CRTC’s consumer focus not at odds with industry: Blais

GATINEAU, Que. — The reviews the CRTC will be holding over the coming year, which include proceedings covering wholesale access to wireless and fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks, the future of television and commercial radio, could set the direction for the CRTC over the next decade, said CRTC Chairman Jean Pierre Blais. “This fall, we’ll be doing hearings that basically review everything we regulate in one way or another,” Blais said in an interview with The Wire Report at the CRTC offices Wednesday. “Pretty much everything we are responsible for is in play in the next 12 months.” “So that’s both exciting and daunting, because of the level of work one needs to do in that period of time.” Blais said the work ahead will amount to a “fundamental review,” noting the regulator has undertaken such reviews in the past, and, historically, they have often ended up setting the course the CRTC will take for the following decade. For instance, Blais said a review of all policies in the mid-1990s “led to fundamental changes in how we approach telecommunications regulation, the movement to long-distance competition and price-cap regulation,” while the emergence of pay-TV in the early 1980s prompted another such change a decade earlier. Over the coming year, he added, “everything will be reviewed,” and “we know from the pleadings we’ve been receiving on the telecom files and the conversation we’ve already started on the TV side that almost every perspective is going to be brought to the table.” Blais also said that fundamental change will include a repositioning of the role of the commission. “We don’t drive business decisions, but we certainly must be vigilant to ensure that the public interest is protected,” he said. He said the goal for his five-year mandate, which ends in June 2017, is to have a “more trusted” institution, which includes “putting Canadians back at the centre.” That includes a focus on consumers, but also “Canadians as citizens and Canadians as creators.” The CRTC has taken a consumer-focused approach to telecommunications policy over the past year, putting in place initiatives such as the wireless code of conduct, which came into effect in December. Focusing on the consumer experience involves not just lower prices, but also questions of quality of service and long-term reliability, Blais said. “That’s the sort of things that keep you up at night, making sure that the complexity of that consumer experience is fully thought out.” He added that consumer-based focus doesn’t affect the CRTC’s relationship with the broadcasting and telecom industries. “I would argue the contrary. If a good businessman or woman forgets about consumers, they’re not going to be in business for very long. So I think our interests converge,” he said. “I don’t see a divergence in there, because I think the public interest and the private interest certainly can coexist.” As the CRTC undertakes that “fundamental review” over the next year, the broadcasting industry will also continue to deal with radical changes in technology and consumer behaviour, from the emergence of over-the-top (OTT) television to the growing popularity of streaming music services. “It’s important for us to be cognizant of those realities in the marketplace. We’re not going to be able to put a finger in the dike and make it stop, or hold our breath until it goes away. It is happening,” he said. “What’s our role with respect to those new technologies? to continue to achieve the objectives that Parliament has defined for us,” Blais said. “So why are we doing all these reviews? The policy outcomes remain. How you achieve them may have to shift in light of the objectives.” In 2009, the CRTC upheld an exemption on new media requiring broadcasting licences, though it said at the time it would review the exemption in 2014. In 2011, it opened a “watching brief” on the issue following a consultation about OTT TV services, which concluded regulation was not necessary. Blais said Wednesday that the decision to exempt digital media from regulation is in itself a form of regulation. “In a sense, by deciding not to do something, we regulated and decided not to license them,” he said. He said the CRTC does “intervene a great deal” on Internet issues, and what it has done has focused on issues around Internet delivery, or the “wholesale” side. Blais gave the example of the CRTC’s establishment of a capacity-based, wholesale Internet billing regime in February 2013, and the CRTC’s concern about Internet prices in its decision on Northwestel Inc.’s modernization plan last December. “You often see ‘the CRTC should or shouldn’t regulate the Internet.’ Well, let’s actually go back to basics and see exactly where our actions can be. And it’s not an all-or-none activity,” he said. “And certainly we have heard, let’s say on the Let’s Talk TV , that people want us to go further, but that’s to be seen.” He added that a big challenge in the TV policy review will be to develop an adaptable framework that can be used as technology continues to evolve. Blais noted that when he was at Canadian Heritage, a guiding philosophy when reviewing media support programs and policies that had been created prior to the digital era was “do no harm.” “We were always questioning ourselves; make sure you don’t jump in too quickly and stifle innovation, but by the same token, don’t be so timid that you let things develop and then you’ve got a problem,” he said. He noted that net neutrality will also be another issue set to be raised in the TV review, and one that the CRTC will likely have to increasingly deal with in the coming years. “It’s about the fairness of the wholesale market, we’ve got a good dynamic marketplace,” he said. “I think we’re being called more and more to intervene at all levels. Because it’s about how you get bits and bytes from Point A to Point B. It involves how you manage networks, how you get access to buildings, how you cross streets, how you manage information. It’s such a wide gamut.” At the same time as the commission has been considering changes in the industries it regulates, it has also been embarking on internal change, Blais added. “We’re actually doing a fundamental change-management exercise internally as well, in terms of management excellence and how we do things,” he said, such as making sure there is an HR plan and an adaptable workforce. “There is always a resistance to change, as there is outside, and so you continually have to re-dedicate yourself on a daily basis to that.” While Blais said he couldn’t comment on the direction the CRTC might take in the review process that will unfold over the coming year, he added there shouldn’t be any surprises. “I am consistent in certain respects. It’s about putting Canadians at the centre of the communications system. It’s about building trust with the institution. It’s about building how we interact and consult and reach out to Canadians,” he said. “But it’s also about making sure that we’re making decisions evidence-based for the long term, while acknowledging it has to be an adaptive system.” “It’s about change,” he said. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

CRTC’s consumer focus not at odds with industry: Blais

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CRTC’s consumer focus not at odds with industry: Blais

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