Mobile & Wireless Roundup - Innovation & Industry News

The first keynote and panel session that I attended at ICE08 called “Flash Forward: New Canadian Media”, was moderated by Raja Khanna (GlassBOX Television), and featured panelists David UK (Heavy.com), Pary Bell (CanWest Digital Media), and Michael Hennessy (TELUS). It was noted that Canadian carriers are the limiting factor when it comes to innovation, and Raja posed the question to the panelists, should we ask for subsidies from the ISP’s to develop applications and content. TELUS’ initial response was that this would not in fact be legal, but then was quick to say that this would be “like giving creators crack cocaine” which will result in screwups and cause havok in the market place.

I had to disagree with Michaels opinion here, as time has shown, all industries have failures and sucessus. Opening up the doors to a flood of content producers will increase the chances (simple probability) that more great content is produced and gets to see the light of day. I am not saying, give cash subsidies to all who want it, but to have a greater acceptance that great content is available, and to reward those who produce it, more effectively. As ultimately, content is king.

Later during the discussion, TELUS stated that “we are not in the content business” and understands that they need to open up and allow content producers to do their thing.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this seems like a contradiction to the previous statement that was shunning new and aspiring content producers. But maybe, the case he was making is simple. TELUS cannot subsidize the costs for content producers, but do realize their value of keeping them on board. Maybe they can see that markets around the world are taking this stance, and it is about time that Canada (TELUS in this case) follow their lead as to ensure, that their users get Canadian content.

In five years, TELUS expects that the following changes have occured:

• OnDemand TV will be standard. People do not want to watch programes when the schedule states, they want it whenever they want to watch it
• Faster wireless services
• Revenue will come from Access Fees, Data Fees and Revenue share with content producers

Lets hope that all this talk of being “Open” actually does ring true.