SDI Telecom says Bell is trying to force it out of the payphone business
GATINEAU — Bell Canada says it has evidence illegitimate toll-free calls are being made over SDI Telecom payphones and has filed a request with the CRTC to be allowed to withhold payment of disputed charges to SDI for toll-free compensation per call.
SDI is a competitive pay telephone service provider (CPTSP), and owns and operates approximately 115 pay telephones over the Bell network, mostly in the greater Toronto area. In a decision last December, the Commission determined CPTSPs are entitled to compensation for toll-free calls originating…
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By Greg O’Brien
MONTREAL – Calling the wireless market in Quebec “crazy” and saying the company will have good news to report when it announces its next quarterly results, Videotron president and CEO Jean-Francois Pruneau (above) insisted all competitive options remain on the table for the Quebecor-owned ISP/cableco/wireless operator.
He believes the company is emerging well from the pandemic and capturing most of the pent-up demand that was tamped down in the province during the lockdowns where Quebecers couldn’t go out and shop for a new wireless provider.
“We were able to capture that pent up demand, I would say better than…
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Cogeco, meanwhile, awaits CRTC’s new wireless policies
By Greg O’Brien
TORONTO – Rogers Communications CEO Joe Natale on Tuesday explained a little more about why his company is pursuing the purchase of Cogeco Cable so hard (and why he’s not intending to back off), while a senior executive of its intended target insisted that pursuit will be fruitless.
“The bid is really about answering some basic questions as we look at our investment into the future,” Natale told BMO telecom and media analyst Tim Casey at the bank’s annual Media and Telecom conference, held virtually. The $10.3 billion bid for the company,…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC announced today it has agreed to a nine-month extension of the deadline for the implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN framework for authenticating caller ID information for IP-based voice calls. The implementation deadline is now June 30, 2021.
STIR/SHAKEN stands for Secure Telephony Identity Revisited/Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs. The framework provides a suite of protocols and procedures intended to combat fraudulent caller ID spoofing by authenticating and verifying the caller ID information. It’s something upon which the federal government is focused.
In December 2019, the Commission mandated Canadian telecommunications service providers (TSPs) implement the security…
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By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – Since January 2019, Bell Media has been offering a “one-day subscription” to its TSN and RDS services on their website, allowing viewers to therefore bypass buying a Videotron cable package (even if they are already a Videotron internet subscriber) for a day, for $5, perhaps as a test drive, or to see one particular big game.
Videotron claimed in a court filing this is a breach of its contract with Bell and further claimed this type of offering could jeopardize the Canadian broadcasting system by content producers offering their services over-the-top.
In a decision last week, the…
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GATINEAU — Cablevision du Nord has until September 22 to respond to a Videotron complaint alleging Bell-owned Cablevision has been refusing to process some of Quebecor-owned Videotron’s third-party Internet access (TPIA) orders as well as interconnection capacity upgrades in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of northwestern Quebec, the CRTC informed both parties in a letter on Friday.
Videotron claims its service launch in the region is being stymied by Cablevision’s alleged actions, and on September 1 the Quebecor-owned company filed a Part 1 application (as we reported here), asking its complaint be expedited, and for Cablevision to file its response within…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Enough delay, say the independent ISPs.
TekSavvy, Distributel and the Competitive Network Operators of Canada on Friday filed applications with the CRTC demanding the incumbent telco and cable carriers file new tariffs as ordered by the Commission in its August 2019 decision setting new wholesale internet rates (CRTC 2019-288).
The decision gave the network owners until September 14, 2019 to do so, but only Telus filed. Later, SaskTel filed its tariff pages after a CRTC reminder. The other incumbents declined to do so, pending the three appeals of the decision filed shortly after the August 2019 rates…
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GATINEAU – After the CRTC found Iristel and Telus in breach of the Telecommunications Act, the former for traffic simulation in the 867 area code and the latter for the actions it took against Iristel, the Commission started a process to determine whether an Administrative Monetary Penalty should be imposed.
Without surprise, Iristel immediately asked the Commission to review and vary and to stay the decision.
CNOC supported the stay request, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre asked the deadline be postponed and Telus asked for the process to be suspended (it may well have an R&V of its own…
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MONTREAL – Bell Canada said today it will hit the gas again on its rural Wireless Home Internet rollout, including an expansion of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload speeds to more locations.
“The Wireless Home Internet program is fully funded by Bell but also enabled by a federal government policy environment that fosters investment in critical network infrastructure,” said Mirko Bibic, president and CEO, in a release which also resends another message to the federal government. “With Covid-19 underscoring the critical importance of high-speed Internet access for Canadians everywhere, and government support for enhanced investment, Bell is dedicating…
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CHATHAM, Ont – TekSavvy Solutions, Canada’s largest third party internet access provider, said today that unless and until the network owners it uses starts paying the retroactive costs owed to it which was demanded by the CRTC, the company will stop paying its monthly wholesale fee payments to Bell and Rogers.
While praising yesterday’s decision from the Federal Court of Appeal, which upheld the wholesale rates set in August 2019 by the CRTC with a decision that also called for retroactive repayments of the difference between the interim rates and the new rates, dating back to 2016, TekSavvy drew…
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