OTTAWA – TekSavvy and Bell have both proposed changes to the federal government’s proposed policy direction to the CRTC, which would impact how the government directs the Commission to handle its regulated wholesale Internet regime in very different ways.
TekSavvy argues the government’s proposed policy direction “emphasizes the importance of a healthy wholesale regime” and yet “does nothing concrete to address any of the basic problems that have destabilized the regime over the past 7 years.”
The independent Internet and voice service provider points out the policy direction was issued as the government also rejected petitions to overrule the CRTC’s…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A large trade group representing Canadian media producers has filed an application asking the Federal Court of Appeal to review a decision by the CRTC last month that extended the licences of the country’s national public broadcaster, using two dissenting commissioner opinions in alleging the decision goes against the objectives of the Broadcasting Act.
At issue is the CRTC’s decision to largely move away from standard hourly requirements the CBC would need to air certain content to an approach that would evaluate how it is promoting Canadian content through its spending. The regulator said in its decision…
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By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — VMedia, the independent internet and television service provider that pioneered delivering television services over IPTV systems in Canada, was quietly acquired by Quebecor last week – but that does not mean it intends to fade away.
Instead, Quebecor is financing its expansion, giving it the resources it needs to grow its subscriber base across the country and offer a bundling option that Quebecor’s Videotron can combine with its expansion of mobile services outside Quebec.
The purchase price of the deal was not disclosed. According to documents filed with the CRTC, Quebecor acquired all shares of VMedia from…
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TORONTO and CALGARY — Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications and the Shaw Family Living Trust today announced they have extended the outside date of the proposed $26-billion merger of Rogers and Shaw to Dec. 31, 2022.
The outside date for closing the merger has already been extended twice before by the companies from the original date of March 15, 2022. The closing extension comes as the most recently announced outside date of July 31, 2022 was fast approaching.
The new outside date “may be further extended to January 31, 2023 at the option of Rogers or Shaw, provided Rogers has committed financing…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has denied Bell Mobility’s request for it to review and vary a decision directing the company, along with Rogers and Telus, to make changes to the proposed terms and conditions outlined in their GSM-based wholesale mobile roaming tariffs incorporating seamless hand-off and 5G roaming.
“Bell has not presented any compelling arguments or evidence to support its review and vary application,” reads a CRTC letter to Bell, dated July 21, 2022.
Bell’s application, submitted to the CRTC earlier this month, argued the decision (TD 2022-102) reaches beyond the scope of the proceedings that led to it and…
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IT HAS NOW BEEN over two weeks since the start of Rogers Communications’ nationwide network outage, which impacted the company’s phone, Internet and cable subscribers – some, for days.
Rogers’ president and CEO Tony Staffieri has issued an apology and attributed the outage to “a network system failure following a maintenance update in our core network”, the company submitted a detailed report to the CRTC about what happened, and a House of Commons standing committee spent the day yesterday hearing from witnesses about the outage – what went wrong, why and what needs to be done…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – The House of Commons INDU committee heard from a series of witnesses today about the July 8 Rogers Communications outage that impacted Canadians across the country, including those trying to access emergency services.
Both meetings the committee decided to hold before the end of July were held today back-to-back.
First among the witnesses there were older white men in suits including François-Philippe Champagne, minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. While the soon fired Rogers CTO, Jorge Fernandes was in Portugal, the minister was in Japan when he heard in the middle of the night…
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Includes physically separating wireless and Internet services
TORONTO — In a letter to customers published Sunday on Rogers Communications’ website, company president and CEO Tony Staffieri outlined the steps the telecom is taking “to learn from” its nationwide network outage earlier this month “and deliver the reliable network you should expect from Rogers.”
Calling it the company’s “Enhanced Reliability Plan”, Staffieri said Rogers is making changes and investments to ensure a network outage like this doesn’t happen again, as part of a personal commitment he pledged in a previous letter posted to the Rogers website shortly after the…
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Bell, Telus offered to help, but Rogers determined it was not possible
OTTAWA – There were no other measures Rogers Communications could have taken to restore 911 services any quicker than it did during the July 8th network outage, the company has told the CRTC in a response to a demand for a detailed report on what happened that day and why.
In a heavily redacted document made public by the CRTC last Friday, Rogers explained it explored the possibility of shutting down its RAN (radio access network), because if customers were unable to connect to it, they would…
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CNOC largely supports the direction, asks for minor changes
By Amanda OYE
OTTAWA – While the government’s new proposed telecommunications policy direction for the CRTC and accompanying documents had some harsh words for the Commission, some are saying the direction does not go far enough to be able to ensure competition and foster affordable pricing in the industry.
Comments submitted to the government on the proposed policy direction were due yesterday.
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), a consumer rights advocacy organization, argued in its submission the proposed policy direction is “severely out of touch” with the context of telecommunications competition…
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