Wirelessnorth.ca

Breaking news, Canada’s ever popu(list) governing party latest polling data has found few ordinary citizens in favour of “unfair” telecom charges. I don’t know if this poster child would top our list in that category, but inbound SMS fees have recently garnered a lot of press attention, and so.

“We are obviously responding to a specific concern, which is the imposition of charges for unsolicited text messages,” Harper told reporters today in Victoria, British Columbia. “We think this is completely unfair to consumers; completely unwarranted.”

Now there’s insensible about waiving fees on unsolicited txt messages (how about the same for unsolicited telemarketer calls eh?) the catch is that Bell and Telus already claim to credit consumers for “spam” messages. So this new policy may not mean much.

Buried under the headlines though is the story with real far reaching implications:

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission would also be empowered to block “unfair charges” in the future, and the country’s telecommunications act will be amended to create a “code of conduct” for wireless services, Harper said.

To date the wireless industry has not been subject to CRTC regulation. This is huge (depending on your opinion of the CRTC’s efficacy). Sadly though the conservatives have stopped short of another likely remedy, relaxing foreign ownership rules to spur greater competition. This “is not the time to move forward” on loosening ownership restrictions says Harper.

On balance however, this announcement is progress and probably good news for Canadians. For better or worse it does seem likely that Harper will still be in his seat after this election.

At WirelessNorth.ca we’re strongly in favor the conservative (or any other party) spending less effort on quashing arts & creativity in Canada and more on building a globally competitive wired/wireless telcom infrastructure and related industries in this country.

A code of conduct to enforce reasonable consumer protections is a good idea. Starting to relax foreign ownership would have been a good idea too.

Link: Canada to Ban Fees on Some Text Messages, Harper Says