OTTAWA-GATINEAU — The CRTC announced it is imposing a $194,330 penalty on Ontario Consumers Home Services (also known as Simply Comfort) and a $69,000 penalty on Blue Dream for violating the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules.
Between December 2016 and February 2017, Ontario Consumers Home Services committed more than a million violations of the rules, according to a CRTC news release issued Monday. During that period, the company made more than 96,000 unsolicited calls to Canadians whose numbers were on the National Do Not Call List (DNCL), some of which were outside the permitted hours for telemarketing activities. Ontario Consumers Home…
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TORONTO – Expect network investment to plummet, the growth of the digital economy in Canada to stall and an invasion of well-heeled foreign broadband resellers if the recent CRTC decision on third party internet access wholesale rates is not overturned, says a report published this week by TD Securities.
While saying he expects the decision to be challenged and overturned or at least revised, TD telecom and media analyst Vince Valentini pulls no punches in his analysis, saying the Commission-set wholesale rates and retroactive rebates are bad for the incumbent carriers, their customers and Canada as…
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23 jobs cut
MONTREAL — As Breakfast Television is celebrating its 30th anniversary in Toronto, Rogers Media is making cuts elsewhere, including cancelling its Montreal morning show entirely, and having some content at its Vancouver and Calgary shows sourced out of Toronto.
Staff in Montreal were informed after Thursday's broadcast that it would be their last. Eight jobs were eliminated by the cancellation in Montreal, leaving 41 people employed in Montreal between CityNews, OMNI and sales. Four jobs have been cut in Vancouver and 11 in Calgary.
"This decision was very difficult, but at the end of the day, the show…
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GATINEAU – On Friday, the CRTC launched the review it said was coming over the 36-month device financing plans certain service wireless providers recently launched, which it told those carriers to stop doing in early August.
The Commission wants to ensure the provisions of its Wireless Code, which effectively make any sort of carrier service contract longer than two years illegal (there can be no break fee beyond 24 months for a customer to pay when they leave a carrier), are upheld. The carriers which launched the new 36-month plans, first from Rogers this summer, say…
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REGULATING AN INDUSTRY involves a careful balance. Telecommunications is a perfect example. It is regulated so that consumers can expect fair prices, quality of service and universal access. On the other hand, the regulated telecom carriers require a predictable environment that allows them to make a reasonable profit in order to satisfy their shareholders and make forward-looking investments to expand their business and keep up with technological innovations.
It has been the mantra of CRTC that regulation should be fair, transparent, predictable and timely.
Telecom in Canada has been regulated since its inception. After all, it is a networked industry, meaning…
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OF ALL OF THE REACTIONS from last week’s final wholesale rates for broadband internet announced by the CRTC, Bell’s cancellation of plans to improve Wireless Home Internet for 200,000 households stood out.
It’s probably the most revealing statement about how the established big telecoms think, why they won’t stray from the same old way of doing business, and why they continue to ignore the needs of underserved Canadians.
What warranted dropping so many Canadians from Bell’s initial plan to improve connectivity for rural Canadians? Did the broadband business case for rural Canadians look similar to those on the wireless side of…
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TORONTO – Broadcaster Asian Television Network says it is continuing to feel the sting of piracy as its revenue continues to decline, but that it is hopeful the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review Panel might have a lifeline for it come January.
For the second quarter, ended June 30, operating revenue came in at $2.9 million, down from $3.9 million in the second quarter of 2018. Net loss for the period came in at $941,000, more than double Q2 2018’s $426,000.
“Declining revenues are predominantly as a result of increased internet piracy and consumers shifting towards illegal digital IPTV set-top…
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TORONTO – Canadian BDUs recently began telling customers as of September 30th, both Cosmo TV and the Independent Film Channel will cease broadcasting because owner Corus Entertainment has decided to shut them down.
According to Corus filings with the CRTC, the two specialty services were showing some profit, but those, along with their subscriber numbers, were shrinking, meaning they weren’t earning enough to make it worthwhile to renew their licensing deals.
Cosmo TV (which licenced the Hearst Publishing Cosmopolitan magazine brand in Canada) had 2.5 million subscribers as of the end of August 2018 (the most recent figures available) and earned…
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OTTAWA – “The Governor in Council, having considered the petitions, is satisfied that the decision does not derogate from the attainment of the objectives of the broadcasting policy for Canada," reads the Order-in-Council on the appeals to cabinet over the CRTC’s decision to grant Rogers Media a 9(1)(h) licence for its national ethnic TV channel.
The decision was made Saturday, but made public Wednesday, and there was as little explanation as possible. TLN Media, ECG, Corrcan, and ICTV, all rejected applicants, had filed appeals to cabinet over the…
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Eastlink says it'll slow network spending because of CRTC. Videotron, Shaw to review network investments; estimated costs now over $300M
WHILE LARGE INCUMBENT network operators mull their legal options in the wake of last week’s CRTC decision to decrease the wholesale rates third party ISPs must pay them, three more have said the decision not only costs them millions, but will cause them to rein in network expansion, which will affect rural broadband builds.
The Commission’s decision to retroactively impose the rates with the decision that took more than three years to complete also threw…
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