Embracing the Digital Economy

By Gerry Remers

I'm going to the cottage this weekend — but I'm not taking my laptop. In fact, I could probably leave my cell behind as well. Bell advertises high-speed mobile access (using its "Turbo Stick") of up to 21 Mbps... which gets me salivating. However, the fine print does clarify that speed may vary due to topography. Worse yet, Bell doesn't serve my cottage on the Bruce Peninsula — Amtelecom does. So I continue to gaze longingly at the ads for high speed mobile.

For some reason, I doubt that the government's commitment early last year of $225 million for improved broadband to underserviced areas will address this lacuna. And so, the apparently bitter "we have the best high speed network" wars between Bell/ Rogers/Telus and others continues. And I begin to question the idea that as a country, we can even offer high speed mobile and broadband services at a level competitive with best in class globally. Our geography seems to defy it. Our sense of urgency belies it. We are content to dial up.

Canada ranks a dismal 21st in the overall provision of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to its citizens (International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - 2010 Survey). Worse yet is the news that our relative performance is declining — we scored 18th globally in the last ITU survey.

Canadians "access, use and skills" relating to Internet usage are falling behind newly developed countries like Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong — and virtually all European countries with a white Christmas. Why is it that Scandinavian countries, Austria, Switzerland and Iceland, (bankrupt Iceland!) are megabits ahead of Canada in usage of ICTs? The good news is that we remain ahead of Estonia (but not by much). The sad news is that in Estonia you can pay for parking with your cell phone — while we still have to insert loonies in meters. Why is Canada so far behind many other Asian and European countries in the adoption of ICT services?

Government policy seems to be one critical factor that has led to this crisis. Canada needs to develop a competitive, pervasive and persuasive ICT strategy. This strategy needs to cut across current fiefdoms — culture, industry, communications — since regulatory frameworks, competition policy, and trade policy are all affected by ICTs.

Our historically fine-tuned processes for understanding, addressing and/or articulating Canada's industrial and communications objectives are woefully inadequate in a digital age. The European market, by way of differentiation, has created a consortium of ICT companies, national and transnational governmental bodies whose mandate is to create a Single Digital Market" — a DigitalEurope strategy. Where is the DigitalCanada working group composed of provincial and federal representatives, the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), and ICT companies?

legislation slow in coming

The feds are working on legislation — like the upcoming copyright bill, the privacy bill and the anti-spam measures. They are moving the ship in the right direction but at an oil tanker pace. (Thank God for oil sands). Developing countries have accelerated their use of ICTs to the point where they are roughly 10 years behind Sweden — the acknowledged ICT leader.

This compares favourably to other measures of progress in the developing world — infant mortality and longevity. On these metrics, developing countries are something like 72 and 66 years (respectively) behind Sweden!

While we see through a fibre-optics glass darkly, developing countries are committing billions in ICT infrastructure, fostering competitive e-Commerce markets, addressing tough issues relating to the relationship between traditional broadcast regulatory frameworks and Internet regulation — not to mention privacy rights and IP rights.

ICTs are pervasive in our economy. It almost seems irrelevant to refer to a "digital economy" strategy since it's clearly more important as an adjective than as a sector of the overall economy. The ICT industry per se, represents a modest 5% of GDP in Canada. Let's be honest. We have RIM — and then — not much else. Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) dominate economic activity in Canada. The talk of regaining the ICT industry pre-eminence we once held — when Nortel was Northern Telecom, BNR was a force, and BCE was a holding company that actually held something of value — needs to be based on something other than romantic notions of re-creating the past.

The new reality requires us to choose our goals carefully and strategically. Where can we maintain a distinct comparative advantage in ICTs? Digital media, distance education, green technologies, and medical/health ICTs are promising fields. Hardware alone is going to be a tough sell. Manufacturing alone is not a core competence.

We need to add a digital overlay to everything we do — EDI (electronic data interchange) enabled supply chains, social media-savvy marketing tactics, SMS (short message service) based payment options, and virtual education/medicine/presence. Think e-Commerce, internet advertising arbitrage, on-line gaming, electronic whiteboards, digital cinema networks, remote diagnostics, medical simulation, digital archiving and retrieval, database development and yes — high-speed mobile networks. These are relevant to our geographic reality.

Distance defines us and overcoming distance through telepresence and high-speed networks can bind us together in ways that air travel (think volcanic ash clouds) never will achieve. Virtual business models and web-based modes of communication and exchange offer significant productivity benefits, but only if we are willing to invest now for the benefit of future Canadians.

If we focus our combined efforts on addressing the Canadian reality, the reality that we are losing ground in ICT access, usage and skills, that we lack a coherent strategy for a DigitalCanada, we can reverse these negative trends.

In a couple of years I might yet be able to sit on my cottage deck, downloading monster files at gigabits per second. In fact, I may not be coming in to the office at all since I'll be "skyping" with staff, checking raw material shortages with vendors in Malaysia and spending most of my days answering emails. Of course, some might ask why I bother to come to the cottage at all if I can't leave work behind?

Gerry Remers is president and COO of Christie Digital Systems Canada.