The more things change…the more they stay the same.  That was the theme of the Canadian Telecom Summit 2015 Regulatory Blockbuster moderated by Greg O’Brien of www.Cartt.ca

The “big three” were represented by Mirko Bibic of Bell Canada, David Watt of Rogers Communications and Ted Woodhouse of Telus.  The “upstarts” were represented by Bram Abramson of TekSavvy and Bob Baron of WIN Mobile.

Perhaps the most telling comment came from Mirko who described the situation 10 years ago: the up-starts go the CRTC and negotiate access rates with the incumbents.  A few years later the same up-starts return to the CRTC complaining that they need lower rates to survive.  He said that is the same situation now.  Furthermore, he predicted it would be the same situation in another 10 years.

Whether the story will be the same in 10 years is hard to predict.  But as we do look back and compare to the present, perhaps the more things change…the more they do stay the same.

If you are interested in following the conference on twitter, search for #CTS15.