OTTAWA — The majority of Canadians polled recently by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) said they support new regulations that would promote greater wireless competition by forcing Canada’s largest carriers to share their infrastructure with new providers.
With its full research report scheduled to be released in March, the CIRA announced a few tidbits from the report on Tuesday, as the CRTC begins its two-week-long wireless policy review hearing. One of the key questions being considered by the Commission is whether or not wholesale network access should be mandated to allow mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to enter the…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) has filed a counter submission to the Governor-in-Council (a.k.a. federal cabinet) over petitions sent by the big incumbent carriers who are protesting the CRTC’s decision to lower wholesale prices for internet.
Last August, the CRTC lowered the final prices the incumbents – Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw, Videotron, Cogeco, and Eastlink – can charge resellers, and made those rates retroactive to 2016, when interim rates were set. The incumbents protested to the Federal Court, the cabinet and the CRTC. The court granted the leave to appeal and has yet to…
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GATINEAU – One of the most important CRTC hearings in some time (perhaps the most hyped since Let’s Talk TV) begins Tuesday in Gatineau. Hundreds of thousands of words have been written about the upcoming hearing, including thousands by Cartt.ca breaking down the issues (please see our extensive coverage at the bottom of this piece), but it’s important to remember the Commission is interested in a number of specific questions.
Some things to remember. The CRTC already had the wireless carriers come up with low-cost data only plans. We wonder how those are selling? Wireless wholesale roaming is different than…
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GATINEAU – In a decision released February 14, the CRTC ruled resellers, such as Frontier Networks, an independent Toronto-based provider of broadband, voice, physical, and network security for businesses, can themselves offer services to other resellers. That CRTC decision now applies to all cable providers and clarifies the third party internet access rules.
In April 2018, the Commission received an application from Frontier where the company complained about Eastlink’s refusal to allow Frontier to continue to resell HSA service to its two reseller customers.
In December 2018, the CRTC ruled in favour of Frontier determining Eastlink had to let resellers…
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By Samer Bishay
IT’S NO SURPRISE CANADIANS are paying some of the highest wireless prices – especially for data – in the world.
In another international audit of prices last fall, by Rewheel Research, it confirmed what Canadians already know: we pay far too much. In public surveys released by Canada’s telecom regulator earlier this month, Canadians said overwhelmingly they feel cell service in Canada is more expensive than abroad.
Affordability is the main reason the federal government ordered the CRTC to move up its review of the wireless market and start a critical public hearing February 18, a…
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TORONTO – Intended to make a few waves just as the CRTC kicks off its two-week public hearing into its policies on the wireless market in Canada, Ice Wireless today said a few new plans, with one set at 99-cents per week, will launch next month.
“If we can do this in Canada’s North, where network costs are higher, there’s no reason we can’t do it in other parts of the country, if we’re allowed,” said Samer Bishay, president and CEO of Ice and its parent company Iristel.
Ice Wireless is a regional mobile network operator, where the company’s release says…
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By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – On the second day of the CRTC hearing into the proposed purchase of Groupe V Media by Bell Media hearing, the first intervenors were the Independent Broadcast Group.
The concern of the group of broadcasters which included Channel Zero, Stingray Digital, OUTtv and others, is the diversity of voices issue.
“The Canadian broadcasting landscape is now even more consolidated and integrated than it was even nine years ago, in 2010, when the Commission last looked squarely at some of the consequences of vertical integration and ownership concentration in the Canadian market,” their intervention reads.
At the time the…
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Textnow is the largest free phone provider in the United States
By Greg O’Brien
WATERLOO, Ont. – How is it that a Canadian company has seen tremendous success as a mobile virtual network operator? Simple. While they’d love to grow in Canada, the company has instead penetrated the much larger, more competitive, American market.
Waterloo’s textnow was founded in 2009 by CEO Derek Ting (not to be confused with Ting Mobile, another successful Canadian MVNO doing great business in the U.S. and is owned by Toronto’s Tucows) and Jon Lerner who wanted to see everyone have access to mobile technology at an…
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WOODSTOCK, ON — Similar to a campaign launched by TekSavvy last month, Execulink Telecom is asking Canadians to write their members of parliament through its petition website that opposes the major telecom providers’ appeal of the CRTC’s lowering of wholesale access rates last year.
The “You Deserve Fair Pricing” website states that, after the CRTC made its decision in August, Execulink passed on the savings to the majority of its Internet customers by significantly reducing their monthly bill, but if the large network operators succeed in their appeal, Execulink will have to raise the price of its packages again.
“We…
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Critics say that claim is misguided
VANCOUVER – Telus’s claim that it has reached, on one of its wireless plans, a 25% reduction in price, as promised to Canadians by the Liberal government, is wrong, according to critics, because the intent was always for a further reduction in prices from December 2019.
This month, Telus created a page on its website advertising that its Peace of Mind plan for a family of four, with 10 GB of data each, with an annual cost of $2,880 meets and beats the Liberal government’s annual goal of reducing wireless prices by 25% –…
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