Canadians used to brag about our leading-edge prowess in digital communications technology. My, how things sure have changed. We now live in an era where Nortel is an investor’s punchline, and the Cable and Telco companies provide limited services with high prices and pushy contracts. Canada has, in fact, become the laughing stock of the [...]

There is a fight going on for the internet, and the internet is losing.  Recently the New York Attorney General pretty much single-handedly cut-off millions of Americans’ access to newsgroups — the original home of free discussion on the internet (Rogers found a much sneakier way to destroy newsgroups on their own but that is [...]

Home phone providers have always known that there just aren’t enough lines available should everyone pick-up their phone at the same time and try to make a call.  They rely on established traffic patterns and add a bit for emergencies. They know that 13 year-old girls are constantly tying-up their system, and they deal with [...]

If people left your broadcast system to obtain free (and in many cases better) programming, you’d become concerned.  Unless you also provide access to the internet, that is. Then you’d want to try and control, or shape, your customers’ habits to encourage the use of (or at least prevent a further mass exodus from) your [...]