By Ahmad Hathout
EDMONTON – A Calgary bylaw that sought to regulate the relationship between private entities and the city for access to municipal rights-of-way is not binding on telecom companies, the Alberta Court of Appeal said Thursday.
The highest court in the province upheld, 2-1, a lower court’s determination that the terms of the bylaw be amended to remove “telecommunications services” from the definition of “utility provider” because telecommunications is the jurisdiction of the federal government. The bylaw forced entities to get – in some cases multiple – permits to construct within rights-of-way.
The bylaw effectively gave the city the power…
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Incumbents wanted to postpone until it can be done in person
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal will hear the wholesale rate appeal via online videoconference in June, the court said Monday, after the appellants sought last week to have the hearing held in person – even if that meant delaying the proceeding.
Eastlink, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw, and Videotron as well as Bell sent letters to the court last week requesting the delay because they argued the complexity of the case could not be hashed-out over videoconference. The arguments were challenged by TekSavvy and the Canadian Network Operators…
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MAGOG, Que. – The Québec government said today it will help fund 66 projects selected from its “Régions branchées” call for broadband expansion announced in October 2019.
The new builds will provide broadband Internet at a comparable price to those offered in urban areas to more than 60,000 households. Please click here to see the list of projects.
The selected projects are located in 11 regions of Quebec, namely those of Bas-Saint-Laurent, Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean, Capitale-Nationale, Mauricie, Estrie, Outaouais, Chaudière-Appalaches, Lanaudière, Laurentides, Montérégie and Center-du-Québec. The government contribution to the projects, which will be carried out by Cogeco, Bell, Videotron,…
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VANCOUVER – This week Telus officially launched Call Control, an new service the company says is an improvement on the CRTC’s best practices for call filtering services and universal call blocking.
Call control is a free feature available to home phone customers in B.C. and Alberta – and now to all wireless customers nationally which blocks the majority of autodialed calls from reaching customers.
The majority of nuisance calls, including scams, are generated by computer-dialers that enable spammers to dial many numbers at once and are normally unable to respond to the Call Control message. Of the first group of…
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GATINEAU — In an application filed last week, Eastlink has asked the CRTC to review and vary its mid-February decision regarding the terms and conditions of access to cable carriers’ aggregated wholesale high-speed access (HSA) services (also known as third-party Internet access services).
In the decision issued February 14, the CRTC clarified the rules for resellers, saying they can offer HSA services on a wholesale basis to other resellers. The CRTC also directed Eastlink and other cable carriers to make a number of revisions to the terms and conditions of their wholesale HSA services.
While Eastlink doesn’t reference the general…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – On May 12th, Rogers and Videotron filed an application together asking the CRTC to force Bell to let wireless providers, like them, to attach small wireless cells to Bell telephone poles at the Support Structure Service Tariffs set by the CRTC some 15 years ago.
Small cells are a key component of the wireless network helping accommodate the increasing demand for high-speed wireless data. It will in time become a key component of the 5G networks. The SSST was first established so that other telecoms could serve customers without building another set of poles.
To that point:…
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MONTREAL — Following the recently approved acquisition of Groupe V Média’s V television network and Noovo.ca by Bell, specialty channels Elle Fictions and MAX (which were not included in the Bell-Groupe-V-Média deal) are now part of a new corporate entity called Remstar Media Group.
Remstar Media is majority-owned by Maxime Rémillard’s Remcorp Inc. (formerly Remstar Group), and partly owned by Caisse de dépôt et de placement du Québec, Investissement Québec and the Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec (FTQ).
Remstar Media is the 100% owner of MusiquePlus, which is the current licensee of Elle Fictions and MAX.
“My shareholders and…
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FREDERICTON — The province of New Brunswick’s planned introduction of a new area code and local 10-digit dialling later this year is being deferred, as approved by the CRTC in a recent decision.
The introduction of the new 428 area code was initially planned for November 21, 2020. However, based on the most recent numbering forecast conducted by the Canadian Numbering Administrator, New Brunswick’s current 506 area code will not reach capacity this year, and therefore there is no requirement to add a new area code yet, says the news release.
In fact, the most recent numbering forecast indicates…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC released Tuesday its full rationale for approving Bell Media’s acquisition of the V television network from Groupe V Média.
Although the V purchase was approved by the Commission at the beginning of April in an expedited release of its decision, its rationale behind the decision was not released at that time.
On Tuesday, in a newly numbered decision, the CRTC not only published its rationale but also made a number of corrections to its original decision approving the Bell-V transaction. The corrections are related to errors made in Appendix 2 and 3 regarding conditions…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC wants to know if the ongoing Covid-19 crisis has altered the positions put forward by any participants at the public hearing held earlier this year as part of the Commission’s wireless policy review.
Given the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic became more pronounced in Canada after the hearing in February, the Commission is giving participants an opportunity to provide additional information to be considered within the proceeding.
In a request for information issued as a procedural letter on May 15, the Commission asks: “Does the ongoing situation with respect to the Covid-19 pandemic change the view…
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