MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable has rolled out its new, faster high speed Internet service in Windsor, Ontario.
Business customers who currently subscribe to the company’s ‘Business HSI Enterprise’ service will be upgraded to the ‘Ultimate 50’ package at no extra cost, while residential customers in the region may now choose either the ‘Ultimate 30’ or ‘Ultimate 50’ package.
Powered by DOCSIS 3.0 technology, the ‘Ultimate 30’ service offers speeds of up to 30 Mbps for downloads and up to 1.5 Mbps for uploads with a monthly download cap of 125 GB. With the ‘Ultimate 50’ package, speeds for residential customers can…
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GATINEAU – Canada’s major cable companies and telcos are squaring off against MTS Allstream and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre over the CRTC’s authority to mandate broadband as an essential service.
Comments filed with the CRTC in late August show that Bell Canada, Telus and all of the large cablecos are, not surprisingly, opposed to any Commission intervention on this matter, while PIAC and MTS firmly believe that the CRTC can make broadband essential.
The issue has become a central theme in an ongoing proceeding on a broad variety of telecom matters, generally referred to as the obligation to…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Most stakeholders agree that the CRTC’s new community TV policy did little to lessen cable’s firm grip on the country’s community channels. But even some of the country’s biggest cable companies appear to have some concerns.
“The closed captioning component is going to be a challenge”, said Colette Watson, VP of Rogers TV, in an interview with Cartt.ca. “As of December 31st, the funding is frozen to the levels we’re at now for four years. That’s fine, we’ll make that work. The issue then becomes, if in that same time frame we have to caption 100%…
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OTTAWA – Should broadband be deemed an essential service for all Canadians in the same way as basic telephone service?
Count the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) firmly on the ‘yes’ side of that question. In a new report called Is Broadband Basic Service, the Ottawa-based consumer organization details how Canada could benefit from such a plan, and how countries like Japan and the European Union have been successful thanks to policy and infrastructure investments that make broadband service a basic right for their citizens. All of which stands in contrast to Canada where no such regime exists –…
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WHY WOULD KEITH PELLEY move to Rogers Communications? That’s the question the industry is asking this week. There are many speculative answers, but let’s try to look at some facts before we lob our own opinion-grenades.
Pelley is a sports guy. A TV guy. A sports TV guy. He’s a heck of a broadcast executive who is still riding a massive wave of goodwill generated by the stellar Winter Olympics broadcast, one which he constructed from the ground up and oversaw. He and his people did a terrific job and with a bit of downtime between now and…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco has offered a comprehensive new plan for the radio stations it plans to take over under its $80 million deal to acquire nearly all of Corus Entertainment’s Quebec radio stations.
The CRTC said Tuesday it will hear the application to buy the 11 stations on September 28. The stations involved in the transaction announced in April are: CFQR-FM 92.5, CHMP-FM 98.5, CKOI-FM 96.9 and CKAC-AM 730 in Montréal; CFOM-FM 102.9 and CFEL-FM 102.1 in Québec City; CJRC-FM 104.7 in Gatineau; CHLT-FM 107.7 and CKOY-FM 104.5 in Sherbrooke; CHLN-FM 106.9 in Trois-Rivières; and CIME-FM 103.9 in St-Jérôme.
"Cogeco…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC’s proposal to include broadband as part of the basic service objective (BSO) for telcos is getting lukewarm support, at best. The Commission proposed the idea in a broad consultation on a variety of telecom matters, referred to as the “Obligation to Serve” proceeding.
MTS Allstream Inc. and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) are two that have said making broadband part of basic service would represent a logical extension of the current regime. Presently the BSO only applies to local voice services.
“Including broadband access in the Commission’s universal service objective would also recognize the…
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MONTREAL – The parent company of Canadian-based Intercable Africa announced today it’s financing has fallen through.
The company, run by former Videotron executive Guy Laflamme (who also launched Portugal’s Cabovisao before Cogeco rescued it from creditors), has been building a cable system in Reunion, a tiny French-controlled island nation of about 800,000 in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar.
In a press release, the company said it was not able to obtain additional financing with Absa Bank and The Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB), nor an extension of the due date of its current outstanding bridge facilities.
Therefore, all credit facilities…
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MONTREAL – Continued growth in Cogeco’s Canadian division helped to hold third quarter profits steady at the Montreal-based company.
For the quarter ended May 31, 2010, revenue at Cogeco Inc. increased by 4.6% ($14.6 million) year-over-year to reach $330.9 million. Net income of $10.7 million was virtually unchanged compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year, however, net income in the third quarter of 2009 included an unfavourable income tax adjustment of $2 million related to the certain items at the company’s Portuguese subsidiary Cabovisao.
Operating income before amortization grew slightly by $1.3 million, or 1%, to reach $127.9…
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MONTREAL – Coegco has increased the speeds of its high speed Internet packages for Quebec customers, and rolled out new business and residential Internet packages in Drummondville.
Subscribers to the company’s ‘HSI Lite’ in the province can now enjoy download speeds of up to 12 Mbps, while ‘Lite Plus’ and ‘Standard’ package customers will benefit from increased speeds and higher monthly bit caps at no additional costs.
Cogeco’s customers in Drummondville who currently subscribe to its ‘Business HSI Enterprise’ service will be upgraded to its ‘Ultimate 50’ package at no extra cost. Powered by DOCSIS 3.0, the service includes a faster download speed of…
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