Thursday, June 13, 2019

Misinformation/corruption with the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review

The following is a letter to my MP.

David McGuinty, my MP for Ottawa South,


I find the processes involving analog-era communications companies to be very problematic.  This latest note from Mr Geist is only an example.


Submissions to the government should be proactively disclosed during the process, so errors and/or misinformation from lobbiests can be corrected by the public.  The government should not be allowing submissions to be claimed proprietary, except when specific proprietary information is required by regulatory agency -- never for a consultation process.



I say analog-era as many of these vertically integrated companies are structured the way they are due to limitations with analog communications technology.  Analog communications technology required that a wire or part of spectrum be dedicated to an application.  With digital technology the OSI layered approach upon which nearly all digital communications technology is modelled allows for deployment and regulation much like highways: neutral infrastructure upon which a broad set of uses can be built.

The Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review should be looking at ways to sunset analog-era policy and replace with digital-era policy, not privilege the submissions from analog-era companies who have been misleading governments on this area of policy for decades.

We don't have road infrastructure vertically  integrated with UPS, Ford, Wall Mart or Pizza Hut - so why in 2019 do we still have digital communications infrastructure vertically integrated with analog-era phone, cable, and broadcast companies like Bell, Telus, Rogers, Corus or SaskTel?



[Note: I always include my address and postal code in letters, as it allows staffers to look up the postal code and confirm I'm a constituent].

This letter can be treated as public, and shared.

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