Today’s press talks about the Canadian Federal government’s decision to require the CRTC to deregulate local phone service in areas where there are 3 alternate providers.
The phone companies are pleased. Some think this will be good for consumers as it may lead to more competition and reduced prices.
Critics are concerned that the existing telcos wil undercut the competition, so in the end we will be left with no competition and higher prices.
Only time will tell – it will be interesting to follow this as it unfolds.
My personal observations are that while the cable companies have phone service, they are not competing on price. When you add up the prices of similar service from the phone company and the cable company, they are remarkably close. Strikes me that the cable cos see the telcos as their competition, not the independent Voip providers.
So at the moment we seem to have similar priced, similar quality services from the telcos and cable cos, with pure Voip plays coming in much cheaper and more flexible, but often with call quality issues.
Which leads to the network neutrality issue. Will this mean that it becomes even more tempting for any ISP that offers broadband service (ie the telcos and cable cos) to tinker with the quality of third party Voip?
Read an ITBusiness.ca article about the announcement
Techdirt has a post with a different spin on the Network Neutrality issue. Some telcos have suggested that entitles like Google and Vonage should be paying them over and above normal bandwidth fees, because they are taking advantage of their networks.
Techdirt argues that the Telcos should instead pay Google and Vonage, because those kinds of services cause more people to want broadband. The arguement is backed up by similar deals in the video business.
Read the Techdirt post
This report containing recommendations for Canadian telecom policy was released yesterday, as you may have seen in today’s press.
My main interest was whether it would deal with network neutrality.
Michael Geist reports that it does indeed embrace the concept. Lets hope both the industry and the government listens to the growing demand for this concept.
Read Michael’s post for more detail
Read an earlier article of mine on the topic
Read another post of mine on the topic
David Canton – For the London Free Press – October 19, 2005
Read this on Canoe
EBay’s recent purchase of Skype, a popular voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service provider, shows the Internet is the future of voice communication.
VoIP refers to telephone calls made over the Internet. Traditional telephone service is on the way out.
Skype, started in 2002 by the creators of the Kazaa file-sharing program to provide free computer-to-computer voice calls over the Internet, has 57 million customers and gets about 150,000 new users a day, most in Europe and Asia.
Skype also allows — for a modest fee — calling to and from people using traditional phones. Other VoIP services such as Vonage allow calling using a normal phone.
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The CRTC ruled yesterday that VoIP is phone service, therefore it will regulate existing telcos – but not the competition.
Bell and Telus plan to appeal.
The CRTC is concerned that the incumbents will underprice the competition. They also say this decision is consistent with their earlier decisions not to regulate the Internet.
Both of those comments require some reflection. I’m not convinced that other entities like cable companies and new VoIP companies will have trouble competing with the telcos. And how is this not regulating the Internet?
Read the CRTC press release
Read an ITBusiness.ca article
DAVID CANTON – For the London Free Press – April 30, 2005
Read this on Canoe
VoIP telephone service is a new hot technology, replacing traditional phone service with phone service over the Internet.
VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) has many advantages over traditional phones, but it has one significant disadvantage — compromised 911 services.
The problem is being worked on, but so far the solutions are not perfect.
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The residential VoIP phone service market is interesting on many levels. I believe that within a few short years (2-5?)the majority of households with high speed Internet access will abandon their traditional phone lines in favour of VoIP.
A week ago I mentioned the Texas lawsuit where Vonage was sued for its not really 911 911 service.
Canadian cable companies have either started to offer the service, or will be soon.
And Bell Canada has stepped into the fray by starting its VoIP service in 3 Quebec cities without waiting for the CRTC’s decision on how it will regulate VoIP. Bell claims there are 30 – 40 VoIP competitors in Canada – and they clearly don’t want to lose business to them while waiting for the CRTC.
Consumers will have some tough decisions, and only time will tell whether they go with lower price providers, or ones with higher prices but perhaps more features.
Read my earlier comment on the 911 lawsuit
Read an itBusiness.ca article about the Bell move
VoIP (Voice over IP) telephone service is a new hot technology. It essentially replaces traditional phone service with phone service over the Internet.
VoIP has many advantages over traditional phones – but it has one significant disadvantage – lack of 911 service. The problem is being worked on, but so far the solutions are not perfect.
The Texas Attorney General recently sued Vonage – a popular VoIP provider – over the issue.
Read a ZDNet article on the Texas suit
Read a NewTelephony article on the Texas suit
Read a September Slate article that describes the technical problems
