Opens call for Broadband Fund applications in the North
TORONTO – In a focused speech to Canadian Telecom Summit delegates today, CRTC chair Ian Scott had a strong message for the nation’s telecom carriers: Do Better.
Serve customers better, be more competitive by offering more diverse products and services, lower prices, help cut spam, and close the digital gap, were the themes that Scott drove home.
When it comes to that last one, closing of the digital gap in some of the underserved regions of the country, Scott brought along some news: The CRTC is today calling for…
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TORONTO – Janet Yale, chair of the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel, told the telecom industry on Monday morning that they will have to think far more broadly than their quarterly numbers and short term business plans when her panel makes their final recommendations to the federal government in January.
In a keynote speech at the start of the Canadian Telecom Summit on Monday, Yale said she had initially hoped to bring copies of the panel’s interim report for delegates, but it’s not quite ready for release, so instead she focused her remarks on reminding the telecom folks in attendance…
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OTTAWA – On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tabled bill C-100, An Act to implement the new trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico.
This legislation is intended to facilitate the necessary changes in other statutes which will then ensure the ratification of the USMCA. As readers may recall, the Agreement speaks directly to repealing the CRTC’s 2015 decision to ban the simultaneous substitution of TV ads during Super Bowl, as well as to end of the ban on American TV Shopping Channels.
So, Bill C-100 proposes changes to the Broadcasting Act that would…
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OTTAWA – A new report from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) says Canadians find it difficult to change their telecommunications providers.
“Consumers are reluctant to try out competitive communications services, despite feeling they can and should,” said John Lawford, executive director and general counsel at PIAC, in last week’s press release. “There are clearly behavioural barriers as well as market barriers to exercising choice in these markets,” he added.
The report says significant barriers to switching in the Canadian retail communications services market were reported by respondents. The retail communications services markets studied include: home Internet access services, home…
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OTTAWA – When writing about a discussion between five panellists and a moderator, it can be difficult to report on all of what was said but a Tuesday panel session on internet affordability may have been most notable for what was not said.
The Canadian Chapter of the Internet Society held its second annual Digital Access Day, which brought together a variety of thought leaders from NGOs, the tech sector, government, universities, and those most affected by the digital divide to discuss broadband access issues.
The panel on affordability talked about how they believe the price of communications in Canada is…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC estimates that its total telecommunications regulatory costs for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, defined as April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020, will be $36.454 million.
The Telecommunications Fees Regulations, 2010 (Fees Regulations) provide for the payment of annual telecommunications fees by certain telecommunications service providers, as set out in sections 2 and 3 of the Fees Regulations.
The annual adjustment amount referred to in subsection 3(5) of the Fees Regulations is $0.024 million for the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
The Commission said Wednesday that the net billing for its telecommunications fees for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, taking into account the adjustment above, is…
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TORONTO – While there are no Canadian carrier CEOs on the speakers’ schedule this year, those executives not in attendance will certainly be paying attention to next week’s Canadian Telecom Summit when it opens Monday morning.
(Ed note: For long-time CTS attendees, this year it is being held at the International Centre, which is just up Airport Road a ways from its former Congress Centre home.)
The event kicks off with an interview on stage with Rola Dagher, president of Cisco Canada (the questions, however, are coming from another Cisco-ite, Ian Campbell, the company’s CTO, service provider mobility and automation, so…
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TORONTO – While a wide range of hopeful competitors have backed a mandated MVNO, or some sort of variant on it, regime from the CRTC, CFOs from two of Canada’s Big Three Telecoms – Glen LeBlanc (Bell) and Telus’ Doug French – insisted last week such a move would be irresponsible of the Commission to implement.
Speaking at TD Securities Telecom and Media Forum in Toronto last week, the executives, in separate presentations, touted their respective company investments in having built the infrastructure that now serves Canadians from coast to coast. (MVNO =…
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OTTAWA – Wireless carriers will have to provide more granular data to the CRTC, after all.
As part of its submission to the CRTC’s review of mobile wireless services, the Competition Bureau wants to, among other things, do a detailed study on what happened locally (not just in provinces and nationally) when new wireless competitors to the Big Three (Rogers, Bell and Telus) were introduced. To do that, the Bureau needs far more detailed data than the CRTC has asked for in its original requests for information upon the proceeding’s call.
The wireless carriers and…
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GATINEAU – So much work and hope was dashed yesterday for those hoping to replace Rogers Media’s OMNI on the TV dial.
The CRTC has decided Rogers will continue to operate its must-carry national ethnic language TV channel after renewing its license for OMNI Regional for three more years until August 2023. Its current license expires next summer.
This means the Commission has denied all of the other hopefuls, each of whom had rather interesting proposals for a new channel to serve the ethnic market.
“The new service, which will succeed Rogers’ existing OMNI Regional service, will be available on all digital…
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