FASCINÉ PAR LES TÉLÉPHONES dans son enfance, Dan Armstrong se souvient d’avoir pensé que Bell Canada était « le plus cool au monde » et s’émerveillait de voir comment le téléphone avait changé le monde en permettant aux gens de se parler n’importe où.
Ayant grandi à Toronto dans le quartier Younge et Eglington, la maison familiale des Armstrong donnait sur un parc où Dan et ses amis se construisaient des forts. Il avait réalisé que s’il connectait un téléphone et une batterie en série avec un autre au bout du fil, il pourrait connecter tous les forts et ils pourraient tous…
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BIDDING IS SET TO GET underway in Canada’s much anticipated 600 MHz spectrum auction. The 12 qualified bidders are Bell Mobility, Bragg Communications, Freedom Mobile, Iris Technologies, Novus Entertainment, Rogers Communications, Saskatchewan Telecommunications, SSi Micro – Consortium, TBayTel, TELUS Communications, Vidéotron and Xplornet Communications.
The 600 MHz band is designated for flexible use for mobile, fixed and broadcasting services. Canada has adopted the same band plan as the U.S., which began to auction off that band more than two years ago. The low-band spectrum is ideally suited for offering mobile services and it is one of…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is calling for comments on an application by three of the country’s big broadcasters seeking to amend their condition of licence requiring that all of their prime time programming be broadcast with described video by September 1st.
Described video is a narrated description of a program’s main visual elements, such as setting, costumes and body language, that helps to make television programming accessible for people with visual disabilities by allowing them to better understand what is occurring on the screen. The Commission has incrementally increased the availability of programming with described video in the Canadian broadcasting…
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TORONTO – Data On Tap Inc., the company behind fledgling wireless provider dotmobile, is giving a shout out to the CRTC and ISED for moves that they say pave the way for greater competition in Canada’s wireless market.
The company, profiled last month by Cartt.ca, said that it has secured its initial seed financing round that will help to establish dotmobile headquarters in Toronto next month, and with the launch of its Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) application in beta by this fall.
“Less than thirty days after our brand concept launch, we are happy to announce that we’ve secured our initial seed investment”,…
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OTTAWA and GATINEAU – The CRTC is joining forces with Canada's big public and private-sector broadcasters in an effort to help more women to play leading roles in the Canadian film and television production industry.
On Friday, also International Women’s Day, the Commission shared some details from its recent Women in Production Summit held last December. In addition to CRTC chair Ian Scott and broadcasting vice-chair Dr. Caroline Simard, attendees included Rick Brace, president, Rogers Media; France Lauzière, president and CEO of TVA Group Inc.; Randy Lennox, president, Bell Media; Doug Murphy, president and CEO, Corus Entertainment; Josh Scherba, president, DHX…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC issued more determinations on next-generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) network design efficiencies Thursday as it moves to connect Canadians will new and improved emergency services with Internet Protocol-based capabilities.
Specifically, the Commission set out the roles and responsibilities with respect to the Location Information Server / Additional Data Repository (LIS/ADR) functionalities and its NG9-1-1 interconnection framework. The decision also imposes various obligations on telecommunications service providers and incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), including small ILECs, so that all Canadians will benefit from the same quality of NG9-1-1 networks.
Lastly, the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee was directed to make…
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FORMER CRTC CHAIR Konrad von Finckenstein has some advice for Innovation, Science and Economic Development minister Navdeep Bains: Drop the facilities-based competition principle when the proposed policy directive to the CRTC, announced last week, is finalized.
Writing for the CD Howe Institute, von Finckenstein told Bains in a memo dated Wednesday, March 6: “Adherence to the policy of facilities-based competition (where companies each own their hardware and networks) in order not to discourage investment in infrastructure by established telecom companies, as they claim, is no longer sustainable.”
He continued: “It is hard to comprehend how much the…
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CHATHAM and GATINEAU – Last month, independent ISP TekSavvy lodged an official complaint to the CRTC over its most recent Communications Monitoring Report.
In its February 13th letter, TekSavvy noted the telecom portion of the 2018 CMR, which analyzes 2017 data, was not only very late (released December 20, 2018) and disjointed, but it also did not follow the same methodological standards and practices of prior reports.
“The CRTC published the 2018 Report in the waning days of 2018, during an open proceeding that involves a challenge to an earlier CRTC decision to…
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THE 2006 POLICY DIRECTIVE to the CRTC (which came under then-PM Stephen Harper and then-Industry Minister Maxime Bernier) said the Commission must regulate based on market forces to the maximum extent feasible and reinforced that facilities-based competition (Canadian-owned, built, networks) was to be the backbone of the Canadian telecom marketplace.
It said a bunch of other things, too, but didn’t mention consumers at all. However, the Conservative government of the day insisted as long as the CRTC followed its directive, that should spur competition and lower retail prices.
Last week’s Liberal government proposed…
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OTTAWA – TNW Wireless Inc. is eligible to operate as a wireless carrier in Canada and may begin offering mobile wireless services after it proves that it has complied with all applicable 9-1-1 service obligations, said the CRTC in a decision late Thursday.
The decision also means that TNW now has access to tariffed services for wholesale mobile roaming on Bell’s and Telus’ networks, something that it had asked the CRTC to help it obtain back in July 2017.
However, the decision also found that the company’s proposed iPCS (Internet personal communications system) service does not comply with the…
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