By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – On February 20th, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology “adopted a motion to study the influx of fraud calls in Canada, including robocalls, ghost calls, and spam calls. The Committee will also examine the successes and failures of the National Do-Not-Call List, and the STIR/SHAKEN measures that will be implemented in September 2020.”
The first meeting, held on Tuesday, March 10th, when Parliament was still running and COVID-19 wasn’t all the news, saw committee members hear two panels discuss the issue.
The first had representatives of the CRTC and the RCMP.
In their opening remarks, both…
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WHITEHORSE – As part of its COVID-19 response, Northwestel said Monday it submitted an urgent application to the CRTC for temporary relief on residential Internet usage to facilitate increased telework in the north.
Northwestel has proposed waiving any overage charges for customers exceeding their Internet usage caps during March and April in terrestrially-served communities (most communities in Yukon, NWT, northern Alberta and northern B.C.). The company has already begun augmenting capacity to accommodate the expected increase in usage on its terrestrial network, says its press release.
All Northwestel’s terrestrial Internet packages and rates are regulated, and the proposed changes can only…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – The CRTC’s CBC licence renewal hearing will be held in May and the deadline for interventions was on February 20th.
In perusing the various submissions and their attached commentaries, we felt a serious sense of déjà vu, since most comments fell into the very-much-expected category.
However, one intervention, by Canadian Media Research Inc. (CMRI) tweaked our curiosity because it very much runs contrary to conventional wisdom. CMRI is headed by Barry Kiefl, who was the CBC’s director of research from 1970-2000.
His submission’s thesis is the shift towards digital is overrated, prompted by faulty measurements and wrong assumptions….
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OTTAWA — In a decision issued Wednesday, the CRTC has denied an application by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the National Pensioners Federation (NPF) in which they argued Rogers Communications’ proposed balance limit policy for prepaid wireless services violated the Wireless Code.
PIAC-NPF’s Part 1 application, filed with the Commission in February 2018, was seeking clarification and enforcement of rules in the Wireless Code regarding prepaid wireless balances. In December 2017, Rogers began notifying prepaid customers who had unused balances and consumed minimal usage on a monthly basis that Rogers intended to apply a maximum amount of carry-over…
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It’s part of a war on personal financial identity
By Joanne McNeish
Once again a telecommunications company is telling its customers that they will no longer receive a paper bill. This time it’s Rogers.
What seems to some to be a non-issue evokes a strong reaction in others. When Telus eliminated paper bills, customers who prefer paper bills were shamed online. Others expressed solidarity with digitally disadvantaged groups or listed reasons why some consumers need paper bills.
But why do banks and billing organizations feel it necessary to stop sending paper bills and statements? One reason is the cost to print and mail paper….
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OTTAWA — The CRTC today gave Stingray Digital Group a specialty service licence for Stingray Hits.
The music video channel operates currently as an exempt, national discretionary service, but having exceeded the exempt-service threshold of 200,000 subscribers for three consecutive months, Stingray applied in March 2019 for a broadcasting licence.
In its decision, the CRTC says it is licensing Stingray Hits as an English-language discretionary service, even though Stingray expressed its intention to eventually broadcast all programming other than music video programming in French. In its June 2019 response to the CRTC’s request for information, Stingray indicated Stingray Hits’ programming…
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OTTAWA — The national capital will play host to delegates from around the world attending next fall’s Communications Policy and Regulation Week, organized by the International Institute of Communications (IIC).
The week’s events from October 5 to 8 will consist of the IIC’s flagship annual conference and its International Regulators’ Forum, to be hosted in Ottawa by the CRTC along with ISED’s Spectrum and Telecommunications Sector.
This international gathering brings together senior decision-makers from the telecommunications, media and technology sectors, allowing for collegial discussions on today’s most pressing communications issues, says the news release. The week’s events attract senior policy-makers,…
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By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – Shaw Communications plans to push Ontario to make mandatory the municipalities’ co-operation with telecommunications service providers to allow access to their infrastructure quickly for network builds, as urgency to lay the groundwork for 5G picks up.
The Alberta-based company registered lobby files with the province last week that reflect the telecom’s intention to bring the case to ministers that there is an urgent need for telecoms to obtain easy access to city infrastructure “to ensure connectivity can be built in a timely manner,” the registration says. It’s unclear how Shaw would like that co-operation to be…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Rogers Media and Corus Entertainment have renewed their lobby registrations with a topic once thought passed its best-before date: junk food advertising restrictions.
In 2016, Senate Bill S-228 was introduced as an amendment to the Food and Drugs Act with the goal of severely restricting the ability of advertisers to market unhealthy food and drinks to children in an effort to fight obesity. Rogers, Bell and Corus began lobbying on the issue, with the latter warning that severely limiting TV advertising of these types of products from between 6 and 9 a.m. and 3 and 9…
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OTTAWA – The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology has adopted a motion to launch a new study on the accessibility and affordability of telecommunications services in Canada.
The committee will examine several aspects of telecommunications, including 5G expansion, the spectrum allocation process, rural Internet access, competition, and data privacy, which sounds an awful lot like the topics just covered in the yet-to-be-completed CRTC wireless policy review proceeding.
The committee is asking Canadians to submit briefs which must not exceed 1,000 words and must be sent not later than April 9th, 2020 INDU@parl.gc.ca
The committee also adopted a motion to…
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