MANY OF THE ARGUMENTS in favour of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) are not informed by facts, as evidenced by Samer Bishay’s editorial from February 16 (Wireless review is critical for Canada; MVNOs must be mandated).
Using actual data from Canada and other OECD countries, the evidence clearly demonstrates that implementing wholesale MVNO access regulation will harm Canadian consumers. MVNOs have little to no competitive impact as their business model focuses on identifying niches in the market, rather than competing in existing markets. They are generally not sustainable, as market saturation and competition yields few, if any, viable niches…
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By Greg O’Brien
GATINEAU – If you’re looking for drama, day one of the CRTC’s wireless policy review hearing was not for you.
That’s not to say it was boring, however. During the morning session, we got an engaged CRTC chair Ian Scott taking a deep, detailed dive into the Competition Bureau’s evidence as well as its idea for mandating a tempered vision for mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) in Canada.
The Bureau is not for broadly mandating an MVNO structure where any company that comes along wanting to sign up wireless subs using a CRTC-decree as the crowbar can get into…
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OTTAWA — The majority of Canadians polled recently by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) said they support new regulations that would promote greater wireless competition by forcing Canada’s largest carriers to share their infrastructure with new providers.
With its full research report scheduled to be released in March, the CIRA announced a few tidbits from the report on Tuesday, as the CRTC begins its two-week-long wireless policy review hearing. One of the key questions being considered by the Commission is whether or not wholesale network access should be mandated to allow mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to enter the…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) has filed a counter submission to the Governor-in-Council (a.k.a. federal cabinet) over petitions sent by the big incumbent carriers who are protesting the CRTC’s decision to lower wholesale prices for internet.
Last August, the CRTC lowered the final prices the incumbents – Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw, Videotron, Cogeco, and Eastlink – can charge resellers, and made those rates retroactive to 2016, when interim rates were set. The incumbents protested to the Federal Court, the cabinet and the CRTC. The court granted the leave to appeal and has yet to…
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GATINEAU – One of the most important CRTC hearings in some time (perhaps the most hyped since Let’s Talk TV) begins Tuesday in Gatineau. Hundreds of thousands of words have been written about the upcoming hearing, including thousands by Cartt.ca breaking down the issues (please see our extensive coverage at the bottom of this piece), but it’s important to remember the Commission is interested in a number of specific questions.
Some things to remember. The CRTC already had the wireless carriers come up with low-cost data only plans. We wonder how those are selling? Wireless wholesale roaming is different than…
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GATINEAU – In a decision released February 14, the CRTC ruled resellers, such as Frontier Networks, an independent Toronto-based provider of broadband, voice, physical, and network security for businesses, can themselves offer services to other resellers. That CRTC decision now applies to all cable providers and clarifies the third party internet access rules.
In April 2018, the Commission received an application from Frontier where the company complained about Eastlink’s refusal to allow Frontier to continue to resell HSA service to its two reseller customers.
In December 2018, the CRTC ruled in favour of Frontier determining Eastlink had to let resellers…
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By Samer Bishay
IT’S NO SURPRISE CANADIANS are paying some of the highest wireless prices – especially for data – in the world.
In another international audit of prices last fall, by Rewheel Research, it confirmed what Canadians already know: we pay far too much. In public surveys released by Canada’s telecom regulator earlier this month, Canadians said overwhelmingly they feel cell service in Canada is more expensive than abroad.
Affordability is the main reason the federal government ordered the CRTC to move up its review of the wireless market and start a critical public hearing February 18, a…
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TORONTO – Intended to make a few waves just as the CRTC kicks off its two-week public hearing into its policies on the wireless market in Canada, Ice Wireless today said a few new plans, with one set at 99-cents per week, will launch next month.
“If we can do this in Canada’s North, where network costs are higher, there’s no reason we can’t do it in other parts of the country, if we’re allowed,” said Samer Bishay, president and CEO of Ice and its parent company Iristel.
Ice Wireless is a regional mobile network operator, where the company’s release says…
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By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – On the second day of the CRTC hearing into the proposed purchase of Groupe V Media by Bell Media hearing, the first intervenors were the Independent Broadcast Group.
The concern of the group of broadcasters which included Channel Zero, Stingray Digital, OUTtv and others, is the diversity of voices issue.
“The Canadian broadcasting landscape is now even more consolidated and integrated than it was even nine years ago, in 2010, when the Commission last looked squarely at some of the consequences of vertical integration and ownership concentration in the Canadian market,” their intervention reads.
At the time the…
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Textnow is the largest free phone provider in the United States
By Greg O’Brien
WATERLOO, Ont. – How is it that a Canadian company has seen tremendous success as a mobile virtual network operator? Simple. While they’d love to grow in Canada, the company has instead penetrated the much larger, more competitive, American market.
Waterloo’s textnow was founded in 2009 by CEO Derek Ting (not to be confused with Ting Mobile, another successful Canadian MVNO doing great business in the U.S. and is owned by Toronto’s Tucows) and Jon Lerner who wanted to see everyone have access to mobile technology at an…
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