By Greg O’Brien
GIVE THE DEPARTMENT OF Canadian Heritage and Minister Steven Guilbeault some credit for coming up with amendments to the Broadcasting Act which seem, at least upon first reading, like they can actually be turned into law in a minority Parliament.
This is something Guilbeault said would be coming some weeks ago, knowing there is only so much change for which the federal government can marshal support from its political rivals. He told an industry town hall in September: “One of the things we had to think long and hard about is do we go with this massive…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC today denied a review and vary application from Rogers Communications concerning the Commission’s decision in April to extend the deadline for Bell to deploy one-way toll trunks between the two companies’ networks — a deadline extension which Rogers wasn’t happy about.
Considering the Commission’s decision today comes two and a half months after the deadline by which Bell was supposed to have deployed the one-way toll trunks (to connect to Rogers switches in the Bell operating territories where Rogers also provides service), perhaps the whole matter of the R&V denial has become a moot point.
The…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU and TORONTO – There is a general rule in Ottawa that one should not steal the spotlight from public officials, especially Ministers of the Crown. They, of course, had to be elected while officials are merely appointed. And the chairman of the CRTC, a distinguished official, did not derogate from that rule.
As luck would have it, while Ian Scott was addressing the Competitive Network Operators of Canada’s 10th annual ISP Summit being held virtually Tuesday and Wednesday, Steven Guilbeault, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, was in Ottawa introducing significant changes to the Broadcasting Act at the…
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Videotron, others, are skeptical of Bell’s commitments
By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – On Friday, Bell Canada issued a news release announcing new measures to simplify the process for access to poles by recipients of the Québec Branché and Régions Branchées grant programs and other service providers.
This follows a process announced by the Government of Québec back in May 2020, along with the members of a working group that was tasked to accelerate the deployment of high-speed Internet in rural regions through a program financed by the Government of Québec.
“To address the many technical challenges associated with the deployment of fibre…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – In the reply phase in the CRTC’s “Call for comments on an application by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters requesting regulatory relief for Canadian broadcasters in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the Canadian Association of Broadcasters re-iterated their members’ situation is dire and help can’t be delayed.
As readers will remember, the CAB filed an application in July saying its members expect to be in non-compliance on their Cancon spending for the 2019–2020 broadcast year, which ended on August 31st, due to the impact of the Covid-19 crisis. In response, the Commission issued a…
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OTTAWA – While tomorrow’s news will be utterly dominated by the U.S. election, November 3, 2020 will be the launch day of a new Broadcasting Act as Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is expected to table the long-awaited amendments (and some other Acts, too, apparently) to the law.
While things could change at the last minute, the Heritage Ministry has scheduled technical briefings for the new proposed amendments with the both the press and the industry – and the federal government doesn’t do that unless and until it has first tabled the bill in the House of Commons.
According to the Continue Reading
GATINEAU — The CRTC today launched a proceeding to review certain elements of its regulatory framework for Bell subsidiary Northwestel, and is asking for Canadians living in the North to provide feedback on telecom services in the region.
“The CRTC is seeking to better understand the state of telephone, wireless and Internet services in the areas served by Northwestel. This will help determine whether more needs to be done to ensure Canadians living there have access to high-quality services at reasonable rates,” reads the Commission’s press release.
Broadband services, or their limitations, are a constant topic of conversation in…
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By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — Seven years after it convinced the CRTC to allow it to acquire Astral Media, Bell Media wants to adjust one of the promises it made in order to keep an extra radio station in Montreal.
In an application submitted in August 2019 but only published on Friday, Bell asks the Commission to reduce the minimum hours of local programming for CKGM (TSN 690) Montreal by a third, from 96 hours to 63 hours a week.
“To the best of our knowledge no other commercial AM station has a set number of local programming hours or even a…
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By Ahmad Hathout
YELLOWKNIFE – Members of the legislative assembly of the Northwest Territories (NWT) are losing patience with a regional government they say hasn’t formulated an economic plan to pull the territories out of a broadband slumber that awaits long-desired expanded connectivity while relying on very few companies to deliver it.
During assembly debates last week, MLAs lobbed questions and concerns at Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek about an alleged lack of broadband financial planning in the budget to apply for federal programs, while also charging that the region has become too reliant on Bell subsidiary Northwestel, the dominant service…
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CHATHAM, Ont. – Independent ISP TekSavvy Solutions has asked the Federal Court of Appeal to quash the September 28 CRTC decision which granted Bell Canada’s request to stay the implementation of the CRTC’s August 2019 order setting final rates for wholesale Internet services.
Over fourteen months ago, the CRTC released its final wholesale rates which third party internet access providers pay incumbent network owners. The rates in that decision are far lower than the interim rates which had been in use and called for retroactive payments. This came after a four-year proceeding and as readers will recall, the incumbents…
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