GATINEAU – With the latest and greatest smartphones now costing more than $2,000, Rogers Communications launched new device financing plans in July 2019, which would let customers spread the cost of a new handset over 36 months, paying $0 up front, if they wanted.
Rogers (and Telus and Ice Wireless, which followed their competitor’s lead) was convinced the device financing plans were on side with the CRTC’s Wireless Code of Conduct because the no-interest financed phones were not tied to a wireless service plan. If customers wanted to leave for another provider, all they had to do was…
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By Len St-Aubin
IN THE GUISE OF “broadcasting policy”, Bill C-10, An Act to Amend the Broadcasting Act, is really about promoting Canadian content in online media. To do that, it would expand the Broadcasting Act to capture virtually all online (internet) audio and video.
My previous articles discussed how Bill C-10 and Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s forecast Cancon contributions risk highly problematic outcomes for Canadian broadcasting, for the internet in Canada and for Canadians. A third proposed an alternative approach.
This article returns to the impact on private sector television and revisits potential outcomes in light of market…
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OTTAWA — On the one-year anniversary of the CRTC’s denial of a request by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the National Pensioners Federation (NPF) to require Telus flanker brand Koodo Mobile and other wireless service providers to provide paper bills upon request, the federal cabinet announced today it will not rescind the Commission’s decision nor refer it to back for reconsideration – because the Regulator is actually studying the matter already.
After the CRTC denied their joint application on March 3, 2020, PIAC and the NPF filed a petition to the Governor in Council on June…
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GATINEAU — Having been notified last week by the Canadian Numbering Administrator (CNA) that the projected exhaust date (PED) for phone numbers in the 343/613 area code has advanced by 16 months, the CRTC has authorized the CNA to activate what’s called a jeopardy condition plan to deal with the problem.
The 343/613 area codes cover the Ottawa area and eastern Ontario, including the cities of Kingston, Belleville, Brockville, Pembroke, Bancroft and Cornwall. (The 343 area code was added to the 613 region almost 11 years ago, in May 2010.)
The CNA’s January 2021 Relief-Numbering Resource Utilization Forecast (R-NRUF) shows that…
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By Ahmad Hathout
MONTREAL – Quebecor’s telecom arm Vidéotron is suing a trio of companies for allegedly conspiring to redistribute, without authorization, its TVA television signals in Quebec hotels, new court documents claim.
Videotron has filed new court documents in federal court in Montreal last week alleging the three companies have concocted a scheme whereby one company would purchase television service from Videotron with the intention of routing it to hotel customers of another company to maximize revenue from the single subscription, infringing on its copyright and bypassing its protections.
The regional telecom claims that Libeo Inc. develops and distributes Konek Technologies…
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Leaning into LEO and leaning on government
By Bill Roberts
ONE OF THE FEW POSITIVE side effects of the Covid-19 pandemic is that it has forced everyone to recognize the importance of access to broadband.
It has also underscored the serious problem of the digital divides, be it an affordability divide or the lack of reliable, robust, fast broadband in rural and remote areas. According to CRTC data, 87% of Canadians have access to excellent broadband speeds with unlimited data, but only 45% of rural Canada and 35% of Indigenous communities have that same access, and less have unlimited data options.
Canada has…
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And is about to make the biggest financial mistake in its history
By Barry Kiefl
THE CRTC, APPOINTED BY THE government to safeguard our broadcasting system, in January completed a three-week long public hearing into how the CBC should be spending its $1.7 billion annual budget over the next decade, where CBC executives told the Commission they want to spend close to $400 million annually on internet services by 2022-23 and effectively reduce budgets of traditional radio/TV to accomplish this.
CBC radio already has a smaller budget than CBC digital.
The Commission’s decision on CBC’s licence renewals will be based mostly on unsourced…
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QUISPAMSIS, N.B. – The Canadian Communication Systems Alliance has announced the shortlisted nominees for three of its five contest categories for Tuned-In Canada 2021, the organization’s long-standing annual initiative which celebrates the contributions CCSA-Member independent communications companies make to their communities and for their customers.
Judges Matt Polka (president and CEO of ACA Connects – America’s Communications Association), Suzanne Lamarre (lawyer at Therrien Couture and former CRTC commissioner), Greg O’Brien (editor and publisher of Cartt.ca), and newcomer judge Greg Hemmings (founder and CEO of New Brunswick-based Hemmings House Pictures) have completed the scoring process for the three “Public Voting” contest…
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Real battles will come in front of the CRTC
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – It was likely not done by design, but the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage could not have lined a more diverse set of individuals and groups as it did on its Friday, February 26 meeting to talk about Bill C-10, the bill to amend the Broadcasting Act.
Author and former CBC English services chief Richard Stursberg, Corus Entertainment, SOCAN, Rogers Communications, Netflix and two community television association groups.
Most, even including Netflix, support Bill C-10 and wish for speedy adoption (the real battles will come in front of the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear a big telecom appeal about the alleged incorrectness of the CRTC’s decision to reduce the cost for internet capacity purchased by smaller service providers.
The decision, announced Thursday, exhausts the legal routes for a challenge of the August 2019 rates that dramatically reduced the amount that smaller providers would need to spend to purchase network capacity from the larger players. The rates were never implemented because it was almost instantly appealed to the federal government, the courts, and the CRTC, which granted a pause on its own decision…
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