And why there’s much more to rural connectivity than funding
By Lynn Greiner
AN ADDITIONAL $1.75 BILLION for rural broadband, which the federal government announced this month, is certainly a good step, albeit delayed, in the right direction. But, it’s not enough.
“It’s not a silver bullet,” said Telus vice-president telecom policy and chief regulatory legal counsel Stephen Schmidt during the Canadian Telecom Summit’s annual Regulatory Blockbuster session on Wednesday. “It won’t work on its own… In our view, complementary spectrum policy reform is an essential companion piece that will ensure that the networks that get built with or without public…
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By Denis Carmel
ROBERT GHIZ, THE Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) president and CEO gave a strong speech at the virtual Telecom Summit on Wednesday focusing on the importance of the wireless industry and its contribution to Canadian economy and the role Canadian carriers continue to play in the pandemic.
“We are among world leaders in 4G network performance,” he said. “Opensignal’s benchmarking report earlier this year found that Canadians not only enjoy the fastest download speeds in North America, but the fastest in the world.”
Also, “a study commissioned by the U.S. industry association CTIA, looked at how the U.S….
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FORT ERIE, Ont. — In an application posted Tuesday to the CRTC’s website, radio station owner Byrnes Communications is asking that a condition of licence, related to the broadcasting of local news content, be removed from the licence of its CFLZ FM station in Fort Erie, Ont.
Burlington, Ont.-based Byrnes Communications acquired CFLZ FM (along with CJED FM in Niagara Falls) from Vista Radio in February 2018, and “inherited a legacy Condition of Licence (COL) placed on CFLZ FM over a decade prior,” reads Byrnes’ supplementary brief to its application.
The COL in question (condition #3) states: “During each broadcast week,…
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TORONTO — While applauding the federal government’s decision to increase funding available through its Universal Broadband Fund to $1.75 billion, independent service provider Distributel today said now it’s time for the CRTC to enforce its 2019 wholesale rate decision to create certainty for independents and stimulate investment and innovation (something fellow independent TekSavvy is also advocating).
Enforcement of the 2019 decision will not only establish rate certainty, it will provide independents with a retroactive overpayment refund which Distributel says it “will use predominantly to accelerate efforts to expand rural broadband and invest in other innovative initiatives that…
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By Denis Carmel
TORONTO – It’s difficult for the head of regulatory agency to offer some interesting speech tidbits since what we want to hear, he cannot address because it is under review and so what he can talk about, we already know.
Just two weeks ago, chair of the CRTC Ian Scott gave a speech at the ISP Summit which was, in terms of news, a little thin and Tuesday he spoke at the Telecom Summit with little more information.
We were very interested in the consumer protection issues. Such as hearing about the number of Covid-19 scam-related complaints. The…
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GATINEAU — Having already extended the deadline once for submissions to its proceeding regarding the appropriate network and service configurations for disaggregated wholesale high-speed access (HSA) services, the CRTC says it won’t delay the proceeding further by agreeing to add procedural steps requested by the Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC).
The Commission launched the proceeding in June, and then revised the deadlines in July, making interventions due by October 5 and replies due by December 7, 2020.
However, on November 2, CNOC sent a letter to the CRTC asking for a Commission order to address alleged instances of…
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By Denis Carmel
WHEN BILL C-10 WAS TABLED by Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault on November 3, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting noted some amendments to the Broadcasting Act could, as a consequence, wipe out foreign ownership restrictions on broadcasters.
Friends said it is “concerned by the fact that multiple sections of the Broadcasting Act have been repealed or amended to remove protections for Canadian culture… It also removes language that the broadcasting system should be owned and controlled by Canadians, opening the door to foreign companies to buy up what’s left of Canada’s traditional broadcasting system.”
So, we asked the department of Canadian…
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GATINEAU – When in August 2020, the CRTC found both Iristel and Telus had violated the Telecom Act, Iristel for traffic stimulation and Telus by taking matters in its own hand in blocking traffic to Iristel, it initiated a proceeding to determine whether Administrative Penalties (AMPs) were warranted.
After Iristel went to the CRTC seeking a Review and Vary (R&V) and a stay of the decision right away, on November 6, Telus also sought a R&V of the same decision to argue that they di not unjustly discriminated. It was posted to the Commission website on Thursday.
“The Commission,…
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TORONTO – When the CBC appears in front of the CRTC in January asking for its broadcasting licences to be renewed, the commissioners had better ask the public broadcaster about Tandem, say a large group of former employees.
The CBC announced the new Tandem unit in September, which was meant to “enhance its offer to advertisers and media agencies in Canada with the dedicated service for the creation of unique and distinctive branded content,” by using CBC folks to create special content for certain clients – such as the Go The Distance podcast for Athabasca University, hosted by…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – To no one’s surprise, Bell Canada and the large cable companies have sought leave to appeal the Federal Court of Appeal decision of September 10, 2020, over CRTC Decision 2019-288 (about the fees third party internet access ISPs pay to the incumbents) to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Bell adopted the reasoning put forward by the large cable carriers (Rogers, Shaw, Videotron, Cogeco, and Eastlink) and let them argue more at depth the issues at hand.
Their argument seems to focus on, besides the basic issues they contended before when they went to the Federal Court…
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