DUFFERIN COUNTY, Ont. — Rural broadband funding organization Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology announced today Bell Canada has begun construction on a $829,000 project to increase access to broadband services in Dufferin County.
First announced in September 2020, the project will see Bell install 17 kilometres of fibre to bring improved broadband services to more than 300 homes and businesses in the community of Mansfield, about an hour’s drive north of Toronto. The joint venture between SWIFT and Bell is expected to be completed with services fully available by early 2022, says SWIFT’s press release.
“With shovels now in the ground…
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Cogeco, TekSavvy, to build
CHATHAM – Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology today announced it has awarded $19.3 million in contracts to expand fibre networks to 4,584 households and businesses throughout Chatham-Kent and within Delaware Nation – Moravian of the Thames community.
$7.4 million comes from SWIFT’s member municipalities, including Chatham-Kent, to support the expansion of broadband services throughout the municipality and within Delaware Nation – Moravian of the Thames community. $11.9 million will be contributed by the service providers doing the construction, which includes TekSavvy.
“The commitment and contributions of SWIFT, TekSavvy and the Eelŭnaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation) Council has provided an optical…
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TORONTO — In what is arguably one of the most connected and fibre-rich cities in Canada, the city of Toronto is planning to build its own municipal broadband network “to help bridge the increasing digital divide by expanding access to affordable high-speed internet to underserved Toronto residents”, says a press release issued by the city last week.
The city once owned a fibre network built by Toronto Hydro, but sold it to Cogeco in 2008.
Despite the wide availability of Internet connectivity across the city, “some Torontonians are being left behind because of the high price of reliable internet service…
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MONTREAL – Voice, data and messaging solutions provider Babytel announced last week it is repositioning of the company as Cloudli.
The new name and brand better aligns the company “with its mission to enhance how businesses of all sizes communicate internally and with their customers – how, where and when they want – without compromising security, reliability and efficiency,” reads its press release.
Cloudli provides work-from-anywhere unified communications apps for small and medium businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs; VoIP connectivity solutions optimized for businesses of any size; and digital fax solutions that use new technologies without disrupting established workflows.
Originally founded in 1982…
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Telus achieves lowest network latency
SEATTLE — As was the case in the previous quarter, Rogers Communications ranked as the fastest fixed broadband provider among top Canadian providers in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to Seattle-based Ookla’s latest Speedtest Global Index measurement of network speeds in Canada.
Based on Speedtest Intelligence data from October to December 2020, Ookla awarded Rogers a fixed-broadband speed score of 147.12. Close behind was Canada’s other big cable company Shaw Communications with a speed score of 146.96, followed by Telus (105.9), Bell Canada (103.62), Cogeco (98.27), Videotron (94.65) and TekSavvy (39.36).
Ookla’s speed score…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Canada’s largest telecoms are telling the Supreme Court of Canada a lower court fumbled a decision in favour of lower wholesale rates by attributing a line of reasoning that was allegedly never made by the CRTC, abrogating its responsibilities to review the correctness of the regulator’s decision.
That line of reasoning is based on how the CRTC structured its decision in the summer of 2019, when it ordered a lower rate at which smaller telecoms pay for and sell bandwidth from the larger telecoms. At issue in front of the Federal Court of Appeal was whether…
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CHATHAM, Ont. – TekSavvy Solutions is continuing to invest in network facilities announcing today an agreement with vendor Ciena to deploy its optical solutions as the ISP completes its long-haul transport network between Toronto and Windsor.
The independent ISP, which mostly serves customers as a third party internet access provider, is adding its own electronics to a 600 km fibre ring which includes 18 new and established points of presence in major markets throughout southwestern Ontario, says today’s press release. (Correction: TekSavvy clarified with us this morning it is not constructing its own fibre, but instead leasing dark fibre and…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Late in 2019, in following up its universal service objective decision, the CRTC decided to study the barriers to building new facilities or to accessing or interconnecting with existing facilities in order to extend broadband networks more efficiently into underserved areas, including areas where, due to a lack of such networks, speeds don’t meet the service objectives.
Of course, in March 2020, the pandemic hit, and a vast number of Canadians went home to work, becoming completely dependent on their home’s high-speed Internet to continue work and school. Access to high-speed Internet rapidly became a political…
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Feds again being asked to compensate for transitions
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The federal government has historically not compensated companies that must relocate their services to different spectrum bands to make room for emerging technologies. But companies with a vested interest in the repurposing of the C-band spectrum for 5G technology are urging the a change to that position.
Over the air (OTA) broadcasters had to absorb the cost of moving off the 700 MHz band for broadband use years ago. Broadcasters were told more recently by Innovation Canada (ISED) that they wouldn’t be financially covered for the millions of dollars…
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Regulators have a real option to improve canada’s mobile wireless marketplace
by Marie Ginette Lepage
WHEN IT COMES TO THE future of our nation’s mobile wireless telecommunications market, Canadian regulators are fast-approaching an important crossroads. Recent debate, seen on Cartt.ca and elsewhere, has been focused on the idea Canada’s regulators face a terrible trade-off, in which the only way to provide consumers with more competition and choice is to do so at the expense of further investment and expansion of networks.
That would certainly be a difficult choice to make, particularly in a country like Canada, where many rural and…
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