Comments on: CRTC VoIP Decision

By: ILECs and the Innovators Dilemma -- Alec Saunders .LOG

ILECs and the Innovators Dilemma -- Alec Saunders .LOG — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 02:52:07 +0000

[...] Ron Gruia wrote a comment to my May 13th posting about the CRTC ruling, way back when I wrote the actual post. It got trapped in WordPress’ authorization mechanism, for which I apologize Ron. I didn’t even realize that it was there until today! [...]

By: .LOG v2 (RC 1) » Blog Archive »

.LOG v2 (RC 1) » Blog Archive » — Tue, 24 May 2005 07:50:19 +0000

[...] rslog.com/?p=1650″ rel=”bookmark” title=”Permanent Link: “> Ron Gruia wrote a comment to my May 13th posting about the CRTC ruling, way back when I wrote the a [...]

By: bda

bda — Mon, 16 May 2005 14:02:19 +0000

Now that the CRTC has removed pricing as a weapon, perhaps a new age of innovation will start in telecom services. Perhaps we will see some of the promise of VoIP finally realized, rather than VoIP being just about cheap, low quality calling.

To the extent the VoIP ruling is nothing more than a minor annoyance to significant market power holders — ie the ILECs — none of this will matter, of course. But to the extent this actually does make a difference to their VoIP plans, and to their ability to hang on to their dominance of the local wireline market, then I think this is exactly right.

After all, according to the ruling ILECs will be basically unregulated for any offering that doesn't look exactly like conventional PSTN service. If the regulation is as crushing as they make out, you'd think this would be a good opportunity for them to get something new happening.

By: Ronald Gruia

Ronald Gruia — Sun, 15 May 2005 14:42:43 +0000

Alec - you make a few very good points. But isn't competition what really drives innovation? And in order to have competition, you have to be able to strike on all fronts, including pricing. Because if one set of players (MSOs) can dictate pricing, whereas another one (ILECs) cannot, then the cause of competition is not well served: http://gruia.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/5/1... Also, there is the concept of not regulating an industry before it is born. Michael Powell had a good blueprint for VoIP regulation. Unfortunately, the CRTC did not follow that path. Luckily, there are two commissioners that see VoIP as being something different than traditional telecom service: http://gruia.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/5/1...