The latest round of quarterly earnings reports are being released this week. Beyond those financial metrics, I get to look at mountains of CRTC data aggregated from Canada’s telecommunications sector. Most headlines in the general business press and industry newsletters focus on prices, market share, and subscriber growth.

That’s understandable. Consumers care about what they pay; investors look at comparative data points. But those figures tend to represent yesterday’s news.

Buried in the tables is another metric that tells us more about tomorrow: capital investment. In Rogers’ latest quarterly results, capital spending in the 3rd quarter was down 46% compared to the same period last year. In the first 9 months of 2026, capital spending is down 27% versus 2025. Rogers reported “its lowest capital intensity in over two decades”.

While policymakers and consumer advocates should celebrate lower prices, investment has also been dropping across the industry. That should be cause for concern. The most recent CRTC figures continue to reflect a measurable decline in telecommunications capital expenditures, even as we face growing demands for investment for resilience, security and sovereignty.

This creates a profound accountability vacuum.

For years, the dominant focus of telecom policy has been somewhat myopic: price reduction. Policy makers pushed for lower rates and increased competition, treating quarterly affordability metrics as the ultimate measure of success. Let’s face it, lower prices make for good politics with favourable headlines on the consumer blogs – especially when the prices for just about everything else are going up. But, it sidesteps a tougher, less glamorous question: If policy makers are hyper-focused on today’s prices, who is looking out for tomorrow’s network?

Telecommunications infrastructure requires long-term planning and investment. Fibre deployment, wireless upgrades, rural expansion, and future-ready resiliency require billions in continuous cycles of capital spending. When investment capital dries up, the consequences do not appear overnight. Networks can coast on past momentum — until they don’t.

By treating affordability and investment as separate issues, policymakers are engaged in a dangerous sleight of hand. We see short-term savings by quietly passing the bill for network investment stagnation onto the next generation of users, businesses, and innovators.

Lower consumer prices are measured each month with the release of Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index. The price of starving Canada’s telecom networks — with stalled innovation, constrained capacity, and vulnerable infrastructure — will be paid years down the road.

By then it is far too late to reverse course quickly.

As quarterly results get released this week, keep in mind that the most important number isn’t what Canadians are paying today. It’s what network operators are no longer spending on tomorrow.

When that bill finally comes due, it won’t be the policy makers who have to pay it. What is hidden in the numbers should not be ignored.

The post A warning hidden in the numbers appeared first on Telecom Trends.

I think that’s a question worth asking as the CRTC continues to introduce increasingly prescriptive requirements governing how telecommunications providers communicate with, sell to, and serve their customers.

Each new measure sounds reasonable enough. More disclosures. More notifications. More detailed rules governing customer interactions. More opportunities to complain.

But are consumers actually better off?

Consider the CRTC’s recent decision on broadband speed disclosures. The Commission has effectively defined “typical” Internet speeds as speeds customers should receive “at all times,” while simultaneously recognizing that compensation for slower speeds should depend on the materiality and frequency of the problem.

The result? A regulatory framework that risks encouraging technical disputes over speed-test results, even where customers experience no meaningful degradation in service.

Then there’s the ongoing proceeding examining consumer awareness of the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS). The CRTC is considering requirements that would notify customers of their right to complain earlier in the customer-service process.

But where is the evidence that earlier notifications will produce better outcomes?

More referrals to the CCTS won’t necessarily mean more complaints will be resolved, or that consumers are receiving better service. They could simply mean more complaints are being diverted from providers’ own resolution processes.

Meanwhile, the Commission’s proposal to harmonize its four consumer protection codes risks becoming an exercise in regulatory expansion disguised as simplification. Combining existing codes into one document isn’t simplification if the result is more obligations applying to more services. That’s regulatory theatre.

Each of these initiatives carries implementation costs. IT systems to be modified. Employees to be trained. Billing and customer-service processes to be redesigned. Compliance to be monitored and documented.

And for what measurable incremental benefit?

Legal scholars Omri Ben-Shahar and Carl Schneider have examined this phenomenon in their research on the failure of mandated disclosure. Their work explains why such requirements are politically attractive: they create the appearance of consumer protection, while their actual effectiveness often goes unexamined.

It’s easy to mandate another disclosure or notification. It’s much harder to demonstrate that it changes consumer outcomes. That’s regulatory theatre.

The problem is compounded when regulations are considered individually.

The CRTC examines each proposal on its own merits, but who is assessing the cumulative burden of successive consumer protection requirements? Who is measuring whether the combined costs are justified by improvements in consumer welfare?

These aren’t just academic questions.

Telecommunications is a capital-intensive industry. Resources devoted to implementing increasingly elaborate regulatory processes are resources unavailable for other priorities, including improving networks, developing services and enhancing the customer experience.

The timing is striking.

On October 21, the federal government announced a new Cabinet Directive on Regulatory Competitiveness and Red Tape Reduction. Taking effect December 31, it calls for evidence-informed, proportionate and outcome-focused regulation, with greater attention to compliance costs, competitiveness and unnecessary regulatory burden.

The government went so far as to establish a requirement to offset two dollars in regulatory burden costs for every dollar added.

The directive doesn’t automatically apply to CRTC regulatory decisions. But shouldn’t the principles behind it be reflected in the Commission’s approach?

Canada’s 2023 Telecommunications Policy Direction already calls for efficient and proportionate regulation that considers its effects on investment, innovation and competition.

Yet recent proceedings suggest an increasingly prescriptive approach to consumer protection, one in which the existence of a perceived problem too readily becomes justification for another regulatory obligation.

No one is arguing against protecting consumers. Accurate information, fair treatment and effective complaint resolution are legitimate regulatory objectives.

But good intentions don’t establish that a particular intervention is necessary, effective or proportionate.

Consumer protection should be measured by the problems solved, not the obligations imposed.

Otherwise, we risk confusing regulatory activity with regulatory achievement.

And Canadians may end up paying for increasingly elaborate consumer protection rules without receiving much additional protection.

That’s regulatory theatre.

The post Consumer protection or regulatory theatre? appeared first on Telecom Trends.

The Competition Tribunal released its decision in a deceptive marketing practices case against Rogers, granting the application brought by the Commissioner of Competition.

By promoting and advertising across an array of marketing channels in Canada as “unlimited” or “infinite” mobile data plans that had a pre-determined and finite amount of high-speed data, after which the speed would be significantly reduced for the remainder of the billing cycle, Rogers’ “unlimited” or “infinite” representations contravened paragraph 74.01(1)(a) of the Act.

The Tribunal has assessed a $15 million penalty. In a statement, Rogers notes that the Commissioner of Competition had sought a penalty of $135M.

We introduced unlimited data plans in 2019 to deliver great value to our customers. These plans eliminated overage fees and gave our customers bill certainty at a time when data use started growing exponentially. These plans are commonplace in the industry and reflected a significant and positive development for consumers and small businesses. We stand behind our advertising and are considering next steps.

The Order is currently very brief since the Tribunal is working with the parties (the Commissioner of Competition and Rogers) to identify confidential or competitively sensitive information that will be redacted from the public version, expected to be released within the next 2 weeks.

The other one of the big releases earlier today was a Telecom Competition Roadmap released by ISED.

As part of a multi-pronged approach to augment competition, affordability, and transparency for consumers, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada is publishing this Telecom Competition Roadmap that outlines a broad range of actions that are being taken over 2026–2027 that each target specific areas for improvement. This is the first time a comprehensive approach is being taken to this issue.

I’ll have more to say about both these releases in the coming weeks.

The post Two big releases appeared first on Telecom Trends.

I continue to ask such questions in light of data that continues to show a sharp decline in capital investment by Canadian telecommunications providers, as well as the recent GSMA report (which was the subject of a Telecom Trends post last week).

For years, Canadian telecom policy has been guided by an objective to make communications services more affordable. By many measures, regulators and policymakers have succeeded. Wireless prices are down, competition has intensified, consumers enjoy more choice.

Affordability is only one measure of success. Nearly a decade ago, I wrote about the need to balance “quality, coverage, and price.”

Telecommunications is a capital-intensive industry. Networks don’t improve on their own. Networks don’t expand on their own. Networks are built with telecom investment.

Expanding fibre coverage, deploying 5G, increasing capacity, strengthening resilience, and building next-generation networks all require billions of dollars of ongoing investment. Capital spending is how we pay for “quality”, and “coverage” in the telecom policy balancing act.

That is why the pattern of declining telecom investment should be raising alarm bells.

The CRTC’s own data shows that capital investment has been falling. The question is “why”.

To be sure, regulation is not the only factor. Interest rates, economic uncertainty, market maturity, the completion of major fibre and 5G buildouts, and broader business conditions all impact investment decisions. But, it would be surprising if regulatory policy played no role.

Over the past several years, governments and regulators have consistently prioritized lower prices and expanded wholesale access to existing networks. Those objectives are understandable and politically popular. Yet policies that make it easier for competitors to use infrastructure built by others can also reduce the incentives for facilities-based investment.

Investors pay close attention to those signals from government policy makers and regulators. If expected returns decline, investment tends to decline as well.

This creates an uncomfortable paradox. Those policies intended to help consumers today may inadvertently weaken those incentives needed to build the networks upon which consumers will depend tomorrow.

The consequences may not be immediately felt. Canada continues to benefit from extensive fibre deployment, widespread 5G coverage, and generally high-performing networks. But, the impact will become more apparent over time.

The consequences will be seen in slower upgrades, delayed rural expansion, lower network resilience, and diminished competitiveness in the years ahead. When demand for connectivity continues to grow, driven by cloud computing, streaming, artificial intelligence, and connected devices, sustained declines in investment should not be dismissed as a footnote to the Communications Monitoring Reports.

Too often, investment incentives and disincentives disappear from the policy conversation, or are paid lip service.

At last week’s Canadian Chapter of the International Institute of Communication’s annual conference, the CRTC Chair said:

The infrastructure matters. The rules governing access and competition matter. But ultimately, what matters is whether the system works — whether it connects Canadians, supports businesses and communities, and delivers reliable, affordable services that people can depend on.

The CRTC will continue to do its part: listening to Canadians and industry, making evidence-based decisions, and assessing whether those decisions are achieving their intended results.

The challenge is not to choose between strong networks and strong consumer outcomes. It is to create the conditions for both.

Unfortunately, the CRTC has not responded to a number of years of evidence demonstrating sharp declines in telecom investment.

Price reductions generate headlines; reductions in telecom investment rarely does, despite its role as the foundation upon which future affordability, innovation, and network performance ultimately depend.

Canadians deserve affordable telecommunications services. That should never be in dispute. But, if capital spending continues to fall, policymakers may need to ask whether their dogged pursuit of lower prices has weakened the incentives for telecom investment that made Canada’s world-class networks possible in the first place.

Competition can be mandated. Investment cannot.

The post Did Canada accidentally regulate away telecom investment? appeared first on Telecom Trends.

With digital infrastructure increasingly viewed as a strategic economic asset, the continued evolution of mobile technologies will be critical to strengthen Canada’s innovation ecosystem, supporting industrial modernisation and enhancing the country’s long-term global competitiveness. However, sustaining that trajectory, depends on investment conditions, which have become more demanding as the market has matured.

The headline numbers in the report are impressive. Mobile technologies generated US$120 billion in economic value in 2025, equivalent to 5.4% of GDP, while supporting almost 200,000 jobs and contributing US$14 billion in tax revenues. By 2030, GSMA forecasts that contribution will rise to US$170 billion.

An infographic in the report highlights that 99% of Canadians live within mobile broadband coverage and 7/8 of us make use of that connectivity. Canada’s rate of 5G adoption is twice the global average.

But in my view, the kernel of the GSMA report isn’t found in looking at today’s release of a report based on yesterday’s numbers. As you might expect, I want to focus on tomorrow’s risks.

As I complain frequently, Canadian telecom policy has been dominated by affordability and competition objectives – important, but unfortunately short-sighted, with a populist, narrow focus. Eleven months ago, I wrote about a Liberal back-bencher rising in the House of Commons acknowledging the substantial drop in mobile prices being paid by consumers. “Canadians are paying lower prices for cellular services, with a 40% decline in prices over five years.” That wasn’t enough. She continued, “At a time when Canadians are concerned with rising costs and keeping their monthly bills affordable, can the Minister of Industry tell us how the government is working to lower cellphone bills?”

Industry Minister Joly proclaimed in response, “I, and this government, are laser-focused on making sure that we bring down costs in the telecom sector… We also said we would be hawkish on competition. We will do more in this budget to increase competition and make sure that we reform our telecommunications sector.”

GSMA argues that this framework was developed when mobile was a high-growth industry. Today, the market is more mature, revenue growth is slowing, and operators continue to face mounting obligations to fund 5G Standalone networks, AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, network resilience and future spectrum acquisitions.

The report advances a theme that my readers will recognize immediately: investment matters.

That theme echoes several discussions we’ve had over the past few years about the growing tension between consumer affordability and infrastructure investment. GSMA notes that Canada scores exceptionally well on wireless affordability while achieving mid-tier rankings on network performance measures, warning against policies that unintentionally undermine future investment incentives.

The 5G story is similarly nuanced. Canada has achieved more than 94% population coverage and reached one of the highest levels of 5G adoption globally, with nearly two-thirds of mobile connections already on 5G. Yet Canada ranks only 21st on the GSMA 5G Connectivity Index, highlighting a gap between broad coverage and leadership in advanced capabilities such as 5G Standalone, network slicing and enterprise applications.

Perhaps the most interesting section is found when the report focuses on AI.

GSMA sees telecom carriers becoming central players in Canada’s emerging sovereign AI ecosystem. Bell’s AI Fabric initiative, Telus’ Sovereign AI Factory, and operator investments in fibre, data centres and cloud infrastructure are presented as evidence that telecommunications networks are evolving from communications platforms into foundational AI infrastructure. At the same time, GSMA notes:

Canada faces structural constraints that could limit its AI ambitions. The most significant is the scale of its compute and data-centre infrastructure. As of September 2025, Canada had around 1.4 GW of operational datacentre capacity, versus more than 40 GW in the US.

Further, as I have written, AI cannot scale without connectivity. Every AI inference, every cloud workload and every edge computing application ultimately rides over robust communications networks. The GSMA report identifies mobile networks as a critical enabling layer for Canada’s AI ambitions.

The cybersecurity chapter is also worth reviewing. New legislation, mandatory outage reporting and growing concerns about infrastructure theft and cyberattacks are creating additional operational and financial pressures for operators. GSMA observes that resilience is more than an optional network enhancement. It is becoming a statutory obligation. How does this get funded in today’s regulatory and policy environment?

None of this means policymakers should abandon affordability objectives. Rather, the report serves as a reminder that affordability, network quality, digital sovereignty and economic growth are interconnected. Weak investment eventually translates into weaker networks, slower innovation and diminished competitiveness.

The GSMA report, The Mobile Economy Canada 2026, provides a reframing of telecommunications as something more than a consumer service. Wireless networks are a part of our national economic infrastructure, underpinning productivity, AI adoption, public safety and digital inclusion.

As Canada prepares for future releases of spectrum, AI investments, and eventually the transition toward 6G, a central question is whether the policy environment will create the investment climate necessary to sustain it.

The GSMA report can be viewed as a call for policymakers to shift from an affordability-first framework toward an improved balance of competition, consumer interests and long-term infrastructure investment – in short, a return to a more balanced approach for Canada’s telecom policy framework.

[Le rapport, “L’économie du mobile au Canada 2026”, est aussi disponible en français]

The post Canada’s mobile economy appeared first on Telecom Trends.

That is the provocative premise behind Building Canada’s Digital Future in the Carney Era, an upcoming Ivey Business School workshop that brings together leaders from government, industry, academia and civil society to tackle an emerging question: What does digital sovereignty actually look like for Canada?

The timing could not be more important.

Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, robotics and immersive technologies are becoming foundations of economic and geopolitical power. Countries that control critical digital infrastructure, data assets and AI capabilities could set the rules.

For telecom leaders and policy makers, this should raise uncomfortable questions.

Can Canada credibly pursue sovereign AI without sovereign cloud infrastructure? Are telecom networks merely communications platforms, or have they become strategic national assets? Is spectrum policy simply a regulatory exercise, or is it an industrial policy tool?

The workshop will examine how the Carney government’s broader nation-building agenda intersects with digital policy, investment and infrastructure development. Topics include future spectrum policy, trusted cloud services, digital infrastructure financing, network resilience, Indigenous connectivity, and the governance frameworks needed to foster innovation while maintaining public trust.

The workshop agenda asks whether Canada can chart a distinct path as a “digital middle power”, balancing openness to global innovation with greater control over critical technologies and infrastructure.

Will policy makers appreciate what is at stake?

We have reached the point where our conversations shouldn’t be about faster networks or lower prices. The Ivey telecom policy workshops elevate the discussion to examine economic security, competitiveness, productivity and national resilience. The next decade will determine whether Canada becomes a builder of strategic digital capabilities or a customer of technologies developed elsewhere.

For anyone involved in telecom, technology or public policy, this is a discussion worth following closely.

Plan to participate in Building Canada’s Digital Future in the Carney Era, December 2, 2026, at the Donald K. Johnson Conference Centre in downtown Toronto. Register here.

The post Canada’s Digital Future: Nation-Building or Digital Dependency? appeared first on Telecom Trends.

Apparently, the CRTC was unaware that AI capabilities already embedded in web browsers can compare prices today, with a query such as “which mobile carrier has the best offer for US roaming and 100GB of data and free nationwide Canada calling and texts?” No standardized database format required. No regulatory mandate needed.

Indeed, a few weeks ago, the UK regulator (Ofcom) released an update on its research, “Exploring what impact the adoption of AI could have on the experience of telecoms customers”. A note by Dean Bubley (Disruptive Analysis) observed that the report was released in the same week that Meta’s new Muse AI agents started helping people manage or renegotiate their subscriptions in the US.

Let’s look at another issue that is bound to arise: commitments to a typical internet speed. My September post referred readers to Ted Woodhead’s concerns about how the Commission defines “typical” when the service providers commit to delivering internet service. “The typical download and upload speeds are the speeds customers should expect to receive at all times which ISPs have committed to delivering during pre-sale.”

The speeds customers should expect to receive at all times. That is a pretty strong requirement, and may set an unachievable expectation in the minds of many consumers.

Unachievable, not because the service providers aren’t delivering what they promise. Unachievable because consumers may not be able to accurately measure the service quality being delivered.

There are many forms of interference that result in disconnecting expectations from reality. Roger Entner of Recon Analytics recently talked about problems introduced inside the customer’s household: a “label tax – the difference between what you buy and what you get”; and, a “Wifi tax – a mismatch between your router and your laptop”. Writing on X, he summarizes some of them as “Buy 5 Gbps fiber, but your motherboard tops out at 1 Gbps. Then Wi-Fi can take another ~90%, so a gig plan turns into 100 Mbps on the laptop. Who owns that experience, the ISP or the device ecosystem?”

When the subscriber runs Speedtest on their computer, how will they account for the other devices sharing their home network? Or devices that are injecting interference into their home network?

“Who owns that experience, the ISP or the device ecosystem?”

How many complaints to CCTS will be generated by this expectational mismatch? How will CCTS handle such complaints?

As I noted in my newsletter at the end of September, I am concerned that Canadian telecom policy is following a regressive, reactive path, adding regulations despite the presence of intense facilities-based competition. I recognize that the CRTC had to respond to the legislative changes to the Telecom Act enacted by Parliament in 2024. However, the Commission had flexibility under those provisions to be far less prescriptive in its decision, anticipating and even encouraging investment in more advanced AI capabilities by consumers and service providers alike.

Another missed opportunity.

The post Disconnecting expectations from reality appeared first on Telecom Trends.

A number of the initial submissions express concerns that simply combining four Codes into a single document does not make the regulatory framework simpler or contribute to reducing administrative burden. The Commission’s Working Document – a proposed unified Code – runs 33 pages.

The Canadian Telecommunications Association (CTA) cautions that the Working Document isn’t clearer or simpler. “Those objectives require the Commission to assess whether existing requirements remain necessary, proportionate and appropriate considering current market conditions, and whether they can be simplified, modernized or eliminated.”

Among the 24 questions posed to intervenors, only one (Q.12) asks “Are any other updates to the rules for early cancellation fees for wireless services needed to account for other evolving industry trends?”

Shouldn’t that be asked of every clause in the document? Shouldn’t the CRTC be looking for ways to update all of its rules?

CTA wrote:

The Commission should use this proceeding as an opportunity to modernize and rationalize, rather than simply amalgamate, the existing consumer protection framework. Consistency should be pursued where there is a sound policy basis for treating services alike, but differences should be retained where the nature of the service, the consumer issue being addressed or the costs of compliance justify different treatment. Similarly, where market and technological developments have overtaken the circumstances that originally justified a requirement, harmonization should provide an opportunity to simplify or remove that requirement rather than extend it to additional services.

Along those lines, TELUS says that choice and competition in the TV market “have rendered prescriptive protections unnecessary and largely irrelevant to consumers.” TELUS says there is no need for the new unified Code to include TV.

Similarly, certain prescriptive elements of some of the individual codes have not kept up with changes in the marketplace.

In its Working Document, the CRTC proposed to extend a $50 cap on data overage charges (that currently applies to wireless services) to Internet services. In a world of unlimited residential high-speed internet, is that really necessary?

The lowest priced iPhone in 2025 retailed for C$999 as contrasted with the highest price for an iPhone in 2015, C$769. An iPhone 18 Pro Max with 2TB of storage is currently listed at C$3,699. Amortizing such a device over two years at 0% financing costs more than $150 per month. Can’t we treat consumers like adults and let them have the option of spreading increased device costs over a longer period of time than the maximum 24 months set out by the CRTC more than 13 years ago?

In the interest of administrative simplicity, a number of submissions called for the CRTC to clearly assert federal jurisdiction over consumer protections for communications services. Otherwise, service providers will be left having to navigate the Commission’s unified Code, as well as 13 provincial and territorial regimes setting out inconsistent regulations.

I frequently write about regulatory stability and Calvinball. Last week, I wrote that government operates under different pressures than business. I’m not sure that the regulator appreciates the impact of some of its decisions on service providers operating businesses at scales of more than 10 million consumers.

There is a cumulative impact of decisions on the stability of business operations. With hundreds of retail outlets, thousands of customer service representatives, even small changes to retail consumer regulations can lead to changes in business processes, information systems, point of sale terminals, and training for customer service representatives and third party agents.

As the Commission continues down this path, we should ask, “for whom are we reducing administrative burden?”

According to the CRTC’s “Coming Attractions” page, there is a plan to issue a Telecom Notice of Consultation this week, with a “Call for comments – Reducing red tape – Review of telecommunications reporting requirements”. [Updated October 6, 2026 1:15pm with link to Notice of Consultation] The Commission might want to consider whether this should be a continuous process, inherent in every proceeding.

What is the cost of implementing administrative simplicity? Will these changes deliver value for consumers, service providers, both, or none of the above?

The post The cost of reducing administrative burden appeared first on Telecom Trends.

For more than a year, Canada’s broadcasting and telecom sectors have been told that the CRTC is “building a house.” In May, CRTC Chair Vicky Eatrides described the Commission’s agenda as a careful construction project: laying foundations, erecting framing, ensuring the structure will last. Vice chair Adam Scott had used the same metaphor in his remarks to the Scotiabank TMT Conference, emphasizing patience, sequencing, and the importance of getting the architecture right.

But metaphors only work when they illuminate reality. Increasingly, this one obscures it. While the CRTC continues to talk about building a house, the industries it oversees are watching the neighbourhood burn.

The frustration has been documented (repeatedly) by the people who appeared before the Commission, expressing both urgency and optimism.

In early January of 2025, the CRTC launched a proceeding, The Path Forward – Working towards a sustainable Canadian broadcasting system. The oral hearing took place in June 2025; the paper filings were completed a year ago.

In a widely shared LinkedIn post, Steve Jones of Stingray Radio recounts appearing at the hearing “to plead for the modernization of content regulations at Canadian radio.” His summary is blunt: “One year later. Absolutely nothing has happened.” No modernization of CanCon definitions. No movement on ownership caps. No recalibration of exposure requirements. Not even minor progress. Eight more stations have gone dark in the meantime.

Rod Schween of Pattison Media echoes the same experience in a separate LinkedIn post. He says he arrived at the hearing with “cautious optimism,” believing the Commission understood the severity of the pressures facing broadcasters. Six months later, he heard the Chair’s house‑building metaphor. He says he is still standing outside the construction site asking the same question: “How long does it take to build a house?”

These are voices representing hundreds of stations, thousands of employees, and communities across the country relying on local media for emergency information, civic coverage, and cultural expression.

The CRTC’s glacial pace is actively harmful.

Steve Jones illustrated the contrast between technological change and regulatory inertia. He observed that in the year since the proceeding closed:

• Smartphones learned to communicate directly with satellites.
• AI learned to create and buy advertising campaigns.
• Car dashboards became global multimedia platforms.

Meanwhile, “Canada’s radio content and ownership rules didn’t move a millimetre.” Stations are still regulated by the number of AM and FM transmitters they own, as though those transmitters compete only with each other and not with a global ecosystem of unregulated digital platforms.

Technology is advancing in months, while the pace of CRTC regulation is measured in years. This mismatch is a structural failure, no different from the failed regulatory hypothesis I described in May, highlighting the investment consequences of regulatory uncertainty. Capital does not wait for proceedings. It does not pause for consultations, reconsiderations, or multi‑year sequencing exercises. It flows to jurisdictions where the rules are clear, predictable, and aligned with market realities.

Canada’s broadcasting and telecom sectors need a regulator that understands that the cost of delay is not theoretical. Regulatory uncertainty and delay can be measured in shuttered stations, reduced newsrooms, deferred and reduced investment, and diminished Canadian ownership.

A commenter on the Jones post said the CRTC “eliminated license renewals to free up staff to focus on more impactful policy changes. So annnnnny year now.” The joke lands because the underlying truth is clear: the Commission’s internal processes are not producing timely outcomes.

The CRTC speeches describe a careful, methodical construction project. But a house that takes too long to build is of no use if the intended occupants don’t survive long enough to move in.

Steve Jones says, “It is as if the house is on fire, and we’ve called 9‑1‑1… and been put on hold. For a year.”

Rod Schween is equally pointed: broadcasters are standing outside in the cold, waiting for the keys to a house that should have been finished long ago.

While the CRTC talks about framing and foundations, the broadcasting industry is talking about survival. These two conversations simply aren’t aligned.

Unfortunately, government operates under different pressures than business. Government studies, consults, reports, and eventually acts. But, eventually just isn’t good enough in today’s business environment. The business world can’t wait for Canada’s regulator to finish getting its house in order.

The fires are spreading while the Commission is still fiddling with blueprints.

The post A glacial pace of regulatory change appeared first on Telecom Trends.

As my friend and colleague Ted Woodhead pointed out in his recent blog post, this policy decision raises several confusing issues for consumers and ISPs alike. Ted took aim at the Commission’s redefinition of “typical” internet speeds. While the CRTC originally flirted with defining “typical” as a speed delivered 95% of the time, they ultimately threw logic out the window and decided “typical” means a speed ISPs must deliver at all times.

As Ted noted, transforming a “typical” expectation into an absolute, 100% guarantee defies basic network physics.

But, as baffling as the “typical speed” semantic gymnastics are, that might not be the strangest part of the decision. For that, we’ll take a journey into that “wondrous land of imagination.” I refer to the new mandate requiring ISPs to publish all retail plan data on their websites in highly structured, machine-readable CSV spreadsheets. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.

The Commission decided that a more “dynamic marketplace” would emerge, if only ISPs were to publish all their Internet plan data in a machine-readable format. That way third-party developers could build automated comparison-shopping engines using the ISP provided data. While the CRTC did not explain why ISPs should help third parties make money off ISP labour, it did determine that the data must be provided in a standardized database format. And in doing so, the CRTC looked south for inspiration, explicitly pointing to the FCC’s technical guidelines for broadband machine-readable files as its blueprint.

There is just one glaring problem: The FCC already killed those exact rules.

A month earlier (August 13), the FCC took a hard look at its own broadband label experiment and realized that backend spreadsheet files were a costly compliance headache that nobody was using:

We also conclude that the substantial compliance burdens imposed by this requirement are not justified by the minimal, if any, likely benefits for consumers. The current record offers a fuller description of the relevant compliance burdens than was available to the Commission in 2022. We also find insufficient evidence that the requirement is needed to facilitate transparency and consumer decision-making, as some commenters argue. …And there is no record evidence that any third parties have used machine-readable label content to develop pro-consumer tools.

Real-world consumers don’t shop via raw CSV data, and the expected wave of tech developers building comparison apps never materialized. So, the FCC sensibly chopped the requirement to reduce regulatory burden and costs.

Yet, the CRTC eagerly copy and pasted the homework of a neighbor who had already thrown it in the trash.

Adding another layer of unnecessary administrative nonsense, the CRTC acknowledged that US and Canadian plan metrics don’t align, so while the format for the data requirement that the FCC just eliminated will serve as a starting point, the Commission punted the final file layout to the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC), giving them until September 2027 to “Canadianize” the already dead American technical specification. That’s right – a year from now.

By the time Canadian carriers spend millions configuring their databases to output these complex backend files, the rules will be built on the skeleton of an obsolete framework that the US abandoned for being useless. You have entered another dimension.

It is a classic case of regulatory FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) — except Canada is missing out on the actual lessons learned, preferring instead to import the administrative burdens our neighbors were smart enough to get rid of.

Investors from around the world recently met in Canada and implored Canadian governments and regulators to make Canada an easier place to invest. I have written before about those calling for “Ottawa to remove the obstacles that currently deter companies from investing in this country.”

The CRTC continues to do the opposite, adding regulations that do little to help consumers and only increase the cost of doing business.

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