Regulation & Policy: National DNCL goes live at month’s end

The CRTC has made it official: the long-awaited and much anticipated National Do-Not-Call List (DNCL) will begin operations on September 30 with Bell Canada at the helm."For many Canadian consumers, the National DNCL will come as a relief to the nuisance of telemarketing calls," read a statement from the CRTC. "It will, however, have some exemptions. Consumers may still receive calls from registered charities, political parties, and newspapers seeking subscriptions. Companies with whom a consumer has an existing business relationship will still be able to call, as well as those conducting surveys."The issue of exemptions was, and still is, a controversial one. But when the commission ordered, in its final ruling on the matter, all users of telemarketing services, including those companies and organizations exempt from the DNCL rules, to fund the investigation of complaints as well as register and provide information to the DNCL operator, it rankled the feathers of some exempt groups. Two organizations have since filed a petition with the Governor-in-Council.Imagine Canada and the Association of Fundraising Professionals are asking the government to direct the CRTC to vary or rescind this portion of the CRTC decision.The Canadian Marketing Association believes that it should be the government that funds the investigation of telemarketing complaints. "Enforcement is done... in the public interest and it's done by governments. It's not done by levying a fee on the law biding group and having them pay for the enforcement," Wally Hill, vice president of public affairs told Telemanagement earlier this year. "These kinds of laws and regulations are normally enforced at the expense of the public purse, taxpayers generally. And in this case that is what should happen."Comments on the petition should be made available to the public shortly, but as of publishing, have yet to be released.Spectrum auction produces new competitorsIndustry Canada's Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum auction that came to an end on July 21 is good news for the country's business community. Enterprises will soon see a number of new competitors in the market offering a broad range of wireless telephony and data services, and the hope is that their services will be competitively priced.The auction produced 12 new competitors and the larger ones have some pretty deep pockets to quickly deploy networks and launch services. Some have speculated that new entrants could be offering service within the next year.While many had hoped the AWS bandwidth sale would set the stage for the creation of a fourth national wireless operator, it didn't happen. MTS Allstream, the best hope for a national new entrant with a focus on the business community, settled for spectrum in its home territory of Manitoba after its bidding coalition fell apart.But the business community doesn't necessarily need a new national wireless company, it needs a company that can offer compelling mobile business solutions, complete with affordable data plans and large buckets of minutes, including long distance. The question is will we see that from a new competitor.At this point it's unclear for a few reasons. First of all, the amount of money competitors had to ante up for bandwidth was significantly higher than anticipated. This could translate into service packages that are more expensive than competitors had previously planned.Secondly, these new competitors will have to negotiate roaming and tower sharing agreements with the Big Three - Bell Mobility, Rogers Communications and Telus Mobility. The cost to access networks and antenna space will be at commercial rates, meaning it will be significantly higher than if they built the facilities themselves.Third, the question remains whether there is room for more competition in the enterprise space. Given the requirement to offer smartphones to this segment and the increased cost to acquire these types of devices, it might prove difficult to undercut the incumbent wireless players on this front.While there are still some unanswered questions regarding the spectrum auction's potential benefit to enterprises, one thing is for certain: there will be new competitors and they will at least try to win over customers from the Big Three. That, in and of itself, should be enough to bring benefits to the enterprise community.Telus business local services deregulated in parts of BCEnterprise customers in parts of BC might now get better pricing from Telus Corp., as a result of a CRTC decision earlier this summer. The commission deregulated local business voice services for Telus in Langley and West Vancouver BC, but denied the company's forbearance requests for the communities of Sooke BC and Peace River AB.The commission said that Langley and West Vancouver met the forbearance test because there was at least one other independent facilities-based fixed-line provider in those exchanges and that it is capable of serving 75% of business lines in those markets.In the Sooke and Peace River markets, the CRTC determined they didn't meet the deregulation requirements because Bell Canada was the only competitor identified by Telus. "However, the commission notes that for the exchange of Peace River, Bell Canada does not offer business local exchange services. As for the exchange of Sooke, the Commission notes that while Bell Canada offers wholesale services, it does not offer retail business local exchange services," read Telecom Decision 2008-67.

Regulation & Policy: National DNCL goes live at month’s end

News | 09/02/2008 7:57 pm EDT

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