In a decision that will dramatically change the $10-billion local phone market in Canada, the federal government has decided the VoIP market should be regulation-free. "Barriers to entry in this market are low; there is no reason to regulate it," Industry Minister Maxime Bernier said. "In a competitive sector, there is no reason to regulate some companies while others can offer the services they want at the prices they want."
   So what does this decision mean? For one, incumbent carriers will be able to offer VoIP service at any price they want without having to seek approval regulatory approval. As a result, you can expect Bell Canada to become much more aggressive on pricing while ILECs such as Telus, Manitoba Tel and SaskTel will get into the VoIP market after sitting on the sideline until the regulatory uncertainty was resolved. This could mean bad news for Vonage and the cablecos, which have been able to roll out VoIP service without having to worry about competition from the ILECs.
  Another key development is regulation of the traditional local phone market will likely disappear soon (expect in rural communities where there is little or no competition). After all, how can you deregulate VoIP and not deregulate traditional phone service? Depending on how aggressive the ILECs want to be to keep and win-back customers, it would not be surprising to see price wars for local phone service in many markets, particularly places such as Toronto and Montreal where the ILECs, cablecos and VoIP service providers are already going to head to head.
  One wildcard is how ambitious the ILECs will become about VoIP given they could easily cannibalize their traditional phone businesses, particularly high-end customers who would gravitate to VoIP because of the features. If the ILECs do come out with guns ablazin' it may be bad news for the cablecos, who have been enjoying free ride with cable telephony, and the VoIP players such as Vonage who may find themselves on the outside looking in.
Tags: VoIP, Canada, CRTC

Pulver Media's Jon Arnold did a podcast with me yesterday in which we talked about everything from b5media, the future of newspapers and being appointed to VoIP News' 50 list VoIP influencers. Tags: b5media, Mark Evans, Jon Arnold, podcast

A sign that blogging has become serious business are plans for a new conference in Las Vegas next November called BlogWorld. A press release proclaims "the event will combine elements of the corporate communications world with the needs of active, individual “bloggers” will be the first gathering of its kind." It would be easy to argue that blog/blogging gatherings/conferences have been happening on a fairly regular basis for a couple years but the fact an event is taking place at the Las Vegas Convention Centre suggests the conference business has realized the blogging business is ripe with potential (a.k.a. profits). BlogWorld (and the New Media Expo) are being organized by political blogger Rick Calvert. Tags: Blogging, BlogWorld, Las Vegas

If you have a vested interest (like me!) in the growth of online advertising, it's a good morning as sales in the third-quarter jumped 33% to $4.2-billion from $3.1-billion a year earlier, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. This is the eight straight quarter and growth, and the largest single quarter on record. It's a pretty impressive number, particularly considering many advertisers are still trying to get a handle on where to put their online advertising dollars. Do they go with traditional banner ads? Do they plunge into the worlds of CPC, CPM or CPL? Do they decide to be pioneers in the online video and audio markets. Or do they get into the user-generated content area such as blogs and social networking sites. In the wake of the ad|tech conference last week, there appears to be a strong interest in blog networks as b5media has been peppered with offers of advertising contracts, meetings and demos. It leads to be believe there is still huge momentum left in the online ad market as companies start to even more comfortable with the idea of shifting part of the ad budgets to the Web.  For more, check out Jason Calacanis, who describes the growth of online advertising as "the real story of Web 2.0", and Online Media Daily.

Tags: advertising, b5media, Jason Calacanis, IAB