Talking Tech, Thursday, June 14th

0.27 – Mark is back with Duncan. Kevin has taken the week off but will back next week. The subject of the week is the Canadian Telecom Summit which raised the issue of broadband Internet access, pricing and availability.

1.42 – Duncan thinks tiered pricing, depending on usage, is going to be difficult to implement in the short term. He thinks the answer for the cable companies will lie with Sandvine’s network management service.

3.24 – Mark brings up the lack of competition in the Canadian telco industry.

4.02 – The only reason the Toronto One Zone wi-max service is any good is because no-one uses it!

4.35 – How much will people pay for broadband? Do the carriers have their consumers by the balls?

5.28 – Duncan brings up the public policy issue of equality of access. Fiber tubes could be laid down in the big cities – thus alienating the more rural towns.

6.15 – Mark bemoans the dwindling rate of broadband penetration, due to a lack of innovation, lack of choice, and a low price. Duncan agrees.

7.23 – The guys segue into the wireless market – does Canada need or want a fourth carrier? Quebecor and MTS think it does and wants to be able to buy wireless spectrum. Money quote from Bell’s Lawson Hunter - “Where we you when Microcell was for sale in 2004?�

8.46 – Duncan thinks any outside player should be able to go to the regulator and ask to be sold wireless spectrum to break up the existing oligarchy. He doesn’t think it’ll matter because if the fourth carrier is successful, one of the big three will just buy it out anyway.

10.36 – Mark references an article that suggests Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski will jump ship and go to run Qwest. Duncan doesn’t see it happening, but admits it can’t be a lot of fun to run Nortel right now.

13.21 – The guys discuss a rumour that Nortel CTO John Roese is being groomed as the next CEO. Duncan thinks that is about 3-5 years down the line.

14.02 – He then segues onto another rumour that Intel is slashing its prices by 50 per cent and that the semiconductor industry will grow by just 1.8 per cent in the next 12 months. Mark wonders about the motivations behind Intel’s move, Duncan thinks it’s a reaction to AMD’s “poking of the bear�.

16.10 – He also thinks that Intel feels AMD is close enough to going under, Intel may be able to push them off the cliff. Would the investors let AMD go bankrupt? Duncan thinks the debt is too high for the PE crowd to come in and make money from any deal.

Audio or text comments for Mark, Kevin and Duncan can be emailed to [e-mail].

Our announcer is the lovely Amber Mac and the music is No Mojo by Anthony Stauffer and Holy Smoke which is available on the pod safe music network.