OTTAWA-GATINEAU — The CRTC’s chief compliance and enforcement officer, Steven Harroun, announced today penalties totalling $300,000 against four Canadians for their involvement in the Dark Web marketplace Canadian HeadQuarters, also known as CanadianHQ.
Following the execution of warrants by CRTC staff in the greater Montreal area during 2020 and 2021, the marketplace was taken offline.
“Before shutting down, CanadianHQ was one of the largest Dark Web marketplaces in the world and significantly contributed to harmful cyber activity in Canada. It specialized in the sale of goods and services, including spamming services, phishing kits, stolen credentials and access to compromised computers, which…
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MONCTON — Rogers Communications announced today it will invest close to $200 million to bring 100% pure fibre to up to 314,000 homes and businesses in New Brunswick, starting in the communities of Dieppe, Moncton, Riverview and Shediac.
Once completed, these network upgrades will provide customers with access to Rogers services including Ignite Internet, offering speeds up to 1.5 Gbps, as well as Ignite TV and Ignite SmartStream, all powered by Rogers’s all-fibre network, the company’s press release says.
“It is important that we continue to invest in our communities to ensure that customers have access to faster and more…
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MONTRÉAL – Cogeco has wanted to move into wireless for several years now, and while progress has been made towards that goal, it has been a marathon, not a sprint.
This was clear last Friday during an annual press briefing prior to the company’s annual general meeting, when Cogeco president and CEO Philippe Jetté highlighted the continued development of the company’s mobile wireless plans as one of its achievements of the year. (While Jetté gave his speech in French, Cogeco provided an English translation.)
Jetté listed Cogeco’s acquisition of 38 new spectrum licences last July and the CRTC’s decision last…
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BEHCHOKǪ̀, NT — Northwestel announced today the launch of full-fibre Internet service with unlimited data to homes and businesses in Behchokǫ̀, Northwest Territories.
With the launch, the home Internet speeds now available in Behchokǫ̀ have increased from 15 Mbps to 250 Mbps for downloads, which far surpasses the CRTC’s universal service objective of 50 Mbps, says a Northwestel press release.
“Alongside faster unlimited Internet, Behchokǫ̀ now has Internet rates that match those available in major Northern centres,” the release says.
Northwestel’s unlimited Internet plans range in price from $161 per month for its Internet 50 service with download speeds up to 50 Mbps to…
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TORONTO – Canada’s regulatory framework for access to passive infrastructure by telecommunications carriers needs to be modernized, according to a report released yesterday by the C.D. Howe Institute.
The report, Building Bridges for 5G: How to Overcome the Infrastructure Barriers to Deployment of Canada’s Next-Generation Broadband Networks, authored by Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP partners Leslie Milton and Jay Kerr-Wilson, and associate Paul Burbank, highlights the importance of next-generation wireline and wireless broadband networks for Canada’s economic growth and for social inclusion and post-pandemic recovery.
“A critical input to the effective and efficient deployment and expansion of these next-generation telecommunications networks is…
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TORONTO – Speakers for the 8th annual Digital Media at the Crossroads (DM@X) conference, including those from BCE, Quebecor, Corus, CBC and Rogers, were finalized earlier this month, according to the conference steering committee.
DM@X, which will be held virtually this year from Jan. 21-22, will cover several topics, many of which are particularly timely given the priorities indicated in the federal government’s minister mandate letters released last month.
Topics include the regulation of streaming services and the role of the CRTC, the options for addressing online harm and fake news, new developments in support for Canadian news from digital…
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GATINEAU – Revenue from Canadian broadcasting services declined 6.6% to $15.8 billion in 2019-2020 compared to 2018-2019, the CRTC says.
This is highlighted in the broadcasting portion of the CRTC’s Communications Market Report (CMR; formally the Communications Monitoring Report), released last month, which covers the broadcast year spanning from Sept. 1, 2019, to Aug. 31, 2020, and as such includes around six months of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The $15.8 billion in revenue does not include revenues from Internet-based services, known as over-the-top services (OTT), operating under the CRTC’s digital media exemption order.
Over half of the revenues were generated by broadcasting distribution…
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GATINEAU – Total revenue for Canada’s telecommunications sector was $53.4 billion in 2020, a decrease of 1.4% compared to 2019, the CRTC says.
This is according to the telecom portion of the CRTC’s Communications Market Report (CMR; formally the Communications Monitoring Report), released last month.
The report features data from 2020, during which the Covid-19 pandemic began, non-essential travel was curtailed and many Canadians ended up working from home. During this time, there were higher volumes of wireline voice calling, significantly increased Internet data usage and decreased mobile roaming, the report explains.
The 1.4% total revenue decrease for telecommunications in 2020 is…
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By Denis Carmel
HAWKESBURY – Quietly, on Dec. 29, Judith LaRocque (above) passed away, in her home in Hawkesbury, Ont.
Judith received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Carleton University in 1979, and a Master of Arts degree in Public Administration from the same university in 1992.
But most of us knew her at Canadian Heritage where she was deputy minister (2002-2010) and, previously as associate deputy minister.
A respected civil servant, she started her career at Rideau Hall, as secretary to the Governor General, (1990-2000), where she followed Ray Hnatyshyn, after he had been appointed GG. She had…
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OTTAWA – Fraudulent calls continue to be an issue for Canadians despite the recent implementation of measures to try to combat them.
In April of this year, the CRTC directed telecommunications service providers (TSPs) to implement STIR/SHAKEN (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited/Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs), which is intended to combat caller ID spoofing, by Nov. 30 as a condition of providing telecommunication services.
As of Nov. 30, TSPs are expected to “certify whether a caller’s identity can be trusted by verifying the caller ID information for Internet Protocol-based voice calls,” a CRTC press release explains. The…
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