LONDON — Regional broadband project SWIFT (Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology) issued Monday a request for proposal (RFP) to improve broadband infrastructure in Oxford County (between Brantford and London).
The project budget is set at approximately $8.2 million with SWIFT offering to fund up to two-thirds of the total project cost. Service providers have until June 19, 2020 to submit proposals and are required to contribute a minimum of one-third of the cost of the awarded project, the news release says.
This is the third phase of SWIFT’s initiative, which aims to improve rural broadband infrastructure in southwestern Ontario and builds…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Chapter of the International Institute of Communications last week announced its keynote speakers for IIC Canada 2020, to be held April 20-21, at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa.
The big names are:
Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage
Monika Ille, president and CEO, APTN
Grace Koh, U.S. representative and head of delegation to the International Telecommunication Union World Radiocommunication Conference 2019
Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO, Quebecor
Ian Scott, CRTC chair
Catherine Tait, CBC president and CEO
Details of IIC Canada plenary sessions are also now available on the IIC Canada website. The session subjects…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications announced Thursday it was substantially finished with its total business transformation plan announced in February 2018.
The TBT was focused on “reinventing our operating model to better meet the changing needs and expectations of consumers and businesses,” reads the press release. The program saw a large number of employees leave the company, cushioned by a generous voluntary departure package.
“As part of this journey, we have become a more focused, agile and accountable organization, which has allowed us to drive meaningful productivity improvements in the way we operate and invest so that we can deliver a…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – In Toronto on Thursday, Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains gave Canada’s Big Three wireless carriers an ultimatum to lower their prices within two years while increasing competition by giving smaller and regional telecom companies a chance to bid on 50MHz of a 3500 MHz spectrum auction to be held later this year.
Bains spoke to Parliament Hill correspondent Christopher Guly prior to making his major announcement.
Christopher Guly: So you’re forcing the big guys to lower their prices and giving smaller, regional guys a break to help do that.
Navdeep Bains: You’re right. The spectrum set-aside is…
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3500 MHz auction rules to be part of the release
TORONTO – Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains will deliver a “speech on the Government of Canada’s commitment to make life more affordable for Canadians,” at the Scarborough Civic Centre Library at 4 p.m. Thursday, it was announced today.
Sources tell Cartt.ca the announcement will define more of the parameters around the Liberal government’s commitment to a 25% reduction in Canadian mobile wireless prices going forward and also mark the release of the rules for the 3500 MHz spectrum auction which will happen later this year.
Spectrum costs have long…
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I AM WRITING FIRST to thank you for your coverage of our press release and story.
However, I am also writing to express my disappointment at the editorial insertion after the seventh paragraph of your story.
The portion in parentheses purports to clarify where Bell and the Cable Carrier’s got their numbers. In doing so it seems intended to undercut the position we have taken and give the incumbents an excuse for the misrepresentation. In fact, Cartt.ca’s insertion is misleading in itself.
VMedia addressed that exact source that the incumbents were relying on in our submission, in paragraphs 55 and 56,…
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OTTAWA — The CRTC initiated Tuesday a show cause proceeding asking why it’s necessary for wholesale high-speed access (HSA) service providers to make a distinction between wholesale HSA services for residential consumers and those for business customers when providing access to competitors.
As the Commission says in its notice of consultation, some wholesale HSA service providers include provisions and language in their tariff pages that differentiate between residential and business wholesale HSA services. As background, back in 2010, the Commission determined wholesale HSA service providers must provide their services to competitors at speeds that match all of the…
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OTTAWA — On Tuesday, the same day it denied an application by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the National Pensioners Federation (NPF) to require Koodo Mobile and other wireless service providers to provide paper bills upon request, the CRTC announced a new proceeding looking into the issue of paper billing.
In its decision against PIAC and NPF, the Commission says it found “there was no existing legislature or regulatory obligation that mandated the provision of paper bills and, since the rationale and evidence on the record of this proceeding related largely to Koodo alone, it would not…
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Far north provider sees good traction
By Ahmad Hathout
GATINEAU – Executives at Canadian wired and wireless service provider SSi Micro said Friday the Yellowknife-based company has seen “high” consumption of its lower-cost wireless plans and that those packages are a necessary component of the market.
“If you look at the disposition of users amongst all of our plans, you would find that a very large number of them are on a lower-end plan but you would also find that our consumers switch plans very easily,” SSi Micro’s founder and CEO Jeff Philipp (pictured in a cpac.ca screen cap) told CRTC commissioners…
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Bitrates will have to be lowered
By Steve Faguy
GATINEAU – Faced with escalating costs amid the coming 600 MHz repack of television stations, Corus Entertainment is proposing an “innovative solution” by using digital TV multiplexing to combine nearby Global TV over-the-air transmitters in eastern Ontario and the Okanagan region of B.C.
The CRTC published applications on Monday to remove seven retransmitters and instead put their programming as subchannels of another Global stations whose signal at least partially overlaps:
CIII-DT-6 Ottawa (Global Toronto) would carry CKWS-TV-2 Prescott (Global Kingston)
CHEX-DT Peterborough would carry CIII-DT-27 Peterborough (Global Toronto) and CKWS-DT-1 Brighton (Global Kingston)
…
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