By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Until now the CRTC regime in place to compensate owners of conventional TV signals distributed by cable companies outside of their markets seem to work fairly well.
Terrestrial BDUs offer distant signals for ‘time shifting’ purposes. It allows subscribers to watch popular shows at a different time by watching a station in a different time zone. Since local stations are losing advertising money (advertisers only pay for local viewership) a compensation regime was put in place.
To distribute such signal, the cable company needs consent from and provide compensation to the owners of conventional television stations. Before…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Lawmakers envisaged the Broadcasting Act giving the CRTC broad powers to temporarily regulate disputes between broadcasters and program providers in the public interest, including when they involve economic relationships, the federal government is arguing in court documents.
The argument hits at the heart of an appeal by Quebecor which last April pulled its TVA Sports signal from Bell TV subscribers because the company believed its channel was undervalued compared to the Bell Media’s RDS channel. The move caused the CRTC to convene an emergency hearing and forced Quebecor to redistribute the signal based on the…
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And beware of 5G hype, says dotmobile
By Ahmad Hathout
GATINEAU – Despite holding the largest wireless market share in Saskatchewan, crown corporation SaskTel said it doesn’t have the ability to lead on wireless prices in the province, cautioning against calls for it to be required to lease its network to mobile virtual network operators.
The comment came Thursday on the second last day of the CRTC’s wireless policy review hearing in response to a question about whether SaskTel has market power as a result of the western province being the only one in the country that isn’t majority-served by the big…
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TORONTO and OSLO — Data On Tap Inc. has signed an agreement with Norway-based Working Group Two (WG2) to design and build a new-generation cloud core for its dotmobile wireless service in Canada this year, the company announced today (the same day it faced the CRTC during its wireless policy review hearing).
Dotmobile’s plan is to operate dotmobile as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) using the WG2-built core network to power the wireless talk, text and data services it will provide, the company says in its news release.
Data On Tap registered as a full proposed MVNO with…
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And, MVNOs won’t help
By Ahmad Hathout
GATINEAU – The CRTC’s last mandate for the wireless industry – low-cost data-only plans which originally stood in lieu of a regulatory regime for mobile virtual network operators – have not been popular with customers, Rogers executives told the CRTC today.
“A substantially bigger package of data without voice and text is not as appealing” as less data with talk and text, David Watt, Rogers’ senior vice-president of regulatory affairs, said Wednesday in front of CRTC commissioners reviewing the wireless industry.
“I think we had thought low-cost data-only appeal to people who use a fair…
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By Steve Faguy
GATINEAU – Five radio stations in eastern Canada have been called to appear at a CRTC hearing on May 12 and will be asked why the Commission shouldn’t suspend or revoke their licenses.
All five radio stations have long histories of compliance issues, and all five had their last licence renewals reviewed by the Commission in 2017, which then imposed two-year renewals and mandatory orders. This could be their last chance to keep themselves on the air.
Their applications show a common theme: an inability to meet the heavy burdens of CRTC reporting, particularly related to music lists and…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – After hearing Janet Yale and Monique Simard from the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel on Monday, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage had the new Heritage Minister, Steven Guilbeault, in for a discussion about the contents of his mandate letter.
He appeared with Hélène Laurendeau, his deputy minister and Jean-Stéphen Piché, the Heritage Ministry’s senior assistant deputy minister for cultural affairs. Of course, some questions were on other subjects and there was some discussion about the BTLR/Yale Report.
First, the Minister said not once but twice that he would table legislation based on the…
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Consumer groups say it’s worth risking network quality for MVNO access
GATINEAU – The only two telecoms which appeared in front of the CRTC on Tuesday during day six of the Commission’s wireless policy review took some time to urge the commissioners to look at the limitations of Cogeco’s hybrid mobile network operator model.
That model would allow MVNOs which already own and operate wired or wireless networks to lease network space from the big three national players – Bell, Rogers and Telus – in exchange for continuing to invest in their own infrastructure in their own operating territories.
Quebecor said it…
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CCSA says mandated access to 5G nets is a must for rural
GATINEAU – In advising the CRTC to mandate just one national MVNO to boost mobile wireless competition here, three former wireless and telecom executives said threats from the big national players about reduced investments and job cuts are not to be taken seriously.
“The market is so clearly dominated by the Big Three ,” Alek Krstajic, the former Freedom CEO and past executive at Bell and Rogers, told CRTC commissioners at the beginning of the second week of the Regulator’s review of the wireless industry.
“In fact,…
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GATINEAU – Canada’s largest third party internet access provider, TekSavvy, wants to add wireless to its mix as a mobile virtual network operator and its executives warned the CRTC on Friday not to fall for the pretend competition it says the Big Three provide in the Canadian wireless market.
The flanker brands of the Big Three (think Koodo, chatr and Lucky, for example) were created as a way to make it look like there are loads of wireless companies in the market when Rogers, Bell and Telus own 90% of the wireless subscribers in Canada, just under various brand names,…
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