OTTAWA — The Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) identified a major omission in the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel report released at the end of January in that there was no mention of the community element in Canada’s broadcasting system.
While Recommendation 52 in the report (officially titled Canada’s Communications Future: Time to Act) maintains the existing definition of the Canadian broadcasting system as consisting of “public, private, and community elements”, there is no mention of the sector throughout the remaining 235 pages of the report, says CACTUS.
“Everyone acknowledges the crisis in local news and…
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By Greg O’Brien
GATINEAU – “Our initial capital budget for this coming year… was about $220 million. We’ve cut $60 million out of that. We’ve laid off people.”
This was part of the response from Eastlink CEO Lee Bragg when asked by CRTC commissioner Christopher MacDonald of the possible impact of a mandated mobile virtual network operator regime. Bragg said the fear of such a decision – coupled with the recent third party internet access decision on the wired side where Bragg says CRTC-set rates are below-cost and which it is fighting on many fronts – pushed the family-owned company…
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GATINEAU – The market should anticipate more of the same “me too” wireless plans across all large national carriers without mandated mobile virtual network operators, according to smaller telecoms.
While admitting Shaw’s Freedom has somewhat changed the dynamics of the market with its pursuit of higher data thresholds for customers at lower prices, representatives from the Canadian Network Operators Consortium and Distributel argued in front of the CRTC on Thursday these plans are often very similar to each other – which represents the limits of the current competitive environment.
“When Freedom introduced the Big Gig plan, it did lead to a…
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CHATHAM, Ont. – Independent ISP TekSavvy Solutions has asked the Competition Bureau to investigate what it says is a pattern of anti-competitive activities in wholesale and retail markets for Internet services on the part of Bell Canada and Rogers Communications.
The official complaint to the Bureau says Bell and Rogers’ wholesale divisions drove up competitors’ costs, while the big incumbent operators’ retail divisions targeted those competitors with “fighting brand” retail prices below their wholesale costs – which Bell and Rogers wrongfully inflated, reads the TekSavvy press release.
The complaint says that Bell and Rogers’ “wholesale rate manipulation resulted in higher…
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TORONTO – Independent telco Iristel said today is has strengthened ties with California-based text+, a service that lets anyone text, talk and share for free or close to free, by making an investment in the company.
Iristel and text+ have a long-standing strategic supplier relationship as Iristel provides phone numbers for text+ in Canada. “The two companies are now further connected through Iristel’s undisclosed financial investment in text+. Also, now text+ is the engine that powers Iristel’s Sugar Mobile and other OTT ‘over-the-top’ initiatives for the Iristel group of companies,” reads the release.
“We support the federal government’s commitment to making…
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Renews call to remove foreign ownership restrictions
By Greg O’Brien
GATINEAU – It’s been 18 years since Darren Entwistle, president and CEO of Telus, has personally appeared in front of the CRTC at a formal hearing. So why come to one?
“I’m frustrated,” he said to a small group of people in the hearing room in Gatineau a few minutes before he sat down for his four-plus-hour turn in front of the Commission as it examines wireless policy in Canada.
How frustrated? Enough to reduce network investments by $1 billion with a corresponding loss of 5,000 jobs, apparently.
While the entire Telus presentation was…
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Cogeco airs its HMNO model
By Greg O’Brien
GATINEAU – On Wednesday, CRTC commissioners tried to get Bell Canada CEO Mirko Bibic and other company executives to pick what they might think is a least-bad mandated mobile virtual network operator option from the choices of MVNO models others have brought to the proceeding.
Each time, Bell said no MVNO is the only option.
While some operators have said, if forced to choose, the only palatable proposed MVNO model is the one from the Competition Bureau, which would see MVNO access mandated for existing regional operators like Freedom and Videotron, and only for five…
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To effectively regard the whole communications field through the broadcasting lens results in a distorted view
By Konrad von Finckenstein and James Mitchell
IN AN EFFORT TO PROVIDE a critical overview of the recent report by the Broadcast and Telecommunications Review Panel (the so-called Yale Report or BTLR Report), with particular focus on its ‘machinery’ recommendations (i.e., those having to do with institutional and ministerial mandates and powers), this analysis will highlight why the new-concept CRTC should be set aside.
What the panel recommended
The BTLR was asked, as part of its mandate, to comment on the institutional framework employed for the regulation…
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Québecor replies to Bell’s reply after the hearing
By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – When Cartt.ca wrote about the CRTC hearing examining Bell Canada’s proposed purchase of V Télé, we had anticipated the advertising markets issue as well as program acquisition was an important issue since the CRTC’s Diversity of Voices policy considers the French and English Market separately – and that Québecor argues that if Bell were to get into the French conventional television side of the business, its weight in English Canada would give it an advantage when it negotiated with major players.
So when the reply came, the…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC announced Wednesday it is revoking the basic international telecommunications services (BITS) licences of 28 companies that have failed to comply with their conditions of licence.
In its decision, the Commission states the 28 companies failed to meet annual reporting requirements, such as the telecommunications industry data collection process requirements set out in Telecom Circular 2003-1 and Telecom Circular 2005-4.
The licensees in question were given until December 12, 2019 to file the required information or make representations as to why they should not be required to comply with the conditions of licence.
Having failed to…
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