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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Cogeco airs its HMNO model
By Greg O’Brien
GATINEAU – On Wednesday, CRTC commissioners tried to get Bell Canada CEO Mirko Bibic and other company executives to pick what they might think is a least-bad mandated mobile virtual network operator option from the choices of MVNO models others have brought to the proceeding.
Each time, Bell said no MVNO is the only option.
While some operators have said, if forced to choose, the only palatable proposed MVNO model is the one from the Competition Bureau, which would see MVNO access mandated for existing regional operators like Freedom and Videotron, and only for five…
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To effectively regard the whole communications field through the broadcasting lens results in a distorted view
By Konrad von Finckenstein and James Mitchell
IN AN EFFORT TO PROVIDE a critical overview of the recent report by the Broadcast and Telecommunications Review Panel (the so-called Yale Report or BTLR Report), with particular focus on its ‘machinery’ recommendations (i.e., those having to do with institutional and ministerial mandates and powers), this analysis will highlight why the new-concept CRTC should be set aside.
What the panel recommended
The BTLR was asked, as part of its mandate, to comment on the institutional framework employed for the regulation…
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Québecor replies to Bell’s reply after the hearing
By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – When Cartt.ca wrote about the CRTC hearing examining Bell Canada’s proposed purchase of V Télé, we had anticipated the advertising markets issue as well as program acquisition was an important issue since the CRTC’s Diversity of Voices policy considers the French and English Market separately – and that Québecor argues that if Bell were to get into the French conventional television side of the business, its weight in English Canada would give it an advantage when it negotiated with major players.
So when the reply came, the…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC announced Wednesday it is revoking the basic international telecommunications services (BITS) licences of 28 companies that have failed to comply with their conditions of licence.
In its decision, the Commission states the 28 companies failed to meet annual reporting requirements, such as the telecommunications industry data collection process requirements set out in Telecom Circular 2003-1 and Telecom Circular 2005-4.
The licensees in question were given until December 12, 2019 to file the required information or make representations as to why they should not be required to comply with the conditions of licence.
Having failed to…
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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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