OTTAWA – Burlington, ON could soon have a new radio station after the CRTC issued a call for comments on market capacity and on the appropriateness of issuing a call for radio applications to serve that area.
The Commission said Friday that it issued the call after receiving an application from Byrnes Communications Inc. for a new commercial mainstream music station in that market. The private broadcaster, based in Woodstock, ON, operates the adult contemporary station 104.7 Heart FM serving the London-Woodstock-Tillsonburg areas.
The city of Burlington is included within both the Hamilton Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) and the Hamilton Central…
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WINNIPEG – Louis Ralph (Bud) Sherman will be remembered Thursday at a memorial service in Winnipeg after his passing on January 9, 2015 at the age of 88 after a short illness.
Sherman was appointed as a CRTC commissioner in 1985 and worked for the Commission for more than 10 years during which time he became vice-chairman of telecommunications in 1987 until his retirement in 1995. According to an obituary in the Winnipeg Free Press, his proudest accomplishment during his time with the CRTC was “the central role he played in work relating to long distance competition in the…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC received only 42 consumer complaints regarding bandwidth throttling by their Internet service providers (ISPs) in 2014, with most of those coming in the fourth quarter.
In its latest status report released Wednesday, the Commission said that it received 16 complaints regarding Internet Traffic Management Practices (ITMPs) from October 1 through December 31, 2014. Eleven complaints were received in the first quarter of the year, 10 in the second quarter and six in the third quarter.
There are nine active complaints as of December 31st, and 11 complaints were closed in the fourth quarter. Closed complaints include those where CRTC…
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OTTAWA–GATINEAU – The CRTC has approved the structure and mandate of the Canadian administrator of the country’s new video relay service, which could be could up and running by late 2015.
The service, green-lit by the Commission in April, will enable Canadians to place phone calls and communicate using American Sign Language (ASL) or Quebec Sign Language (QSL) where the technology is available. Designed for people who are deaf, hard of hearing and speech impaired and other Canadians, and vice versa, an operator facilitates the conversation between the two parties by relaying the conversation between sign language and spoken language.
The…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has finally been gifted with the power to issue monetary penalties, something that has been on the wish list of many of its past chairs, particularly that of Konrad von Finckenstein.
With Bill C-43, the Economic Action Plan Act, No. 2, receiving Royal Assent, monetary penalties may be issued to any company or person that violates the Telecommunications Act as well as related CRTC decisions or regulations, current CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais said in a statement Wednesday.
“Monetary penalties are an addition to our toolkit. They will promote compliance with telecommunications laws and regulations”, Blais said. “Monetary…
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OTTAWA – Telus Communications may not charge for service poles that it doesn’t own, says the CRTC.
In a decision issued Friday, the Commission found that Telus is prohibited by its Support Structure Service tariff from charging licensees for service poles it does not own, unless the company has an agreement through which it has the right to provide licensees with access to those poles and, hence, exercises control over those poles.
Responding to a complaint from Raftview Communications dated July 24, 2014, the CRTC directed Telus to withdraw all invoices and/or provide refunds to Raftview, as appropriate, in accordance…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC has approved, with conditions, an interim service that will make it easier for residents in the Yukon to access emergency responders.
This service was proposed by the Yukon Government as a temporary solution for communities that currently do not have 9-1-1 service, while it strives to implement 9-1-1 service throughout the territory within the next 12 to 20 months. Basic 9-1-1 service is currently available only in the Whitehorse area.
Callers within all communities of the Yukon will be able to dial 9-1-1 in an emergency situation rather than one of the seven-digit numbers currently used by…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC is throwing its support behind the Leave the Phone Alone road safety awareness campaign initiated by the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA).
According to the CCMTA, drivers who use hand-held devices when they are behind the wheel are four times more likely to be involved in an accident serious enough to cause injury, and in 80% of collisions, the driver had looked away from the road three seconds prior to the crash.
The CRTC is urging drivers to use their mobile devices responsibly and to avoid talking on the phone, texting or checking messages on…
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GATINEAU – While the Competition Bureau argued Monday it’s better not to regulate fibre facilities, others countered that Canada is far too big for facilities based competition and that the Commission should switch its focus to a more service-based approach.
The Competition Bureau kicked off day one of the Commission’s hearing into wholesale fibre access for independent third party broadband providers that it shouldn’t jump the gun on regulating access to wholesale facilities including fibre to the premise (FTTP) networks. The agency said the risks of imposing mandated access to FTTP now may be higher than if the Regulator waited…
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TORONTO – Rogers wants the CRTC to dismiss Bell’s allegations that its new GamePlus online hockey viewing app provides Rogers with an “anticompetitive advantage.”
In a submission Thursday to the Commission, filed in response to Bell’s complaint last month, Rogers described Bell’s application as “nothing more than Bell’s attempt to use the Commission’s regulatory processes to inhibit or hinder our ability to provide Canadian consumers with new and innovative content offerings”.
GameCentre Live is Rogers’ new online platform that allows fans to stream over 1,000 regular season and playoff games online and to whatever device they like for $200 a…
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