Canadian Telecommunications: A History and Political Economy of Media Reconvergence

Abstract

This paper discusses key concepts in telecommunications policy: common carriage, natural monopoly, universal service, and price setting. Three crucial points are made. First, in light of historical practices that created and sustained boundaries between the media industries, contemporary trends toward reconvergence need to be seen, mainly, as a consequence of economic, legal, and political factors -- not technology. Second, the governing discourse of telecommunications policy should not be regulation /deregulation, but about whether policies prevent, permit, or promote reconvergence and broadband telecommunications. Third, the choice of the latter strategy by the CRTC as well as broader trends in telecommunications have propelled media politics to a new high-water mark as telecommunications companies (telcos) increasingly obtain the ability to claim media freedoms under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The paper also argues that there are grounds for the telcos to claim such rights on a de facto basis through NAFTA and WTO provisions that prevent the regulation of enhanced services. The key question in this respect is how can the CRTC distinguish between, for example, a broadcast signal (which it would like to apply cultural policies to) and on-line services (which they cannot regulate) when all information is digitized and sent down the same pipe? Answers to such questions are urgently needed before telcos usurp the democratic rights of citizenship associated with the nascent “electronic free press.”