Catherine Middleton
Biographic Data
| ID | 3855472 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Catherine Middleton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Catherine |
| FAMILY NAME | Middleton |
| SIGNATURE | MIDDLETON C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Toronto Metropolitan University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1296-2613 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Assessing early uptake and impacts of 5G mobile services for Australian consumers
The introduction of the fifth generation of mobile standards (5G) has promised faster speeds, greater network capacity and lower latency. 5G has only recently rolled out in many countries, so there is little empirical data on what individual consumers are doing with the speed, capacity and lower latency that 5G promises to offer. To examine early consumer take-up of 5G, we conducted a series of small-group discussions with individual users of 5G …
Shaping infrastructural futures: The International Telecommunication Union’s visions for mobile communications and the anticipatory politics of 5G standardization
This article shows how dominant actors inscribe certain ideas, visions, and predictions of infrastructural futures for international mobile telecommunications through standardization. It argues that standard setting is a key avenue that brings different (and sometimes divergent) interests, groups, concerns, and activities into alignment around a certain vision of social and technological progress. To demonstrate this, two key stages in the 5G sta…
Introduction: Telecommunications revolution? Enduring problems and possible futures
The ongoing tension between the enduring problems that beset the telecommunications sector, and the potential economic and social benefits continually associated with these technologies is the point of departure for our Feature Topic, which reflects on the current state of telecommunications, while also casting a cautious eye forward. The articles in this Feature Topic outline ongoing challenges around connectivity as well as contestations over 5…
Technological literacy and interrupted internet access
As everyday practices are increasingly digitalised, many countries are prioritising broadband rollout. However, infrastructure provision under national policies has not been uniform. In comparison to urban populations, rural communities often have inferior broadband infrastructure and services and there are disparities in digital opportunities between rural and urban areas. A case study of twenty rural Australian internet users reveals that rural…
Jean-Pierre Blais’ “Magic Items”: Over-the-Air Digital Television Delivery as Canadian Regulatory Revelation
This article argues that a January 2015 speech by former Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais represented a moment of regulatory revelation for digital Canada. In the speech, Blais proclaimed that his Canada included over-the-air (OTA) television, elevating the profile of OTA television delivery, spectrum, and infrastructure in the process. This article discusses the policy implications of …
The LTTV Consultations: Mapping Old and New Interests in Television Today
This article unpacks two infographic analyses to highlight two important themes regarding changes to the distribution systems and business models for the converging broadcast and telecommunications industry. First is that the recent revolution in production practices is now reverberating through the distribution system, as illustrated by a provisional mapping of a complex stakeholder ecosystem. Second is the clarity and consistency of the message…
A Question of Scarcity: Spectrum and Canada's Urban Core
This article uses a case study of urban Canada to explore the contentious issue of spectrum scarcity. Drawing upon infrastructure studies, this article argues for more critical approaches to this essential element of contemporary communications. The first part of the article explores positions of various actors in the antagonistic debate regarding spectrum scarcity in the lead up to the Canadian 700 MHz spectrum auction, held in 2014. The second …
Citizen Involvement during the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV Consultation
The authors analyze citizen engagement efforts undertaken by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) between 2013 and 2015, under the aegis of the Let’s Talk TV (LTTV) initiative. They explore whether and how input provided by citizen-consumers during LTTV demonstrates activism through engagements in policy discussions. The article first delineates the timing and scope of activities conducted by the Canadian regulat…
Mobile Media and Next Generation Broadband
Public Interest in the Regulation of Competition: Evidence from Wholesale Internet Access Consultations in Canada
How do private interests try to shape public interest competition regulations? Focusing on debates about the design of wholesale Internet access obligations, the authors employ Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to evaluate a multi-stakeholder policymaking process in Canada. Using NLP, they analyze 40 formal interventions in the CRTC's 2013–551 review of its wholesale broadband policy. They classify major interest groups, map key concepts, a…
A Tale of Two Regulators: Telecom Policy Participation in Canada
What are the challenges to effective academic participation in telecommunications policymaking? In this article, the authors analyze their experiences with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and Industry Canada as examples. Their goal is to increase academic policy engagement despite negligible government support for public interest advocacy, as traditional public interest values are discarded by regulators because ne…
Broadband Futures: Content, Connectivity and Control
This introduction to the Broadband Futures: Content, Connectivity and Control special issue begins with the claim that we are at the start of a new period of debate and analysis about network infrastructure and use that declares government failure and reinvigorates the drive to a free-market solution in Australia and New Zealand. But questions remain about the effectiveness and social value of network developments, regardless of the degree of gov…
Women, Smartphones and the Workplace: Pragmatic realities and performative identities
This paper explores the ways that a sample of professional women use smartphones to manage their personal activities and work responsibilities. It reveals a number of specific, mindful practices used to convey and enable accessibility, professionalism and responsiveness to colleagues and clients, showing how smartphones are used to shape and maintain professional identities. At the same time, women also choose to set boundaries to ensure that the…
The Next Broadband Challenge: Wireless
Is fiber optics to virtually all homes a sensible policy goal? Perhaps not. At least, so argue Professors Middleton and Given, who suggest that, although wireless broadband may not be as fast as fiber, its adoption will be more rapid because it offers other attractive characteristics. Mobile broadband may have a disruptive effect on the overall broadband market, making fiber to the home less attractive. If this is so, should universal service obl…
Building Wi-Fi Networks for Communities: Three Canadian Cases
This paper explores three Canadian wireless network projects that demonstrate that Wi-Fi technologies, like landline telephones, radio, and hydro, can be used to bring services to local communities. It is our position that despite the strengths and weaknesses of Fredericton’s eZone, Montréal’s Île Sans Fil, and the Lac Seul network in Northern Ontario, these three highlighted Wi-Fi networks demonstrate that a public information utilities model is…
Illusions of Balance and Control in an Always-on Environment: A Case Study of BlackBerry Users
This paper presents a qualitative case study of Canadian BlackBerry® users. It begins with a brief description of the BlackBerry, a handheld wireless mobile email device developed by Research in Motion1 . BlackBerry users find their devices to be empowering, allowing them more control over their environments. The BlackBerry does give its users a mechanism to exert control over the management of daily communication tasks, but by virtue of its alwa…
How Connected are Canadians? Inequities in Canadian Households’ Internet Access
What can be learned from an analysis of Canadian household Internet adoption patterns? Households headed by lower-income, less-educated, or older Canadians have Internet adoption rates well below the Canadian average. In contrast, households with heads who are highly educated, earn above average incomes, or are younger than 55 are adopting the Internet at rates well above the average. In the simplest of terms, privileged Canadians are online, whi…
Involving young tenants in decision‐making
Over the course of 2004, People for Action (PfA) ran a programme looking at ways of increasing the involvement of young tenants in housing association decision‐making. This report on the project summarises the lessons that have been learnt from the work
Illusions of Balance and Control in an Always-on Environment: A Case Study of BlackBerry Users
This paper presents a qualitative case study of Canadian BlackBerry® users. It begins with a brief description of the BlackBerry, a handheld wireless mobile email device developed by Research in Motion1 . BlackBerry users find their devices to be empowering, allowing them more control over their environments. The BlackBerry does give its users a mechanism to exert control over the management of daily communication tasks, but by virtue of its alwa…
Women, Smartphones and the Workplace: Pragmatic realities and performative identities
This paper explores the ways that a sample of professional women use smartphones to manage their personal activities and work responsibilities. It reveals a number of specific, mindful practices used to convey and enable accessibility, professionalism and responsiveness to colleagues and clients, showing how smartphones are used to shape and maintain professional identities. At the same time, women also choose to set boundaries to ensure that the…
Public Interest in the Regulation of Competition: Evidence from Wholesale Internet Access Consultations in Canada
How do private interests try to shape public interest competition regulations? Focusing on debates about the design of wholesale Internet access obligations, the authors employ Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to evaluate a multi-stakeholder policymaking process in Canada. Using NLP, they analyze 40 formal interventions in the CRTC's 2013–551 review of its wholesale broadband policy. They classify major interest groups, map key concepts, a…
A Tale of Two Regulators: Telecom Policy Participation in Canada
What are the challenges to effective academic participation in telecommunications policymaking? In this article, the authors analyze their experiences with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and Industry Canada as examples. Their goal is to increase academic policy engagement despite negligible government support for public interest advocacy, as traditional public interest values are discarded by regulators because ne…
Shaping infrastructural futures: The International Telecommunication Union’s visions for mobile communications and the anticipatory politics of 5G standardization
This article shows how dominant actors inscribe certain ideas, visions, and predictions of infrastructural futures for international mobile telecommunications through standardization. It argues that standard setting is a key avenue that brings different (and sometimes divergent) interests, groups, concerns, and activities into alignment around a certain vision of social and technological progress. To demonstrate this, two key stages in the 5G sta…
The Next Broadband Challenge: Wireless
Is fiber optics to virtually all homes a sensible policy goal? Perhaps not. At least, so argue Professors Middleton and Given, who suggest that, although wireless broadband may not be as fast as fiber, its adoption will be more rapid because it offers other attractive characteristics. Mobile broadband may have a disruptive effect on the overall broadband market, making fiber to the home less attractive. If this is so, should universal service obl…
Involving young tenants in decision‐making
Over the course of 2004, People for Action (PfA) ran a programme looking at ways of increasing the involvement of young tenants in housing association decision‐making. This report on the project summarises the lessons that have been learnt from the work
How Connected are Canadians? Inequities in Canadian Households’ Internet Access
What can be learned from an analysis of Canadian household Internet adoption patterns? Households headed by lower-income, less-educated, or older Canadians have Internet adoption rates well below the Canadian average. In contrast, households with heads who are highly educated, earn above average incomes, or are younger than 55 are adopting the Internet at rates well above the average. In the simplest of terms, privileged Canadians are online, whi…
Illusions of Balance and Control in an Always-on Environment: A Case Study of BlackBerry Users
This paper presents a qualitative case study of Canadian BlackBerry® users. It begins with a brief description of the BlackBerry, a handheld wireless mobile email device developed by Research in Motion1 . BlackBerry users find their devices to be empowering, allowing them more control over their environments. The BlackBerry does give its users a mechanism to exert control over the management of daily communication tasks, but by virtue of its alwa…
Building Wi-Fi Networks for Communities: Three Canadian Cases
This paper explores three Canadian wireless network projects that demonstrate that Wi-Fi technologies, like landline telephones, radio, and hydro, can be used to bring services to local communities. It is our position that despite the strengths and weaknesses of Fredericton’s eZone, Montréal’s Île Sans Fil, and the Lac Seul network in Northern Ontario, these three highlighted Wi-Fi networks demonstrate that a public information utilities model is…
The Next Broadband Challenge: Wireless
Is fiber optics to virtually all homes a sensible policy goal? Perhaps not. At least, so argue Professors Middleton and Given, who suggest that, although wireless broadband may not be as fast as fiber, its adoption will be more rapid because it offers other attractive characteristics. Mobile broadband may have a disruptive effect on the overall broadband market, making fiber to the home less attractive. If this is so, should universal service obl…
Women, Smartphones and the Workplace: Pragmatic realities and performative identities
This paper explores the ways that a sample of professional women use smartphones to manage their personal activities and work responsibilities. It reveals a number of specific, mindful practices used to convey and enable accessibility, professionalism and responsiveness to colleagues and clients, showing how smartphones are used to shape and maintain professional identities. At the same time, women also choose to set boundaries to ensure that the…
A Tale of Two Regulators: Telecom Policy Participation in Canada
What are the challenges to effective academic participation in telecommunications policymaking? In this article, the authors analyze their experiences with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and Industry Canada as examples. Their goal is to increase academic policy engagement despite negligible government support for public interest advocacy, as traditional public interest values are discarded by regulators because ne…
Broadband Futures: Content, Connectivity and Control
This introduction to the Broadband Futures: Content, Connectivity and Control special issue begins with the claim that we are at the start of a new period of debate and analysis about network infrastructure and use that declares government failure and reinvigorates the drive to a free-market solution in Australia and New Zealand. But questions remain about the effectiveness and social value of network developments, regardless of the degree of gov…
Mobile Media and Next Generation Broadband
Public Interest in the Regulation of Competition: Evidence from Wholesale Internet Access Consultations in Canada
How do private interests try to shape public interest competition regulations? Focusing on debates about the design of wholesale Internet access obligations, the authors employ Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to evaluate a multi-stakeholder policymaking process in Canada. Using NLP, they analyze 40 formal interventions in the CRTC's 2013–551 review of its wholesale broadband policy. They classify major interest groups, map key concepts, a…
A Question of Scarcity: Spectrum and Canada's Urban Core
This article uses a case study of urban Canada to explore the contentious issue of spectrum scarcity. Drawing upon infrastructure studies, this article argues for more critical approaches to this essential element of contemporary communications. The first part of the article explores positions of various actors in the antagonistic debate regarding spectrum scarcity in the lead up to the Canadian 700 MHz spectrum auction, held in 2014. The second …
Citizen Involvement during the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV Consultation
The authors analyze citizen engagement efforts undertaken by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) between 2013 and 2015, under the aegis of the Let’s Talk TV (LTTV) initiative. They explore whether and how input provided by citizen-consumers during LTTV demonstrates activism through engagements in policy discussions. The article first delineates the timing and scope of activities conducted by the Canadian regulat…
Jean-Pierre Blais’ “Magic Items”: Over-the-Air Digital Television Delivery as Canadian Regulatory Revelation
This article argues that a January 2015 speech by former Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais represented a moment of regulatory revelation for digital Canada. In the speech, Blais proclaimed that his Canada included over-the-air (OTA) television, elevating the profile of OTA television delivery, spectrum, and infrastructure in the process. This article discusses the policy implications of …
The LTTV Consultations: Mapping Old and New Interests in Television Today
This article unpacks two infographic analyses to highlight two important themes regarding changes to the distribution systems and business models for the converging broadcast and telecommunications industry. First is that the recent revolution in production practices is now reverberating through the distribution system, as illustrated by a provisional mapping of a complex stakeholder ecosystem. Second is the clarity and consistency of the message…
Technological literacy and interrupted internet access
As everyday practices are increasingly digitalised, many countries are prioritising broadband rollout. However, infrastructure provision under national policies has not been uniform. In comparison to urban populations, rural communities often have inferior broadband infrastructure and services and there are disparities in digital opportunities between rural and urban areas. A case study of twenty rural Australian internet users reveals that rural…
Shaping infrastructural futures: The International Telecommunication Union’s visions for mobile communications and the anticipatory politics of 5G standardization
This article shows how dominant actors inscribe certain ideas, visions, and predictions of infrastructural futures for international mobile telecommunications through standardization. It argues that standard setting is a key avenue that brings different (and sometimes divergent) interests, groups, concerns, and activities into alignment around a certain vision of social and technological progress. To demonstrate this, two key stages in the 5G sta…
Introduction: Telecommunications revolution? Enduring problems and possible futures
The ongoing tension between the enduring problems that beset the telecommunications sector, and the potential economic and social benefits continually associated with these technologies is the point of departure for our Feature Topic, which reflects on the current state of telecommunications, while also casting a cautious eye forward. The articles in this Feature Topic outline ongoing challenges around connectivity as well as contestations over 5…
Assessing early uptake and impacts of 5G mobile services for Australian consumers
The introduction of the fifth generation of mobile standards (5G) has promised faster speeds, greater network capacity and lower latency. 5G has only recently rolled out in many countries, so there is little empirical data on what individual consumers are doing with the speed, capacity and lower latency that 5G promises to offer. To examine early consumer take-up of 5G, we conducted a series of small-group discussions with individual users of 5G …
Business (13 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · ICT Impact and Policies (11 works) · Telecommunications (9 works) · Engineering (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Public relations (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Advertising (6 works)