By Connie Thiessen
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) and 25 of its radio members – including Rogers Sports & Media, Bell Media, Cogeco, Stingray, Pattison Media and Corus Entertainment – have written to the CRTC asking the commission to tear up its recent notice of consultation on updated rules for the radio and audio sector and start over.
Released on Feb. 20, the consultation will inform work to update the definition of what constitutes Canadian content on radio and audio streaming services. It also outlines a financial contribution framework for broadcasters that the CAB says suggests that…
Continue Reading
PIAC, Competition Bureau, CCTS push label as important opportunity
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC must take a light-touch regulatory approach when it comes to determining how internet service providers (ISPs) present certain technical plan details, as being too prescriptive risks providing unnecessary information while adding implementation costs, according to several large service providers.
The gist of the ISP argument – both large and regional – can be distilled to some form of the following: they already provide the necessary information they believe an already-informed public should know, and the one example of a mandated “broadband label” – that is the one in…
Continue Reading
CNOC calls move “disappointing” but not surprising
By Ahmad Hathout
Bell CEO Mirko Bibic announced Thursday the telco is again cutting its fibre buildout target after the CRTC earlier this week refused to ban the largest internet service providers from using its last-mile fibre network in Ontario and Quebec.
Bibic said the company is now targeting less than 8.3 million homes for direct fibre by the end of this year.
“This decrease in our fibre buildout is a direct result of the CRTC’s refusal to ban Telus and other large carriers from reselling the FTTP network we’ve built,” Bibic said in a fourth-quarter…
Continue Reading
The regulator now moves to challenges against final wholesale decision
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC said large provider access to the aggregated last-mile fibre facilities of mainly Bell but also Telus in Ontario and Quebec have proven to increase consumer choice and competition between internet service providers, rejecting a cabinet recommendation to impose a ban on Rogers, Bell and Telus (Big 3) from accessing those facilities.
The commission’s relatively short decision hinged largely on what it said was a lack of evidence that such access would hinder network investment as well as evidence showing that Telus is now…
Continue Reading
The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) announced Tuesday a new digital advertising and social media campaign encouraging Canadians to join its fight to have the Big Three telecoms — Telus, Bell and Rogers — banned from accessing the wholesale aggregated internet regime.
CNOC’s “Break Free from the Big 3” campaign asserts, among other things, “Canadian regulators have allowed the Big 3 internet providers in Canada to freeze out the competition, giving them an unfair advantage over smaller and regional companies. Don’t fall for the illusion of choice.”
“Allowing the Big 3 to resell internet…
Continue Reading
Telecom said Canadian wireless on track for “coming quarters”
By Ahmad Hathout
Cogeco executives said Tuesday the telecom will bump up the price of at least some of its internet services in Canada in March.
President and CEO Frederic Perron said during a fiscal first quarter conference call the increase would be similar to past ones, but didn’t elaborate beyond that.
The comments came in response to a question about competitors looking into increasing their prices and therefore their average-revenue-per-user (ARPU) metrics. Quebecor, for example, announced in November that it would be increasing the price of its internet plans in…
Continue Reading
Cogeco Inc. announced Wednesday the appointment of Caroline Jamet as president of Cogeco Media, effective Feb. 3, 2025.
Most recently, Jamet served as executive director of Radio-Canada’s radio and audio services, “where she increased market share and spearheaded the development of its successful digital strategy,” according to a Cogeco press release announcing her hiring. Prior to that, at publishing company Gesca, then owner of La Presse, Jamet assumed business leadership for two publishing divisions and was deeply involved in the digital transformation of the newspaper, Cogeco’s announcement says.
“Caroline’s breadth of experience and engaging leadership will be invaluable as…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
A group of internet service providers has filed a petition to cabinet on a precautionary basis asking it to vary the CRTC’s wholesale framework decision from August in case the regulator decides, after its latest consultation, not to ban the three largest ISPs from accessing the regime.
The launch of the CRTC’s latest consultation came at the behest of cabinet, which ordered the CRTC to revisit an interim decision from November 2023 that did not exclude Rogers, Bell and Telus (Big 3) from accessing the last-mile fibre networks of the latter two…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Telus is asking the Federal Court to quash a decision by the Governor in Council to force the CRTC to consider banning the three largest telecoms from accessing the bundled last-mile fibre networks of Bell and Telus in part because cabinet allegedly held “dozens of closed-door meetings between various parties adverse” to the Vancouver-based telecom without providing an opportunity to respond.
Those meetings, it argues, are outside the legal bounds of the review process permitted under the Telecommunications Act, which requires all parties who submit comments to the CRTC on a matter be given an opportunity to respond…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Cogeco last month filed its first trademarks for mobile wireless services after announcing it had secured agreements to launch its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) business.
The trademark applications cover services including the selling of phone plans, device financing, device accessories, device warranties, insurance, returns, repair and trade-ins under the names Cogeco Mobile, Cogeco Financing, Cogeco Protection, Cogeco Trade-In, and Cogeco Exchange, according to the federal trademarks database.
A request for comment was not returned as to when the services are expected to launch.
The Montreal-based telecom announced in August that it signed a five-year mobile virtual…
Continue Reading
