MOST OF THE MEDIA coverage and blog writings and newsgroup postings and Facebook rantings are made up of ill-informed opinion masquerading as facts, driven by scare-mongering types who fear an invisible big brother looking to crush their Internet experience.
The reality is that most of the information the general public has been consuming on the topics of Internet traffic and network neutrality is, well, hooey.
To try and counterbalance that, we went to someone working in the trenches, as it were, to help explain what is actually going on inside that vast cloud we call the Internet.
Tom Donnelly…
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OTTAWA – A review of broadcasting in new media is utterly unnecessary, says an unprecedented joint submission to the CRTC by Canada’s largest Internet service providers.
Friday was the deadline for submissions on PN 2008-44, which only asked for comments on what the scope of any future proceeding on Canadian broadcasting in new media might be. The Commission wants advice on what questions it might ask when it decides to undertake a review of what new media is doing to broadcasting and what Canadian regulations might have to say about it. At this point, it doesn’t want to…
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MONTREAL – George Cope was officially made president and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada and appointed to the boards of both organizations, the company announced today.
Cope will be the first CEO under the company’s new owners, an investor group led by Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investment arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners Inc., Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC, and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity. The transaction will close on or before December 11, 2008.
The new CEO joined Bell in 2005 as president and COO, after quitting as president and CEO of Telus…
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HALIFAX – Along with its controlling shareholder, Bell Canada, Bell Aliant today announced changes of trustees and directors – and organizational changes that are effective immediately.
Lawson Hunter leaves his position as trustee and chair of the Fund and Michael Sabia, Hunter and Patrick Pichette leave their positions, respectively, as chair and directors of the boards of Bell Aliant’s main operating subsidiaries.
George Cope, incoming president and CEO of BCE Inc., Siim Vanaselja, chief financial officer of BCE Inc., and David Wells, a telecommunications executive with over 30 years of industry expertise, have been appointed members of the Bell…
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VANCOUVER – While BCE deals with a few other things, Telus today confirmed that wireless clients have never been required to pay for spam text messages – and announced an even easier way for customers to receive credits for any spam text messages they might receive.
Beginning August 24, clients can simply send any spam message to 7726 with the word SPAM in the body of the message and their account will be adjusted automatically. The credit will be processed with no questions asked of the client by Telus. This change has no impact on any Telus mobile email…
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OTTAWA – Claiming he has a duty to protect the public from new texting fees (!), Industry Minister Jim Prentice has called the CEOs of Bell and Telus to his office to explain an impending wireless pricing change which both companies recently announced.
Beginning in August, both telcos intend to begin charging 15 cents per incoming wireless text message received by customers who are not a part of a data plan and who choose to pay as they go. Rogers, Canada’s largest wireless company, charges no such fee and has not announced plans to do so.
(Ed query: Is…
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TORONTO – Sounding not unlike the advice sometimes given in its namesake magazine (er, not that we’d know for sure…) Corus Entertainment CEO John Cassaday said he isn’t willing to “settle” for an average distribution deal when it comes to the company’s youngest digi-net, Cosmopolitan TV.
While the channel is carried by corporate relative Shaw Communications as well as Bell ExpressVu, neither Rogers Cable nor Cogeco Cable in the east, for example, carries the channel, which was launched on Valentine’s Day this year, and was profiled by Cartt.ca.
While Cassaday wasn’t specific about the carriage terms Corus is demanding…
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MONTREAL – Bell Aliant CEO Stephen Wetmore and Bell Canada chief corporate officer and EVP Lawson Hunter are the next two executives leaving the company.
Long-time Bell executive Wetmore was the first CEO of Bell Aliant, having led the company from its formation in July 2006. "Stephen has made a tremendous contribution to Bell Aliant. As a result of his work, the company has strong foundations for the future," said Michael Sabia, chair of the Bell Aliant boards and outgoing CEO of Bell Canada.
"With Bell Aliant now on the firm footing we had anticipated at its formation, and…
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MONTREAL – So much for all the speculation that the world’s largest leveraged buyout was going to fall apart.
BCE today announced the company has entered into a final agreement with a company formed by an investor group led by Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investment arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners Inc., Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC, and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity.
As a result of the execution of the final agreement, amending the definitive agreement dated June 29, 2007:
* The purchase price will remain $42.75 per common share; * The Purchaser and the…
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MONTREAL – L. Scott Thomson, BCE’s executive vice-president of corporate development and planning, has been named executive vice-president of finance and CFO of Talisman Energy Inc., effective July 2, 2008.
“Scott was central to BCE’s $52 billion project to take the company private – the largest transaction of its kind in the world,” said Michael J. Sabia, CEO of BCE. “Scott’s leadership of BCE’s mergers and acquisitions group, that completed a series of transactions including the sale of Telesat, contributed to the successful execution of the strategy to return the company to its core communications roots and surfaced tremendous…
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