MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable launched its Quebec Wi-Fi Internet access service today in Trois Rivieres.
As in Ontario, the company is offering this new service at no additional charge to its Québec High Speed Internet (HSI) subscribers.
“We’re delighted to be able to bring this new service to our HSI customers,” said Ron Perrotta, vice-president, marketing, in the press release. “Wi-Fi continues to grow in popularity as more and more people need an Internet connection for work or school or to surf the web wherever they are. This is real value added for our current subscribers and an easy…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable has added two high definition (HD) channels to its Quebec channel lineups: RDI HD and ARTV HD.
“With 19 HD channels, including 13 French-language channels, Cogeco offers more French HD channels than any other provider in its Québec territory," said Ron Perrotta, vice-president, marketing.
RDI HD is Radio-Canada’s French-language 24/7 news channel while ARTV HD is a French-language culture and lifestyle channel featuring live shows, movies, documentaries, series and journals and is co-owned by Radio Canada (44%), Télé-Quebec (25%), CTVglobemedia (16%) and ARTE France (15%).
The two new channels will be provided at no additional…
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BURLINGTON – Cogeco Cable has reached a definitive agreement to acquire all the assets of FibreWired Burlington Hydro Communications, Burlington Hydro Electric Inc.’s telecommunications division.
The purchase price was not disclosed.
FibreWired Burlington Hydro Communications, which operates a broadband network equipped with next generation ATM and Ethernet technology, provides Burlington organizations with broadband capacity for data networking, high-speed Internet access, hosting services, ebusiness applications, video conferencing and other advanced communications.
This is the second municipally owned telecom net Cogeco has bought this past month, having recently agreed to acquire MaXess in Windsor.
Cogeco Cable will use the Burlington network to…
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GATINEAU – Of all the submissions we’ve heard over the past three weeks, Channel Zero’s boiled the issues down very well, kicking of its oral remarks on Wednesday.
Cal Millar, vice-president and general manager of the company which owns Silver Screen Classics and Movieola said he believes the hearing is about Canadian programming and the fact that the consumer doesn’t really care about all the machinations going on within the CRTC or any of the broadcast and distribution companies.
“Canadians don’t say to themselves: ‘I want to spend money on cable or satellite’,” explained Millar. “They say ‘I want…
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QUEBEC CITY – Remstar Corp., the future owner of the troubled Quebec TV network, TQS, caught its news staff by surprise Wednesday, announcing it intention to eliminate its entire news programming by September.
The move would eliminate 271 jobs, but put the network back on the road to financial health, officials of Remstar and the interim management committee said. The cuts would leave TQS with 210 permanent employees.
Remstar, owned by brothers Maxime and Julien Rémillard, will be applying to the CRTC in the coming days for a transfer of license, and will at the same time ask that…
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TORONTO – While calling for other Canadian companies to follow his lead and grow abroad, Cogeco Inc. CEO Louis Audet added that recent changes to certain tax rules make it far more difficult for Canadian companies to consider expanding beyond Canada.
In 2006, Cogeco acquired Portuguese cable company Cabovisao and turned it into a fine, EBITDA-producing piece of the company. Audet also added he has traveled to a total of 15 countries looking for more buys.
In a speech Monday to the Canadian Club at the Royal York hotel in Toronto, Audet targeted the federal government’s March 2007 announcement…
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OF ALL THE CONFLICTING complaints we’ve heard so far about the hearing still ongoing in Gatineau which will decide the future policies to govern specialty channels and BDUs, the question in the headline has been the most often repeated – from all sides of the debates.
The issues are so numerous, so complex, then again so connected to each other, it’s a wonder the five-member CRTC commissioner panel can make sense of everything. And there are just so many unanswered questions.
Last week at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, one couldn’t help but marvel at the utter sense…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Inc. earned $15.9 million in the second quartered ended February 29 as revenues improved 14%, or $33.5 million, to $271.9 million.
That compares with a profit of $34.5 million on revenues of $238.4 million a year ago. But the results a year ago included a one-time gain of $31 million.
In cable, revenue-generating units (RGUs) reached 2,624,885 with 56,196 net additions in the quarter.
The number of net additions to basic cable in the Canadian market stood at 1,869 customers compared to a growth of 5,277 customers for the same period last year due to the…
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GATINEAU – What would have been fun, was a debate.
Day three of the CRTC hearings into BDU and specialty service regulations featured the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, two groups with decidedly different constituents, and points of view, on the future policy direction of the TV industry.
The CAB represents most broadcasters in Canada who together serve basically 100% of the Canadian population. The CCSA, on the other hand, has a far smaller group of members whose companies deliver cable and broadband service to under a million rural Canadians.
While each had their turn…
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IT’S FUN TO PROGNOSTICATE. To try and read the tea leaves and make educated (or not) guesses about certain things. Sports (pro and amateur) is utterly built around such predicting, thanks to the billions of dollars bet on the games every year.
Similarly enormous amounts of money and the fate of our industry are collectively at stake beginning this week when the cable, satellite, telco and specialty broadcasting community take their turn in front of a panel of CRTC commissioners who will largely determine how the broadcast distribution undertaking and specialty services industries will be run for perhaps the…
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