CRTC your time is coming

[Canadaeh?]

By SIMON TUCK

Wednesday, February 23, 2005 Updated at 1:56 AM EST

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail


Ottawa — The federal government is poised to launch a widely anticipated review of the country's telecommunications sector, a move that could lead to dramatic changes to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and foreign ownership restrictions.

A senior federal official said Ottawa wants to update the way it governs a sector that is being transformed by new technology that has outpaced the rules and structures of the past. The CRTC, which regulates the telecommunications and broadcast sectors, still operates largely under rules that were designed in a pre-Internet era with regulated monopolies in the telephone services market.

Iain Grant, the managing director of SeaBoard Group, a consulting firm in Montreal, said it's high time the federal government took a fresh look at Canada's $30-billion-a-year telecommunications sector.

"The world has changed and it is time for us to rethink what we did."


The federal source said Industry Minister David Emerson will create a review panel of three people who will be expected to report to the government with "concrete advice" before the end of the year. The panel will be given latitude to largely set its own agenda, but will not be expected to address the thorny question of foreign ownership restrictions until a later date.

Mr. Emerson is to select and announce panel members in the coming weeks along with some preliminary measures to help the industry. The review will be announced this week, perhaps as soon as today's federal budget.

The launch of the review concludes an intense corporate tug-of-war that pitted the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Bell Canada, the country's largest phone company, against the cable television industry and key telecom rivals such as Telus Corp. and Manitoba Telecom Services Inc.

x Bell, which had been the most vocal about the need for a review, wants further deregulation because the company believes it operates under more regulatory obstacles than the cable industry and smaller rivals that are now competitors.

Many of the federal regulator's rules for phone companies and other telecommunications services players were established in the 1990s, a time when the industry had been deregulated but the only new entrants were small, domestically based phone companies such as Call-Net Enterprises Inc. of Toronto.

Since then, the various planks of the telecommunications sector have increasingly converged so that cable, wireless, and wireline telephone companies use different technology to offer similar services. Internet telephony, or voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), threatens further disruption.

Mr. Grant said the industry — and consumers — have seen just the start of the overhaul. "We've got a lot of choices right now and we're on the cusp of a new world."

The CRTC has tried in recent years to manage the changes while fostering competition by regulating how much smaller phone companies must pay Bell, Telus and other former monopolies for the right to provide services over the incumbents' networks. Mr. Grant and many other analysts, however, say that model is now antiquated.

Mr. Emerson said in a speech earlier this month that boosting competition in sectors such as telecommunications would be good for consumers and business alike. "We need to make sure regulation in this area is streamlined, efficient and adapted to changes that are rapidly reshaping the industry."

The government official said the review will be conducted in two parts: The first part, about how the industry is regulated and a variety of other subjects solely under the jurisdiction of Industry Canada, will be released before the end of the year. A second part, on the more contentious issue of foreign ownership restrictions, will be concluded later.

Ottawa wants to proceed with the more manageable parts of the review before wading into foreign ownership restrictions. That's a subject that has long been a major source of friction between Industry Canada, which has jurisdiction over many of the industry's phone and cable companies, and Heritage Canada, which oversees those who create content.

"We've got to make sure we don't cause paralysis in the industry," the official said.

For both the telecom and cable sectors, foreigners can own a maximum of 20 per cent of an operating company and one-third of a holding company, producing an effective cap of 46.7 per cent.

Established in 1968 to regulate broadcasters, the CRTC is largely credited with fostering domestic television and radio, as well as artists and others who create content.

But it's now widely seen to be in its weakest position in years. Contemporary technologies — including satellite radio, pirated TV, on-line telephony — make the industry much more difficult to regulate, while there have also been accusations that the CRTC moves too slowly for today's business world.

To make matters even more difficult for the CRTC, the commission is coming off a summer of discontent, as it was pummelled by controversies over Quebec City radio station CHOI-FM, Italian TV network Rai International and Arabic-language TV news network Al-Jazeera.

While the controversies were largely the result of the commission merely following its rules, the turmoil did nothing to convince anybody — including the federal government — that the status quo was adequate.

During an interview earlier this month, CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen defended the commission, saying it's needed if Canadians want a broadcast system with domestic content. "If the CRTC didn't exist, it would have to be invented."

Mr. Dalfen acknowledged, however, that the CRTC needs to make decisions more quickly, although he said some of the lag is caused by waiting for companies to file documents with the commission.

Mr. Dalfen has called for changes to the commission, such as fewer commissioners and the ability to fine.

[InFerN0]

CRTC = Communist Radio + Television Control

The crtc is has way too much power, they shut the door on a proposed classic rock station in the small SE sask city i live in, becuz they figured the existing radio station would have competition. Well if the existing had decent music nobody would have proposed a new FM station.

Crtc doesn't automatically let in XM or the dog, they want total control. I hope they ease on the control factor, cuz they are gonna drive away even more jobs.

regards InFerN0

[TopShelf]

as long as I get my Myfi, and they leave me alone, I could careless if they want to be dinks.

[1low]

let Canadian decide for themselves what to listen to.
If Canadian Content is'nt good enough on it's own don't ram it down my throat!

[TopShelf]

agreed, but that wont happen. It be nice