By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC said Thursday it is eliminating fees that it believes are keeping customers stuck in internet and wireless service plans.
The regulator said it is targeting fees on activation, changing and canceling of those plans – with some exceptions. The fees will continue to apply where a subsidized device is provided by the wireless service provider – which represents a real cost to the business – and in a situation where the internet service provider is doing an installation at the customer’s home.
“If you were to buy or purchase a cellphone through a service provider, we already…
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Bell has withdrawn its April 2025 undue preference complaint against Telus after the two companies recently reached an agreement regarding the distribution of Bell Media’s discretionary services Oxygen True Crime, USA Network, CTV Nature, CTV Speed and CTV Wild.
Bell had previously alleged Telus was unduly disadvantaging Bell Media’s new channels — rebranded as a result of Rogers’s blockbuster deal with Warner Bros. Discovery in June 2024 — alleging Telus had given undue preference to Rogers’s newly launched channels in some of its TV packages.
The resolution of Bell’s channel distribution…
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CBC says it’s listening to concerns, but expounds on why it did the deal
By Ahmad Hathout
The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage will call the president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada to explain the public broadcaster’s decision to make its news products available on Amazon Prime Video as add-on subscriptions.
A motion, introduced by Bloc Quebecois MP Martin Champoux, to bring Marie-Philippe Bouchard before the committee was received favourably by the Liberals and Conservatives and passed at the end of the committee’s study session Tuesday on the state of journalism and media.
A date for Bouchard’s appearance will be determined later. The committee…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The Federal Court of Appeal has turned down an appeal by Rogers challenging two CRTC decisions forcing it to freeze movement of certain Corus channels it argued was within its contractual right to repackage and remove.
Following a hearing in September, the high court ruled Thursday that Rogers cannot change the terms of its agreement with Corus after the initiation of a dispute because that would be contrary to the standstill, which requires that the status quo be maintained until the dispute is resolved.
“If, following a dispute, Rogers could invoke any provision…
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By Ahmad Hathout
TekSavvy is once again asking the CRTC to stop Cogeco from decommissioning copper facilities it relies on to provide internet service to customers in Ontario.
In a Part 1 application made public Thursday, the largest independent internet wholesaler said it received notices from Cogeco about its move away from hybrid fibre-coaxial facilities (HFC) to pure fibre in parts of Windsor, Burlington, Kingston and its hometown of Chatham.
Until it can make a final decision on its application, TekSavvy is asking the CRTC to order an immediate suspension of any decommissioning before April 1, which is when it said it…
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The CRTC on Tuesday announced the launch of a new webpage to make it easier to find benchmark wholesale wireless roaming rates.
This is part of the commission’s commitment to publish on an annual basis the average retail data rate of Canada’s national wireless carriers to provide a benchmark for negotiations, as outlined in its October 2024 decision mandating commercial negotiation with final offer arbitration for setting wholesale roaming rates.
While annual benchmark figures are published in the CRTC’s Canadian Telecommunications Market Report, the new webpage is designed to centralize them…
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The CRTC last week approved, by majority decision, a CBC application for a broadcasting licence to operate an English-language FM radio station replacing its AM radio station CFFB Iqaluit and to make technical amendments to its existing rebroadcasting transmitter CFFB-FM-3 in Iqaluit.
The commission also approved a related application by the CBC to revoke the broadcasting licence for the existing AM station.
The CBC had indicated any potential failure of CFFB’s current infrastructure could cause the loss of CBC Radio One programming in the region. The purpose of CBC’s applications was to…
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By Ahmad Hathout
A coalition of independent television stations has submitted an application to the CRTC requesting the regulator compel Meta to come to the bargaining table after alleging the social media giant has been hosting news programming without paying.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it had banned Canadian news on its platforms after the Online News Act, which requires technology platforms to pay to link that content, became law in 2023. Late last year, the CRTC said it acknowledged measures taken by the company to comply with the law Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Telus and Bell have agreed to end applications to the CRTC that each claimed the other was making it difficult to lease space on their fibre networks.
According to a Friday letter from the CRTC, Telus and Bell submitted letters to the regulator earlier this week to withdraw their applications. The regulator, in turn, voided an interim order that forced Bell to revert system updates that Telus claimed was causing its wholesale access issues in Ontario and Quebec.
“Commission staff expects that any processes and procedures associated with the wholesale provisioning of HSA will apply to all wholesale customers…
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By Connie Thiessen
The CRTC has published its updated Strategic Plan: Connecting Canadians through technology and culture on Friday, setting out “to be a modern, inclusive, and timely regulator.”
The commission says it’s continuing to prioritize areas that have the greatest impact, including modernizing Canada’s broadcasting framework.
“Canadians should have access to a wide range of programming, in both official languages, by a diverse range of creators, including those from Indigenous and official language minority communities (OLMCs),” the plan states.
To that end, the commission says it will continue to work toward:
implementing the modernized Broadcasting Act to determine how broadcasters should support the broadcast…
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