THE START OF GOOGLE’S submission to the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel may be just be a boilerplate presentation of what they do (“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”), but when it gets to the subject at hand, boing!
The digital giant’s submission calls out the discrepancy between the Creative Canada Policy Framework (former Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s pet project) and the policy objectives in Broadcasting Act (the Principles).
“Most of the policy objectives articulated in the Broadcasting Act are primarily focussed on cultural policy, namely the protection and preservation of…
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ST. MARYS, Ont. – On Monday, independent network operator Quadro Communications announced it would spend $10 million over the next three years to build a fibre optic network in St. Marys, a town of about 7,300 between Stratford and London, Ont.
With the announcemnt, St. Marys “learned that their frustrations of having to deal with older legacy networks, coupled with less than adequate customer support, will soon be a distant memory,” thanks to Quadro’s investment, reads the press release.
The build will begin in the spring, with the first residents and buildings to be connected at some point this summer.
“Following a…
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OTTAWA – Area code 354 will be rolled out in the region currently served by area codes 450 and 579 in Quebec starting October 24, 2020, the CRTC said Friday.
These area codes cover an area surrounding Montreal. According to an ad hoc relief planning committee’s numbering resource utilization forecast, area codes 450 and 579 are projected to exhaust by June 2021.
The Commission also approved the 450/579 relief planning committee’s report, including the proposed planning document and relief implementation plan. Click here for the full decision.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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THE BROADCAST AND TELECOM Legislative Review panel has received some 2,000 interventions and they had decided to make them public.
The news release on September 24th read “These written submissions will be publicly available after the deadline for submissions on November 30, 2018.”
That was before it was decided the deadline for those submissions would be pushed to Friday, January 11th. However, they won’t yet be made public. In fact, it won’t be for a while. “These inputs will form the backbone of the panel's What We've Heard Report which will be published no later than June 30th. At that time,…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is seeking input on a proposed plan to update the English-language closed captioning quality standards relating to the accuracy rate for live programming.
The Commission said Wednesday that it is also wants feedback on the 2016 Working Group’s proposal to amend and update the English-language closed captioning quality standards relating to the accuracy rate for live programming, set out in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2016-435, and to finalize the accuracy standard for live English-language closed captioning in Canada.
Interventions are due by March 18, and only parties that file interventions may file a reply to matters…
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Panel won’t make them public until June
CARTT.CA HAS BEEN TOLD Navdeep Bains, Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Minister, has decided to keep the public submissions made to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislation Review secret for now. So, Cartt.ca will continue to report on the ones made available to us.
PIAC
As usual, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre has a submission full of good quotes.
For example, on 5G, they say that it “is not so revolutionary that it should require legislative changes that favour the technology’s deployment beyond the powers currently granted to the CRTC,” and so the group proposes an…
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OTTAWA and MONTREAL – The CRTC has given the go-ahead to Quebecor Media’s TVA Group to buy French-language specialty channels Évasion and Zeste as part of its acquisition of parent company Serdy Media.
The proposed $24 million deal, announced in May, also includes the Serdy Video group of companies. CRTC approval was required for the change in the ownership and effective control of the two discretionary television services.
The Commission said Monday that it has determined that the deal is in the public interest, noting that Zeste and Évasion stand to benefit from Quebecor and TVA’s multiplatform exposure and reach, and that…
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WE DON’T YET KNOW what public process the expert panel reviewing Canada’s Broadcasting, Telecom and Radiocommunication Acts, headed by Janet Yale, will follow as this year unfolds.
So, when the deadline for written submissions to the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review (BTLR) panel came on Friday, January 11, we asked various companies and groups for their submissions. Most gladly sent them. Some sent excerpts. Others decided to keep them private for now, since the panel itself has not yet told us, or anyone, definitively, what the plan is for making them public.
Because of the volume, we have decided to begin…
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OTTAWA – While it is still unclear how the interventions to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review (BTLR) Panel will be made public and when, the CRTC published its comments one day before the deadline!
Not much news in the CRTC proposal to the BTLRP for those who have been following the publication of its Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada, the Chairman’s speeches in front of the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications and at the IIC. Then again, the Chairman is not known for his showmanship.
So, it is no surprise that the Regulator’s suggestions are…
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WYOMING, ON – The SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology Inc. (SWIFT) is calling on all rural broadband stakeholders to submit comments in support of a review of the CRTC Broadband Fund’s eligibility criteria that it calls “restrictive”.
As Cartt.ca reported, SWIFT has asked the Commission to take another look at the way how it qualifies rural regions to receive millions of dollars in funding to deliver broadband to its residents under the Regulator’s $750 million Broadband Fund.
Specifically, SWIFT is proposing that modifications be made to the exclusive use of the 25 km hexagonal system used by Innovation, Science and Economic…
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