulations into the wireless world.
"The stupidest thing we could do is take the existing regulatory regime and transfer it holus bolus to new media. We can't do and we shouldn't do it," he said.
Mr. von Finckenstein said the CRTC report was released because he believes staff work should be "transparent" to the industry. As for the planned hearing, he said it will focus on the narrow issue of whether the CRTC should have the power to protect against wireless service discrimination.
The CRTC has no such power at a time when vast tracks of rural Canada have been left without affordable access to broadband networks, a crucial service for delivering videos and other information-intensive applications to wireless smart phones and laptops. According the government research, 78 per cent of Canadians based in rural areas have access to broadband services, but only a small minority actually have high-speed broadband because the services are prohibitively expensive outside core urban centres.
Policy makers in Britain and the United States have invested billions of dollars and rewritten telecommunications laws to address what is known as the digital divide between those that have or do not have access to broadband. Canada has been largely silent on the issue. The high-pitched opposition to the CRTC's first hint that it is examining wireless access suggests the watchdog could face a messy faceoff with the industry.
Mr. von Finckenstein said the rapid pace of change in wireless and new media technology is generating a "huge need" for high-speed broadband.
"Our basic principle is hopefully it will be fixed by the market and we only have to step in where there is market failure."