By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – At 3:44 p.m. on Friday, January 15, the CRTC lawyer joked: “The moment you have long been waiting for,” before going with reading a long list of undertakings, which is of course the information CBC executives had agreed to provide to the Commission, on or before February 3.
It marked the end of a long week where CRTC commissioners and senior staff at the CBC verbally wrestled to provide this process a fulsome record without giving away too much. And now, the leadership of the Corporation, to counter-quote CEO Catherine Tait, can go back to…
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ISED officials said areas with 5/1 Mbps are already served
By Ahmad Hathout
BRITISH COLUMBIA’S BIG $45.4-million broadband project which is expected to run a 3,400-kilometre stretch of underwater fibre cable along the province’s coast was reduced from Connect to Innovate funding because some communities already met an old guideline for broadband connectivity.
When officials from Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) came to do a due diligence assessment of the Connected Coast project, they found some communities had met the Connect to Innovate (CTI) program’s “served” criteria – those communities that had speeds of 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload…
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By Denis Carmel
AFTER WRAPPING UP THE portion of the hearing which programming dominated discussion, the CRTC hearing examining the renewal of the CBC/Radio-Canada broadcasting licences saw B.C. and Yukon regional commissioner Claire Anderson take over on Thursday, driving the dialogue down the roads of diversity and relevance, accessibility of programming and ratings classification
Anderson (above) introduced herself as a citizen of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation and she was taking part from Whitehorse, Yukon. “We are here to discuss how the public broadcaster can become even more representative of all Canadians over the next licence term,” she said. She…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – While day one of the hearing into the renewal of the CBC’s broadcasting licences was devoted to the 40,000-foot view with the chairman, days two and three flew a little lower, even skimming the regulatory weeds.
The second day of the hearing – and a little bit on Wednesday morning – were devoted to news at CBC/Radio-Canada.
“When I started at CBC/Radio-Canada, I was reminded that Canadians have two jobs—their own, and running the CBC,” said CBC president and CEO Catherine Tait. That is especially true of news at the corporation, so it was the topic…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC today launched a new consultation on its proposed network-level blocking framework to limit botnet traffic and strengthen Canadians’ online safety.
Botnets are harmful networks of malware-infected computers which are under the control of a malicious actor and are known to facilitate some of the most damaging cyber attacks, including ransomware and identity theft. Botnets also enable spam distribution and distributed denial-of-service attacks.
“Malicious botnet attacks are a serious and recurring concern. Almost every week, we see another organization victimized by ransomware or hear of a fellow citizen lured in by a phishing scam. With the launch of…
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By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — This week, the CRTC began a two-week hearing into the renewal of CBC/Radio-Canada’s licences, a process which began more than a year ago. There will be days of questioning, dozens of intervenors appearing, and discussions of everything from children’s programming to the fees for CBC News Network to diversity, local news, online distribution and official minority communities.
But one thing that probably won’t be discussed is a service the public broadcaster is specifically required by legislation to provide, relatively few know about, but that the company has seemingly treated like a forgotten stepchild: Radio Canada International.
Last…
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GATINEAU — High costs, frequent network outages and slow speeds are the main complaints from Northern Canadians who expressed dissatisfaction with their home Internet service in focus groups and surveys conducted by Environics Research for a report released today by the CRTC.
The report was commissioned as part of the CRTC’s review of its regulatory framework for far north provider Northwestel and the state of telecommunications services in Canada’s North, a proceeding that was launched in early November.
Environics’ research was conducted between September and October 2020 and gathered information from residents in Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and northern…
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OTTAWA — The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) on Friday submitted a Part 1 application to the CRTC asking for “an expedited and temporary resale remedy for competitive access to incumbent fibre-to-the-premises facilities.”
CNOC says it’s making the application because it has been more than five years since the Commission’s last wholesale wireline review resulted in its CRTC 2015-326 decision in July 2015 that “promised service-based competition over Incumbent FTTP access facilities,” CNOC says — a promise it notes has yet to be fulfilled.
“Without a viable wholesale FTTP option, competition in the provision of retail broadband services, which…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC today announced it is extending the deadlines for interventions and replies to its radio policy framework review proceeding.
In its updated notice of consultation (CRTC 2020-374-1), the Commission says it decided to extend the deadlines after receiving a joint procedural request from several associations representing the music sector.
The deadline to submit interventions is now March 29, 2021. The deadline for replies is April 28, 2021.
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GATINEAU — In two separate decisions issued today, the CRTC concluded it doesn’t need to take any enforcement action against several telecommunications service providers who at one point had failed to become participants in the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS), because either they are now CCTS participants or they have stopped providing services.
In Telecom Decision CRTC 2021-2, the Commission says it determined Rafiki Technologies committed a violation of the Telecommunications Act by failing to become a participant in the CCTS, but since it became a CCTS participant in August 2020 (almost two years after the CCTS…
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