Telus CEO Slams CRTC over VOIP
Darren Entwistle, Telus' CEO, made no bones about the CRTC's recent decision to regulate ILECs that offer Internet telephony service. Calling the decision “disappointing” he questioned the regulator's belief it needs to protect cablecos from ILECs given they have well-established infrastructures and brands, as well as millions of customers. “Are the cable operators really the Davids who need regulatory protection from the telco giants? The answer is no,” he said during a keynote speech at the Canadian Telecom Summit. Perhaps the line of the conference was Entwistle's contention the cablecos are deserving of a “theatrical award” for their work in positioning themselves as the underdog.
After thinking about the CRTC decision since it came out May 12, the major flaw is that the cablecos don't need a window opportunity to establish a foothold in the telephony market. It's not like they're start-ups trying to establish a foothold in the market while spending large amounts of money to build their own networks and organizations. If the CRTC had decided to not regulate the Internet telephony market, do you think Rogers Communications would have pulled or scaled back its plan to get into the telephony business?
June 1st, 2005 at 8:26 pm
This is a bit unclear. He's saying that the cablecos don't need to be protected from the ILECs.
Now, that could mean one of two things — regulate the prices charged by neither, or by both.
If neither, then he's being disingenuous. If the cablecos don't need to be protect by the ILECs, that's hardly an argument to regulate noone's price at all. Rather, it's just another shot at what the Large ILECs have been arguing (and going over the CRTC's and even Minister's head all the way to the PMO to aruge, and paying large lobby dollars to back: what's the story behind the Coalition for Competitive Telecommunications, and why are their regulatory positions identical to Bell's?). The ILEC line being — as monopolists are wont to argue — that nobody should have their prices regulated. Presumably because everyone knows how to play nice.
The more logical conclusion one would draw from his argument is that both should be price-regulated. Assuming we want other players in the market, that is; maybe we don't.
August 5th, 2005 at 6:16 am
Very useful comments - good to read