Common voice for cable telephony providers to disappear in February

The Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA), which recently stepped up to provide a common voice for cable telephony efforts at the CRTC, is shutting its doors. The news comes only a few short months after Shaw Communications Inc. decided to pull out of the association, citing difficulty in coming to a consensus on key issues. Michael Hennessy, president and CEO of the CCTA, tells Network Letter that Shaw withdrawing its membership only played a partial role in the decision to close the association. "Our major companies have shifted from being cable television companies to becoming media and communications conglomerates. They all have unique business strategies and goals that, while common on certain things, I think they differ a lot more depending on what they’re emphasizing in terms of what they want to sell to end users," he explains. The outgoing head of the CCTA also attributes a portion of the closing to the changing regulatory environment. "As we’ve been telling people, we’re a regulatory lobby group, and increasingly we’re in a world where consumers have really become the regulators," Hennessy adds. The shuttering of the cable TV association comes at a critical time in the evolution of the country’s telecommunications regulatory framework. The Telecommunications Policy Review Panel is expected to release its recommendations on modernizing the communications regulatory and policy framework in the very near future, which could have dramatic ramifications for how telecom service providers are regulated. The CRTC is also expected to set the rules regarding local forbearance within the next couple of months, which will free to at least some degree the incumbent telephone companies from price regulation of their local telephony services. CCTA’s demise also comes a critical juncture in the evolution of the competitive landscape for telecommunications services. Other than EastLink, the rest of the big cable companies – Shaw, Rogers Communications, Cogeco Cable and Vidéotron ltée – have entered the local telephony space using Voice over IP technology. Since entering the market, they have scored big subscriber wins against the incumbent telephone companies. Some have suggested that convergence played a role in the closing of the CCTA, and even Hennessy agrees. "While we were very successful I think right up until the very end, convergence is changing the world and I think we’re going to see some evolution both in the areas of public policy and the kind of trade associations that exist in Ottawa in this area," he says. A February 10 news release announcing the closure states, "As a consequence of convergence, the cable industry has evolved beyond broadcasting and now includes telephone, Internet and wireless services. Given the different market conditions, evolving consumer demands for a variety of new services and competitive pressures, the CCTA has determined that it is not possible to consistently reflect a single industry position on many key issues." Others aren’t so sure that convergence played any part in the association folding, particularly when there is still a lot of common ground between the cable companies in the telecommunications space. There may have been differences on the broadcasting side – and it is now evident there were – but on the telecom side the opposite is true. On the local residential competition front, there are still many battles to be fought between the cablecos and telcos. Shaw still has to battle Telus Corp. in the West, while Rogers, Cogeco and Vidéotron have to go toe-to-toe with Bell Canada in central Canada. There are other activities that will be affected from the lack of a common voice – CRTC Interconnection Steering Committees are an example. The closing of the CCTA doesn’t mean that the cablecos won’t participate in a cohesive fashion with respect to regulatory matters, but the lack of a common voice or unifying front for the cable companies with respect to regulatory issues could negatively affect the efficiency of the cablecos in dealing with these matters. Instead of a single voice, there will now be four or five separate voices. The recent troubles at the CCTA are somewhat reminiscent of those of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association in the late 1990s. Both Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility pulled out of that association after the new entrant-versus-incumbent agenda was being pushed too heavily within the CWTA, resulting in an inability to get consensus on issues. To get Bell and Telus back into the fold, the association chose instead to focus only on common issues affecting the wireless carriers, mainly important matters such as health effects from wireless signals, wireless and driving, and wireless E911.

Common voice for cable telephony providers to disappear in February

News | 02/15/2006 5:00 am EST

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