The main focus for the final day of the ISP Summit was regulatory. Former CRTC Chair Konrad Von Finckenstein held a fireside chat with Anja Karadeglija of the Wire Report. That was followed by a regulatory panel with Chris Tacit, Michael Geist and Laura Tribe moderated by Christine Dobby from the Globe & Mail.
Many hot issues were covered including MVNO’s, insights from KVF as to how decisions are made at the CRTC and the need for speed and certainty, the difficulty in establishing costing and the retroactive compensation to the competitive industry for overcharging by the incumbents that is being challenged in court. There were good questions from George Burger and Matt Stein to the former Chair challenging his viewpoint on making the decision retroactive for 3 years considering how long it took to make the decision.
Chris Tacit got a laugh from the audience when he mentioned the history of the incumbents tactics in fighting decisions that they don’t like back to Decision 92-12, when the CRTC opened up long distance market to competition. Some panelists and audience members may not have remembered 92-12, actually they might not even have been born yet. Of course that is when I was at ACC Long Distance as VP, Network so I lived and worked through those long distance wars and remember them well. And yes, Bell and the telcos were anti-competitive then and they still are now.
The panel also expounded on what the new minority Federal government might be able to accomplish in its mandate, as well as gave predictions on ministers such as Navdeep Bains and whether he would stay on at ISED or be given a different portfolio (consensus seems to be that he would get a new file) and that Minister Rodriguez might stay on Heritage.
Personally, I feel that a minority government can usually only accomplish a few items in its mandate. There are other , bigger files that will need attention right away such as Alberta and the pipeline issue. There may not be enough time or political capital to get much done on telecom or tech issues.
Once again the Canadian ISP Summit proved to be a great, action packed three days. The content was excellent, the networking was tremendous and it was great to see old friends and make some new ones.
