Court opines on meetings between the regulator and the regulated
By Ahmad Hathout
The Federal Court of Appeal has ruled this week that the CRTC has discretion in determining the method it uses to establish wholesale internet access rates, rejecting TekSavvy’s argument on appeal that the regulator failed to institute any method or technique when it rejected its own proposed lower wholesale rates based on methodological errors.
The CRTC had initially proposed significantly lower wholesale rates in a 2019 decision, which would have allowed independent service providers like TekSavvy to lease internet space from the larger players at a reduced cost. But…
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The CRTC has approved an application from the CBC to exclude programming expenditures on the public broadcaster’s coverage of the Olympic and Paralympic Games from the calculation of its regulatory obligations relating to Canadian programming expenditures (CPE) and expenditures on programs of national interest (PNI).
In its Tuesday decision, the commission said it is granting the relief to CBC’s licensed English- and French-language audiovisual services with the recognition that CBC would have difficulty meeting its overall programming objectives and requirements if the application was denied, which would most likely result in the broadcaster reallocating spending currently slated…
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Regulator said it believes Corus’s Global should receive ILNF funding
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC is asking the public whether it should modify the Independent Local News Fund (ILNF) to expand eligibility, ensure news quality, and whether it should favour recipients operating in remote and underserved communities.
The commission launched Tuesday the consultation on revisiting the ILNF, which was spawned in 2016. It follows the regulator’s decision, as part of the Online Streaming Act, to force foreign and standalone online platforms to allocate five per cent of their prior year’s Canadian revenues toward content funds, including 1.5 per cent to the ILNF,…
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The CRTC has invited members of official language minority communities to participate in a CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) Emergency Services Working Group (ESWG) study related to improving access to 911 services in both official languages.
Following incidents reported in January where 911 calls from francophone residents of Quebec were answered in English, the CRTC tasked the ESWG to come up with recommendations to ensure 911 calls routed to intermediary call centres are handled in the caller’s preferred official language.
The ESWG is to provide the commission with a report with its recommendations by Feb….
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The CRTC is prepared to provide the Kativik Regional Government of northern Quebec roughly $79.4 million – the amount it asked for – from the Broadband Fund to build undersea fibre transport infrastructure and five new points of presence.
The project will serve five Inuit communities in the north of the province – Aupaluk, Kangiqsualujjuaq, Kangirsuk, Quaqtaq, and Tasiujaq – encompassing roughly 707 households. The build will also connect 42 anchor institutions, such as schools and health care centres, and will link all communities in the entire Nunavik region.
The transport infrastructure will allow last-mile service providers to offer service to…
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The CRTC is asking Rogers to explain how the recent increase of its service set-up fee from $60 to $70 on Rogers and Fido plans is consistent with the federal government’s recent amendments to the Telecommunications Act introduced this spring in Budget 2024.
Division 37 of Bill C-69, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 16, 2024, which received royal assent on June 20, contains a prohibition stating, “A telecommunications service provider must not charge a fee to a subscriber that is related to the activation or modification of a telecommunications service…
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The CRTC last week approved an implementation plan from incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) Westport Telephone Company Limited, operating as WTC Communications, for local competition by Bell Canada in the exchange of Westport, Ont.
Given there is no other competitive local exchange carriers currently operating in WTC Communications’ local interconnection region, the ILEC said it does not already have the necessary processes in place. In its implementation plan, it asked for 60 days to file competitor services tariffs related to local network interconnection in Westport once the commission approved its implementation plan. It further proposed that Bell…
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The CRTC has told Rogers in a letter it plans to publish the full Xona Partners report on the cable giant’s July 2022 major service outage, after receiving letters from public interest groups requesting disclosure of the full text of the report.
On July 4, the CRTC posted an executive summary of the Xona report, which detailed the results of an independent assessment of the Rogers network architecture for reliability and resiliency, as well as the processes in place at Rogers to manage network changes and respond to network incidents like…
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The CRTC has approved a request from Northwestel for additional funding via the Broadband Fund to drive its fibre expansion in rural Whitehorse.
Representing the sixth increase in funding for its Yukon fibre project, Northwestel has been approved for a further 7.1 per cent increase ($4.1 million) in funding to add fibre for internet access services in the rural Whitehorse areas of Deep Creek, Golden Horn and Takhini River Road, adding approximately 250 households to the overall project scope.
This brings the total CRTC Broadband Fund funding for Northwestel’s Yukon fibre project to $62.7 million.
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The CRTC is asking for comments on a Part 1 application from the Broadcasting Participation Fund (BPF) to expand its mandate so it can provide financial support for public interest participation in Online News Act proceedings.
The BPF was established in 2012 to help support research and reimburse the costs of public interest participation in the CRTC’s broadcasting proceedings.
A Part 1 application dated June 18, posted to the CRTC’s website on July 5, proposes that the BPF’s mandate now be expanded to accept applications for public interest intervenor costs in CRTC digital news proceedings under the Online…
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