OTTAWA – Mobile phone customers will not see the video available on their phone screens impacted by regulation, the CRTC announced this morning.
The Commission determined that the services provided by Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless and Telus Mobility, in conjunction with MobiTV Inc., fall within the Commission’s New Media Exemption Order, which applies to services that are delivered and accessed over the Internet.
The Commission also determined that mobile television services, whether or not they are delivered and accessed over the Internet, should also be exempt from regulation, and issued a public notice asking for the input of Canadians on a proposed exemption order to that effect.
"We want to create innovation," CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen told www.cartt.ca. ""We don’t want to limit the technology, the software, the programming formats with non-market based criteria – until there’s a need to do so – and let the technology develop."
Bell, Telus and Rogers all offer video capability to customers with certain types of mobile phones. They offer a channel lineup free from Canadian content regs (although all offer a good number of Canuck channels). While the video quality leaves much to be desired, improvements in wireless networks and in the MobiTV technology all three are using will improve the signal as time passes.
The question the carriers still have to answer is what, exactly, do customers want to watch on their phones. Clips? Regular TV? Original content made just for mobile viewers? They can’t way just yet.
“The Commission considers that exempting mobile television services promotes innovation in delivering television to Canadians,” said Dalfen, “without adversely impacting the ability of licensed broadcasters to fulfill their obligations under the Broadcasting Act through a wireless handset, such as a cell phone.”
The Commission will continue to monitor developments closely, it added.
“The CRTC decision is very good news for both carriers and consumers because delivery services like ours are free to continue doing what they’ve been doing," Telus executive vice president, corporate affairs, Janet Yale told www.cartt.ca.
“The commission is recognizing that they don’t want to stifle innovation and creativity,” she added. “The reaction shouldn’t be to just apply the old regulatory paradigm.
“The new proceeding to look at mobile services that don’t fall within the new media exemption order is a forward looking step. It indicates that the Commission recognizes technology is changing rapidly and the exemption order issued today should be extended to other delivery platforms. Again, this will promote innovation.”
Canadian broadcasters, however, had a different point of view in its submission to the Commission on the topic. Television is television, said the Canadian Association of Broadcasters in a letter to the CRTC in 2005, whatever the mode of delivery or viewing device, so existing linkage rules for Canadian and U.S. channels and contribution levels to program production should apply.
The CAB declined to comment today, saying it wanted to further poll its members before responding. It may be difficult to find consensus on this issue among those members. Some, such as Pelmorex’s Weather Network and Meteomedia, have carriage deals with the wireless carriers already and both Rogers Media (Sportsnet, OMNI, etc) and Bell Globemedia (CTV, TSN, etc) are controlled by the two largest wireless carriers.
