By Irene Berkowitz
THE LONG-AWAITED announcement from the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review (BTLR) review panel is upon us.
Charles Falzon, among his many firsts, is founding chair of the CMPA. He also served on the Expert Advisory Group for our last federal media inquiry, the 2016-2017 Department of Canadian Heritage Canadian Content in a Digital World/Creative Canada Policy Framework. Falzon is Dean of Ryerson University Faculty of Communication and Design (FCAD) and former Chair of RTA School of Media. He’s produced more than 2000 hours of TV with Gemini awards and Emmy nominations to his credit.
As…
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OTTAWA – The federal government’s expert panel which has spent 18 months building recommendations on how the various Acts which govern television, radio, broadband and telecom in Canada should, or should not, change, will make its report public early Wednesday afternoon.
Legislation coming from those recommendations will drive the various policies created over the years for the connectivity and cultural sectors and could alter the way Canadians receive electronic media, how Canadian content is made and funded, deliver increased broadband accessibility, change wireless policy, rework the way the federal government treats wireless spectrum and so forth.
Cartt.ca has confirmed with the…
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CNOC wants Commission’s help with Eastlink decision
By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Recently, Technicolor, a modem manufacturer, discovered some of its equipment was faulty and thus informed it customers.
It told carriers that some modems were defective. “The TC Bulletin explains that a very small quantity of TC Modems built during a two-week manufacturing window between weeks 35 and 37 of 2018 were exhibiting an issue,” reads a Canadian Network Operators’ Consortium application to the CRTC.
Yet, according to CNOC, Eastlink decided to order its wholesale third party internet access customers to remove all Technicolor modems from that batch. CNOC also states that…
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VANCOUVER – Novus Entertainment today announced Chris Marett will become the company’s new co-president and chief financial officer in March as Doug Holman will be retiring then from that role after 20 years with the company. Holman will act as a special advisor, subsequent to his retirement, to ensure a smooth transition for his successor, says the company’s press release.
Marett is currently CEO of CityWest in Prince Rupert and he had been CFO prior to that. He recently announced he was leaving the company.
“We would like to thank Doug for his contribution to the expansion and strategic transformation…
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OTTAWA – The Department of Canadian Heritage is asking a select group of consultants to submit bids for a research contract that will do a deep dive into how the CBC impacts the country.
The contract will “assess the social, cultural and economic impacts of CBC/Radio-Canada on the Canadian media and production sectors, and on Canadian audiences more generally,” a Heritage spokesperson confirmed to Cartt.ca.
“This research is part of the department’s ongoing work to ensure our policies and programs keep pace with societal and technological changes,” the spokesperson added. “Other countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, have conducted similar…
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GATINEAU – Consumer group Public Interest Advocacy Centre says the growing challenge of number porting fraud, where consumers’ phone numbers are essentially stolen (and then used by thieves to hack into bank accounts, for example), is an issue which requires a full public hearing to discuss.
Earlier this month, the CRTC asked the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association for more information on the matter and what the association’s members are doing to prevent the practice. PIAC says more must be done, however.
“(W)e believe this is far too serious an issue for the Commission to only involve the CWTA,” said a…
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OTTAWA – Bell Canada has applied to appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) the CRTC Decision 2019-427, that found Bell guilty of undue preference.
“The Commission finds that Bell (…) has conferred an undue preference upon RDS, its discretionary sports service, and has subjected the service TVA Sports to an undue disadvantage by packaging the two services in a different manner,” the CRTC Decision reads, which we covered in December.
The main argument Bell brings forward in its motion is that in a 2018 Final Offer Arbitration (FOA) “The CRTC accepted Bell’s final offer, which was based…
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CHATHAM, ON — Independent ISP TekSavvy is urging Canadians to voice their support for the CRTC’s decision in August to lower Internet prices by visiting its new website, called paylesstoconnect.ca, and writing their federal member of parliament.
In a news release Monday, TekSavvy amped up its fight against incumbent telcos and cablecos, who have petitioned the federal cabinet to cancel the CRTC’s decision and obtained a stay of the decision from the courts (an earlier temporary stay was granted in October by the FCA). The incumbent have since filed review and vary applications…
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OTTAWA — The CRTC is asking the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) to tell the Commission how the association and its members plan to combat the issue of unauthorized porting of mobile phone numbers, a fraudulent activity that has been reported with increasing frequency in recent months.
CBC News has reported recently on several instances where mobile phone customers reported falling victim to number porting.
“The Commission has become aware that certain Canadian mobile customers have been subject to fraudulent activity involving unauthorized porting of their mobile phone numbers,” the CRTC wrote January 15 in a letter to the…
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OTTAWA — The CRTC says it will not proceed with an application submitted in September requesting must-carry status under a barker licence type, on SiriusXM, for an audio-based radio guide for the visually impaired.
Evan Kosiner of Kosiner Venture Capital submitted the application on September 17, 2019, requesting 9 (1)(h) designation for the service that would allow visually impaired Canadians to have access to the alphanumeric information displayed on the screen in a car or on a portable receiver, where it would be turned into machine-read audio. The information would pertain to the song or the show being played.
In…
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