OTTAWA — Without publicly naming names, the CRTC issued a letter Friday to telecom service providers who have not submitted their six-month progress report regarding their implementation of measures to reduce caller ID spoofing and to determine the origin of nuisance calls, a compliance requirement they must meet by March 31.
In the Telecom Commission letter posted on its website, the CRTC reminded telecom service providers (TSPs) that the Commission’s Compliance and Enforcement and Telecom Decision CRTC 2018-32, issued January 25, 2018, determined that authentication and verification of caller ID information for IP voice calls should be implemented…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – The CRTC will release its Report on Misleading or Aggressive Telecommunications Retail Sales Practices at 11 a.m. Wednesday, February 20th.
The Commission hosted a contentious hearing back in October, a review it initially resisted undertaking, but in the end was insisted upon by the federal government thanks to enormous mainstream media and social media pressure.
The feds demanded a report on the matter by the end of February.
The five-day long October hearing featured angry consumers and consumer groups, defensive telcos, cellcos and cablecos and a Twitter hashtag, #CRTCforum, which allowed anyone to be part of…
Continue Reading
Independent ISP demands answers to altered methodology – and a fixed report
CHATHAM, ON – TekSavvy Solutions is calling on the CRTC to fix its “flawed” 2018 Communications Monitoring Report and for the Commission to explain why it omitted data the company says is highly relevant to current regulatory proceedings.
In a letter submitted Wednesday to the Regulator, the independent ISP says the 2018 CMR released December 20th was not only very late 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,…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – When the CRTC released its Broadband Fund Decision in September 2018, it set out a methodology to allot the disbursement of the expected $750 million to fund broadband expansion in regions of Canada where delivering broadband connectivity isn't feasible without financial assistance.
In December 2018, the Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology Inc. (SWIFT), filed a review and vary application with the Commission challenging elements of that methodology. As per the rules of procedures, interested parties had until 8 February to make their comments. 237 such intervenors filed comments. While most are individuals or organisations that…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Quebecor Media’s TVA Group has closed its deal to buy French-language specialty channels Évasion and Zeste as part of its acquisition of parent company Serdy Media.
Évasion launched in 2000 with a schedule of travel, tourism, adventure and food discovery programs, while Zeste, which debuted in 2010, caters to viewers who love cooking, fine food and entertaining in style.
TVA Group said Wednesday that Évasion and Zeste complement its existing line-up of specialty channels which includes LCN, TVA Sports, AddikTV, CASA, MOI ET CIE, Prise 2 and Yoopa.
"Évasion and Zeste are two prestigious brands for consumers who are passionate…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC has established an appropriate quality of service (QoS) metric for jitter as it continues to define the broadband portion of the universal service objective.
The Commission said Tuesday that in order to define fixed broadband Internet access service as a high-quality service, it must meet, among other things, a jitter threshold of 5 milliseconds, measured using specific predefined methodology.
The threshold would be measured during peak times (i.e. from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. local time on weekdays), and from the modem at the customer premises to a server located off-net at the Internet exchange point in…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Two guys who helped Wind Mobile get off the ground and then build its follower Freedom Mobile are the latest in a line of Canadian companies hoping to shake up the wireless market here.
Algis Akstinas (left, formerly the director of marketing and commercial strategy at Freedom) and Alex Bauman (right, formerly manager, customer base management) launched dot mobile Thursday with the goal of bringing a product and the company to market in 2020.
Dot stands for “Data On Tap” and the company aims to be just that for Canadians – a spigot of cheap,…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The term “equitable” is not synonymous with “equal” as it pertains to the allocation of air time to registered political parties and candidates, the CRTC has told a listener of Quebec City’s CHOI-FM station.
In a letter dated February 7, the Commission responded to a complaint from an individual who alleged that the RNC Media-owned station’s programming during the 2017 Quebec City municipal elections “demonstrated a clear bias” towards a specific political party. The complainant, who included a breakdown of the station’s programming and an assessment of the relative time dedicated to various registered parties, claimed that the…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Stingray credited its recent acquisition of Newfoundland Capital Corporation Inc. (NCC) for a 101.6% jump in third quarter revenues, however, the deal also weighed down profits.
For the third quarter ended December 31, Stingray posted revenues of $70.8 million, double the $35.1 million recorded a year ago. In addition to the NCC acquisition, revenues were also powered by the company’s acquisition of DJ Matic and organic growth in SVoD and B2C apps.
SVoD reached a new high of over 356,000 subscribers in the quarter, up from 316,000 in the prior quarter. SVoD monthly revenues increased 25% to $3.2 million compared…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC is gearing up to address the second stage of an application filed by the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) seeking a review and vary of its wholesale wireline services decision.
The record closed for the first stage of the application on January 17. Stage 1 was to address the option of suspending the 100 Mbps speed cap on an interim basis.
Stage 2 will address the matter of removal of the speed cap, among other issues. According to a January 29 letter from the CRTC, interventions on the requested reliefs addressed in the application are…
Continue Reading
