OTTAWA – The CRTC has waded in to an ongoing dispute between the city of Calgary and a group of big telco carriers over a municipal rights-of-way bylaw and a proposed municipal consent and access agreement (MCAA).
The Commission said Friday that it was turning down an application by the city seeking a declaration and determination that certain telecommunications carriers may rely upon Calgary’s rights-of-way bylaw for the performance of their obligations under section 43 of the Telecommunications Act, which deals with access to infrastructure.
The decision also approved certain terms and conditions of an MCAA between Calgary and…
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TWO WEEKS AFTER THE DEADLINE for filing comments with the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel – and on the eve of this week’s CMPA Prime Time conference in Ottawa, Netflix made its submission public.
Stephane Cardin, Netflix’s director of public policy, Canada, told the Canadian Press that since he was going to be on a panel with other stakeholders which had made their positions public, it was appropriate to do so. Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, CBC, CMPA and BTLR panel chair Janet Yale will be with him on the panel on the first day.
(That said, neither Bell nor…
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It’s the oligopsony, of course
THE CANADIAN MEDIA Producers Association’s mission is to defend it members, so of course it is the focus of its submission to the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review (BTLR) panel.
A main concern is the concentration of ownership in the English TV market: “Given the substantial vertical integration and consolidation of broadcasters in Canada, the oligopsonistic nature of our domestic market, the information asymmetry between producers and broadcasters, and the resulting significant buying power yielded by broadcasters, there is a real risk that ownership concentration will reduce the programming options and the number of distinct creative…
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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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