By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A hearing that culminated in an unprecedented federal court order forcing internet service providers to block certain websites was unbalanced and will likely fall by the wayside as more intervenors weigh in at the appeal level, according to emails from a CRTC lawyer.
“What I would like to see is a re-do of the Federal Court motion,” William Abbott said in an email to an address that is redacted in newly unveiled communications obtained through access to information law. Abbott is a former Bell lawyer who took a legal counsel role at the CRTC in…
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OTTAWA – Telus and Cogeco are arguing in court that the standstill rule that has effectively forced Quebecor to deliver its TVA Sports signal to Bell customers is a completely valid way for the CRTC to enforce the status quo in the public interest, contrary to the claims of the two principal players in this legal battle.
The role of the CRTC under section 10 of the Broadcasting Act is to ensure consumers don’t become “collateral damage when either attempts to leverage its market position in an anti-competitive fashion to extract unfair benefits from its counterparty,” Telus said in…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – We’re going to have to wait a little longer to learn more about the next steps in the legislative process following the publication of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review (BTLR) panel report.
In its first public meeting after the 2019 election, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage invited representatives of the panel to brief the committee members on its report, which is actually called Canada’s Communications Future: Time to Act, issued on January 29th. Many are also calling it the Yale report.
In its appearance at the committee today, the panel’s chair, Janet Yale and panel…
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MONTREAL — Quebecor today publicized the intervention it filed with the CRTC, asking to appear at the public hearing into CBC/Radio-Canada’s licence renewal in May, where it will argue the public broadcaster needs to be given a clear public service mandate.
In a news release issued Monday, Quebecor says it agrees with the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel report that CBC/Radio-Canada should be “animated by a public purpose and not a commercial one.”
Among the questions Quebecor would like raised during the public hearing are the following:
Is it desirable for the public broadcaster to be driven by a…
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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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