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Public frustration over the state of the Canadian wireless industry has generally focused on consumer-oriented concerns, including pricey data plans, misleading system access fees and text-message charge policies. Given the consumer focus, the effect on Canadian business is rarely discussed. That is set to change as one of Canada’s leading media companies has stepped forward with explosive allegations about how the wireless industry is engaged in practices that stifle innovation by privileging access or controlling content on their networks.

The claims can be found in a recent submission to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission by Pelmorex Media, the owner of the Weather Network in Canada. While Pelmorex is not a household name, the Weather Network’s websites rank at the top of Canadian media websites for online visitors.

Pelmorex wrote to the CRTC as part of the commission’s ongoing network-management proceeding and was one of the few to focus on the management of wireless networks. Although the submission does not name names, it claims that Canadian wireless carriers routinely impose restrictions on the ability of content providers to deliver advertising as well as restrict or charge more if a customer accesses that advertising. These restrictions undermine the profitability of mobile websites.

Moreover, Canadian carriers have established "walled gardens" that feature preferred content. When consumers seek access to alternative content, they typically face higher charges.

The submission points to the following incidents Pelmorex says it has experienced first hand:

• Wireless reseller blocking ads from mobile sites.
• Wireless carriers stripping out tracking codes embedded in Web pages, thereby limiting ability to deliver ads.
• Wireless carriers establishing "walled gardens" that provide preferential access that reduces data charges for sites within the walled garden.
• Wireless carriers forcing users to use the wireless carrier home page when accessing the Internet on feature phones.
• Wireless carriers demanding prior approval of applications for use on smart phones instant payday loan.
• Wireless carriers imposing additional fees for text messages that include advertisements.
• Wireless carriers limiting to whom ads in text messages may be sold.

The net effect of these practices dampens the potential for online innovation and has a negative impact on mobile electronic commerce in Canada. This comes at a particularly bad time, since the mobile Internet has just begun to gain broad consumer acceptance. Some Canadian media companies have told the CRTC traffic to their mobile sites nearly equals visits to their fixed Internet sites.

The global community is starting to take note of Canada’s declining standing with regard to wireless networks and information technology. Last week, the International Telecommunications Union released its latest ICT Development index. Canada dropped from 9th worldwide to 19th – the sharpest drop among countries ranked in the top 50.

While there are several reasons for the decline, the virtual absence of competitive mobile broadband services in Canada was a key factor.

Canadian government officials have expressed little interest in wireless net neutrality, in contrast to the United States, where the issue has been the subject of regulatory hearings, petitions to the Federal Communications Commission and worked its way into the spectrum policy arena.

The CRTC is conducting hearings on net neutrality this summer, though it is not certain whether the commission will adopt an expansive view of the issue to include both wired and wireless concerns. If the Pelmorex allegations are accurate, putting wireless concerns on the agenda is likely to lead to some stormy conditions in the months ahead.

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.

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AWARDS

Forest Park Forever and Denny Coleman, president and CEO of St. Louis County Economic Council are winners of the Missouri Growth Association’s 2009 Community Betterment Award.

Paul Hyland and Committed To Health Chiropractic Center were honored with Integrity Management’s Five Star Quality Service Award. The award was developed by Integrity Management as a means of promoting and publicizing superior chiropractic clinics that excel in patient treatment, customer service and professionalism.

The Hampton Inn of Litchfield, Ill., was honored with the company’s National Lighthouse Award designating it as one of the hotel chain’s top performing hotels among more than 1,600 Hampton properties.

Geotechnology Inc. — a provider of geotechnical and environmental engineering, materials testing and drilling — was honored with a Distinguished Service Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Missouri.

BRANCHING OUT

The Kerry Group, an experiential marketing and events promotions firm in St. Louis with clients locally, nationally and internationally, announced a reorganization to improve service focus, capabilities and efficiency for its national and global client programs.

The firm has formally established its new technology division, Kerry Group Interactive. The new division originated as a Kerry Group service enterprise after the acquisition of RG/RJ LLC, an Internet-based multimedia marketing intelligence, data research, distance learning and event services management firm, last year.

HELPING OUT

State Farm awarded a $30,000 grant to the American Red Cross St. Louis Area Chapter in Support of Community Disaster Education. This contribution supports the Red Cross lifesaving mission by providing funding for preparedness presentations that are available to individuals, businesses, schools and community organizations at no cost good credit score.

Legal Services of Eastern Missouri received a $4,000 grant from the Women’s Initiative for Health & Safety to provide interpreters and translation services for victims of domestic violence.

PohlmanUSA Court Reporting associates recently made 50 handcrafted Valentine cards and delivered them along with carnations to children staying at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center to celebrate the holiday.

The Sheraton Clayton Plaza Hotel recently presented a $635 check to the Gateway Chapter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society from their "Beer vs. Wine" Dinner benefit event.

ON THE WEB

AMP Creative Company Inc. a full-service advertising, marketing and public relations firm, has developed and launched its new website, www.ampcreativeco.com. The website was developed to demonstrate AMP’s capabilities and showcase its portfolio of work to current and potential customers.

The Sister Soldier Project, a grass-roots effort that has shipped more than 1,000 care packages to black female U.S. troops serving in the Middle East, announced the launch of its official project-related consumer website: www.sistersoldierproject.com.

Compiled by Denice Santangelo

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A federal court jury in Honolulu decided Thursday that a magazine profile of North Shore surfboard shaper Craig Elmer “Owl” Chapman was not libelous.

It was the first libel suit against a publication to go before a jury in Hawaii since the 1970s.

The jury decision ends a two-year legal battle between Chapman, of Haleiwa, and the California-based magazine, The Surfer’s Journal, over a 2006 article that Chapman claimed inaccurately portrayed him as a destitute, drug-using social outcast.

After a six-day trial in U.S. District Court, the eight jurors ruled in favor of the magazine and found that neither the publisher, Steve Pezman, or the article’s author, Jeff Johnson, made false statements in the 13-page magazine spread on Chapman.

“It’s a complete victory for the defendants and a strong affirmation of the media’s right to write about public figures,” said Jeffrey Portnoy, managing partner of Honolulu law firm Cades Schutte, which represented The Surfer’s Journal. “We’re tremendously excited. There aren’t too many jury verdicts, especially in Hawaii, and this one is one of the few cheap credit report.”

In January 2007, Chapman sued Pezman and Johnson claiming that the article ruined both his reputation and his surfboard-shaping business.

“A ridiculously extreme portrait (indeed a most sinister caricature) of plaintiff emerges that casts him in a false light —- and which, further, points to a grandiose egotist who is mean-spirited, self-serving, full of braggadocio, impossibly arrogant and in the end, a degenerate, pathetic and drug-addled social outcast,” Chapman’s lawsuit claims.

Court documents show that Johnson’s article was based on notes he jotted in a personal journal sometime in the mid-1990s when he ordered a custom surfboard from Chapman. Johnson’s retelling of his experience was featured in the magazine spread, as well as quotes from other surfers talking about their dealings with Chapman.

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Microsoft may create up to 3,000 jobs as it raises investment in research and development by $1 billion this year amid a financial crisis that has also taken its toll on the software giant.

"Realignment of the company will help us reassign people and could allow us to create some 2,000 to 3,000 new jobs," Kevin Turner, chief operating officer, said on Tuesday at CeBit, Europe’s biggest technology trade fair.

Turner said while Microsoft was eliminating jobs in some areas, new opportunities would arise at the same time. He reiterated that Microsoft, under pressure to trim costs amid a global recession, would stick to its research budget this year.

Turner did not provide details on where the jobs are going to be created.

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) had announced creating about 2,000 to 3,000 jobs in January as part of its broader realignment plan for the next 18 months independent of its beefed up research and development budget bad credit car loans.

"We will invest a record $9 billion in R&D … spend a billion more than last year," Turner said, adding that Internet-based applications - so-called cloud computing - would be a major field for Microsoft’s investment.

The the current macroeconomic climate was the most challenging situation that most people had ever seen in their lifetime, Turner said.

"We believe while this may be a once-in-a-lifetime event, it may also be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create new business models," Turner said. 

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U.K. construction, which accounts for 6 percent of the economy, shrank at the fastest pace in at least 12 years in February as the credit famine hampered building projects.

An index based on a survey of purchasing managers at building companies fell to 27.8, the lowest since data begin in 1997, from 34.5 the previous month, the London-based Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and Markit said today. A reading below 50 indicates contraction.

The U.K. Treasury today unveiled a fund to provide finance to 13 billion-pounds ($18 billion) of government-sponsored building projects that stalled due to a lack of bank finance. Bank of England policy makers may lower the benchmark interest rate to a record low of 0.5 percent this week to spur lending.

“Abysmal February data from the U.K. construction sector marks a whole year of decline in the industry and has put paid to any hopes of improvement,” Roy Ayliffe, director at CIPS, said in an e-mailed statement used auto loans. “It’s safe to say that the construction sector is some way off being out of the woods as it continues to struggle with extremely weak demand.”

Persimmon Plc, the U.K.’s second-biggest homebuilder by market value, said today it posted a loss in the year through December after writing down the value of its landbank by 652 million pounds. U.K. house prices fell an annual 10 percent last month, the most since at least 2001, Hometrack Ltd. said yesterday.

Policy makers will this week cut the benchmark interest rate by a half-point to the lowest since the central bank was founded in 1694, according to the median of 60 economists’ forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey.

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ST. LOUIS — By last April, Chris Surgener says, the writing was on the wall.

Business had slowed at the custom cabinetmaker where he worked. Paychecks had shrunk. His boss suggested he apply for unemployment. It was time.

"I decided to dive in," he said.

So at age 53, Surgener cashed out his retirement savings and borrowed some money from a good friend. And in June, in an empty old auto shop off Kingshighway in south St. Louis, he opened Gateway Custom Millwork LLC, joining what local small business counselors say is a noticeable uptick in this recession of people leaving behind big companies to set out on their own.

Surgener has spent half his life in woodworking — drafting, estimating, managing projects — and he’s worked at a half-dozen shops. He’s held titles like senior project manager and vice president. But he’d never been the boss. Now he is.

At times, his old 50-hour workweek sprawls to 80. And making cabinets is the easy part. He’s the designer, the estimator, business development and collections. He’s got to manage payroll for himself and the contractors he hires when he’s got work. And he keeps track of the books.

"One thing I’ve learned," he said. "I’m really not an accountant."

Not long after Surgener dived in, the economy dived off a cliff. He still gets jobs — on hospitals and medical office buildings and from people he knows in the construction business. But there are fewer opportunities these days and more competition. Eight or nine other shops might bid for the same work, and he’s a little guy, sometimes lacking the equipment to do a job most efficiently.

Like a line boring machine. It drills the holes for the pins that hold up cabinet shelves. Surgener doesn’t have one. So he must do this by hand. It takes a lot longer, so he has to charge more. That makes it tougher to compete.

"You need machinery to get jobs, and to get the machinery, you need money," he said.

And money is even tougher to come by these days than work. Surgener has looked around for lenders who will help out a small startup, but they are few these days. Most seem to want you to burn through your own money first. But he’s had a little luck. On Thursday, he learned he will be getting $3,500 through Justine Petersen, a St. Louis nonprofit group that issues "micro-loans" of a few thousand dollars to small businesses. That will buy his line borer.

"It’s enormous," Surgener said cash advance payday loans.

There are a lot of people in Surgener’s boat right now, said Galen Gondolfi, a senior loan counselor with Justine Petersen. Bank lending’s harder than ever, and many entrepreneurs can’t tap home equity, either. People are looking for whatever help they can get.

"We’re just seeing unabated demand," he said. "More people are asking and, at the moment, we have less money."

Meanwhile, Surgener saves where he can. As he showed off his shop one morning recently, it was noticeably chilly. He keeps the heat down low. Most mornings he works from home to save on electricity. He takes no benefits and plows his paycheck back into the business — in his first six months, Surgener brought home $10,000. His wife started baby-sitting for extra cash and now does pretty much everything around the house, he said.

And most every weekend he closes up shop Friday evening, gets in his pickup, and drives — to Kentucky, Wisconsin, wherever — for his new second job helping run clearance sales at failed department stores.

It’s work he picked up a few months ago from a nephew who works at a liquidation company. They’re busy these days. It’s Surgener’s job to hire people out of homeless shelters and job centers, the guys who stand on the corner with signs touting "60 percent off." He meets a lot of people worse off than he is, and who keep working.

"Most people adapt," he said. "You do what you need to do to put food on the table."

Still, all the work takes a toll. Surgener has two kids at home and he’s missed a lot of basketball games and drum corps shows. He’s paying down two mortgages — one on his home in Brentwood and a second on a house he rents out in south St. Louis. Selling that second place would help a lot, but that’s tough these days, too.

Surgener remains an optimist. It’s fun having his own place, he says, and things will pick up. But it hasn’t been easy.

"Would I recommend doing this?" he said. "I think it would be great if everybody were to try running their own business once."

Would he recommend starting now? He chuckles.

"Maybe not."

tlogan@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8291

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Judging by your continuous e-mails and letters, taxpayers this year are more confused than ever.

I’ll focus today on the two issues you’ve asked about the most: the so-called recovery rebate credit and the additional standard deduction for property taxes.

Tax laws are complex and I can give only generalized information. Anybody with a specific issue or question should consult a qualified tax professional.

With that caveat, let’s tackle this representative question, which illustrates two misconceptions:
I’m confused. Are there two separate categories in the recovery rebate program? My wife and I are over 65 and did not itemize, and our property taxes were $5,000. So I think we are eligible for the $1,000 you wrote about. However, on the recovery rebate credit worksheet, it works out that we are to receive $1,200.

The first misconception is that you’re lumping together two separate things — the recovery rebate credit and the standard deduction for property taxes. Let’s take them one at a time.

—"…The recovery rebate credit amounts to a second chance for taxpayers who did not qualify for the economic stimulus payment from the government in 2008, or at least not all of it.

Last year, most Americans received checks from the government based on their income, number of dependent children and other factors reported on their tax returns for 2007. The maximum amount was $600 per person ($1,200 for joint filers) plus $300 per qualifying child.

Those who received the maximum amount last year, as I did, cannot claim the recovery rebate credit now.

But taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes above a certain limit ($75,000 for singles and $150,000 for married couples) received smaller payments or none at all last year. These taxpayers can now claim a credit for the amount they missed receiving provided they qualify now based on their income and other factors for 2008 instant personal loans guaranteed.

"So if your situation changed in 2008, you can still qualify if you didn’t get a check in 2008, or if you got a check for less than the maximum amount," said Harris Abrams, senior tax analyst for the tax and accounting business of Thomson Reuters. You may qualify, for instance, if you got laid off and made less money in 2008, or if you had or adopted a child.

Any credit this year would be used to reduce the tax you would otherwise owe on your 2008 return, or increase your refund.

The credit is "refundable," meaning you can get it even if you owe no tax or owe less tax than the credit amount. (For example, if your overall tax liability for 2008 is only $100 and you qualify for a $1,200 credit, you would get a $1,100 refund.)

—"…The additional standard deduction for property taxes, up to $500 for singles and $1,000 for married couples but no more than property taxes actually paid, is a separate tax break Congress approved for the 2008 and 2009 tax years.

The intent is to help homeowners whose property taxes and other itemized deductions are not enough to exceed the standard deduction. Contrary to another misconception, there are no age requirements to qualify (so you don’t have to be over 65).

Many of you — including three accountants — were confused because there is no separate line on the tax forms to report this additional standard deduction. You just add it to the total on line 40 of Form 1040. A 10-item worksheet on page 35 of the 1040 Form instruction booklet should guide you through the process.

AskHumberto@aol.com

2009, TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES INC.

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