TORONTO—CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein defended the Commission’s broadband speed targets, consumer complaint resolution process, planned vertical integration hearings and other moves in a 40-minute public fireside chat Wednesday morning.
Speaking at the Canadian Telecom Summit held at the Toronto Congress Centre, von Finckenstein dismissed criticism by some made at the Summit Tuesday that the CRTC recently set its broadband speed goals for Canadian Internet service providers too low. In early May, the agency announced that it expects all Canadians to have access to broadband speeds of at least 5 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream by 2015, targets that some service providers have already said they will easily exceed and handily exceed already.
“It’s a target, a minimum,” said von Finckenstein, upon questioning by conference co-chair Mark Goldberg. “Some will overshoot it and some won’t.” He argued that “it will be quite an achievement” for the telecom industry to meet these goals nationwide over the next four years.
Similarly, von Finckenstein (pictured) shrugged off Goldberg’s questions about whether the CRTC’s process for dealing with consumer complaints about Internet traffic management and other telecom issues could be better. For instance, he took issue with the suggestion that the Commission could conduct audits of the traffic management practices of Canadian ISPs.
“We are complaints-driven,” he said. “Doing audits suggests something is wrong, that there are implications of wrongdoing.”
In addition, von Finckenstein deflected criticism of the CRTC’s plans to hold vertical integration hearings about the recent consolidation moves in the Canadian telecom and media sectors. While noting that “we’re way ahead of the U.S. in terms of vertical integration,” he denied that the Commission is pursuing any hidden public policy agenda in staging the hearings now and that’s the reason behind the CRTC’s many calls for new evidence. It’s not that the Commission is ignorant of the issues, it’s that it must start fresh.
“My mind is totally open,” he said. “This is more or less virgin territory…We have to figure out the implications.”
