MONTREAL – During Quebecor’s third quarter conference call with financial analysts last week Videotron president and CEO Jean-François Pruneau shed some light on the company’s motivation behind its decision to stop offering its highest broadband speeds at retail and wholesale.
Last month, as we reported, Videotron wrote the CRTC to remove its offered wholesale tariffs on its 1 Gig service, indicating it would stop offering it to wholesalers and therefore also had to stop offering it to their retail customers, too.
At the time, Videotron refused to comment on its motivation although many speculated it was directly…
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TORONTO – "I wish I could say as Canadians we could have as much pride in the state of the telecommunications industry as we do in our sports teams," CNOC president and CEO of Distributel Communications Matt Stein told attendees at the Canadian ISP Summit Tuesday as he presented the results of a survey from Leger commissioned by his company.
The report, Broken Connection: Canadian Consumers' Views on Large Telecommunications Providers, was based on an online survey of 1,535 Canadians conducted in October of this year using Leger's online panel.
"The industry is at an interesting…
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Signs new deal with Metro
MONTREAL – Music platform and radio broadcaster Stingray Group say overall second quarter revenues rise by 120.7% to $76.6 million, due largely to last year’s acquisition of Newcap Broadcasting’s chain of radio stations.
That said, noted the company in its release, its recurring broadcasting and commercial music revenues increased 9.4% to $33.5 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2019, as compared to last year’s Q2.
Radio accounted for 49.4% of total revenues at $37.8 million in the quarter and overall organic growth came in at 3%. Subscription video on demand subscribers rose…
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Incumbents ask for two more months to file their R&V of the wholesale rates decision
GATINEAU – Following the August CRTC decision on final rates for aggregated wholesale high-speed internet access services (CRTC Telecom Order 2019-288), it was obvious by their collective reaction that the incumbent ISPs would challenge the decision, by any and all means necessary.
They went to the Federal Court of Appeal already and were granted a stay, as we reported, and the next step is to ask the CRTC to review, rescind or vary its own decision, as provided…
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GATINEAU – When Allarco won a pay television licence back in 2006, some wondered whether the company had promised too much in order to win the licence during a very competitive process. Those questions remained valid on Tuesday when Allarco/Super Channel appeared in front of the Commission for the renewal of its licence and to answer serious questions of non-compliance during its last licence term.
“The Commission is concerned with the way in which Allarco has interpreted the regulatory obligations and policies relating to Super Channel, CRTC Chairman Ian Scott started in his opening…
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TORONTO — A new study by market research firm Leger, conducted on behalf of Distributel Communications, found the majority of customers of large telecom companies in Canada feel dissatisfied and frustrated to be paying some of the highest prices in the world for home Internet. A significant number also reported feeling trapped by their current Internet service provider.
These and other survey findings were released by Distributel in a news release on Tuesday, to coincide with a Distributel presentation at the annual Canadian ISP Summit, being held in downtown Toronto this week. The national survey, entitled Broken Connection: Canadian…
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HAMILTON – There were five original owners of the first Hamilton Community Cable Access channel – now well known in the Steel City as Cable 14.
The city was an anomaly with five strong, growing, cable operators in the early ’70s. The owners of General Co-Axial Service (which would become Mountain Cablevision), MacLean-Hunter Cable TV, Northgate Cable T.V., Hamilton Co-Axial (which would become Source Cable) and Western Co-Axial TV and Appliance Service all thought it would be better to pool their resources on a single community channel to serve their city, which they launched in 1969 without (gasp!) regulatory permission.
So,…
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Registration to close November 7th
NORTH BAY, ON – Canada’s first annual Rural and Remote Broadband Conference announced today the panel members who will engage with conference attendees in North Bay on November 12-14.
There are three excellent panels comprised of government, industry and First Nations leaders which will tackle a number of broadband’s most compelling challenges.
They are:
Government’s Role in Addressing the Challenges of the Rural Digital Divide.Developing government policy that supports Broadband development in non-urban regions. A conversation between government and private sector.
Panelists include Fausto Iannialice, director of broadband and digital strategy branch, Ministry of Infrastructure; Angela Lawrence, CCSA…
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GIVEN THE IMPORTANCE of digital connectivity in the modern, digital era, the affordability and availability of Internet access for Canadian households is an extremely important concern for policymakers.
Fortunately, Canada ranks very high in both of these dimensions, according to an international survey published annually by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Canada ranks first among the 100 countries in internet affordability and 18th in internet availability in the most recent, 2019, EIU report.
The EIU, a sister company to The Economist newspaper, is a highly-regarded international provider of global information for businesses, the financial sector, and governments. It has been publishing…
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Freedom customers still the only ones with subway connectivity
TORONTO – BAI Communications has launched an online petition at iwantaccess.ca to try and pressure Rogers, Bell and Telus to come to the negotiation table and use the underground network it built for the Toronto Transit Commission.
Coverage in TTC stations has been live since 2015 for Freedom Mobile customers, “however, the Big 3 Telcos have yet to join the network,” says the petition. “Now, BAI is committed to educating cellular customers of the Big 3 Telcos about why they can’t access this network, and what they can…
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