By Ahmad Hathout
Bell CEO Mirko Bibic said Thursday that the company could’ve driven more fibre through its footprint beyond its target plan for the year but slowed down because of regulatory uncertainty related to fibre and wholesale access decisions still in front of the CRTC.
“We got a head start in the first six months of this year on our fibre build and we’re well on track to hitting the targets that we had established for ourselves for 2023,” Bibic said during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call Thursday morning.
“In fact, we had some wiggle room there given that we…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Rogers is arguing that the practice of bulk internet billing deals with residential buildings, which it says has been promoted by the CRTC, does not hamper competition, and in fact provides benefits that push forward the policies promoted by the commission.
Fibre service provider Beanfield filed a Part 1 application in late September asking the CRTC to prohibit Rogers from signing those bulk service agreements because it allegedly limits competition. Beanfield’s reasoning is that the multi-year contracts Rogers and others sign with building developers to provide default internet service disincentivizes switching service providers…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A coalition of public interest groups has asked the CRTC on Friday to consider a financial plan for a fund that bankrolls their involvement in broadcasting hearings.
Public interest participation in those hearings is funded through a not-for-profit organization known as the Broadcasting Participation Fund (BPF), which spawned out of Bell’s purchase of CTV network assets in 2011. The problem for the fund, according to its proponents, is that it relies on money, called tangible benefits, that only comes as a condition of approving broadcasting acquisitions that are now uncommon.
Interest groups have said the fund is…
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OTTAWA – Bell and its subsidiary Northwestel have pledged not to disconnect services to Iristel for not paying service dues.
The CRTC earlier this month asked Bell and Northwestel to hold off on disconnecting interconnection services to the far north provider until it makes a determination on a Part 1 application filed by Iristel that Bell allegedly hasn’t committed to providing an interconnection point in certain cities, including at Kuujjuaq in northern Quebec.
“Bell and Iristel have participated in a staff mediation process and they have reached an agreement…for the period during which the Commission…
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By Connie Thiessen
Rogers Sports & Media is shuttering its CityNews radio operations in Ottawa, citing low audiences, revenue declines and a restrictive regulatory environment for AM radio.
CityNews will go off the air on both the AM and FM band at 1 p.m. ET today with a Rogers Sports & Media spokesperson telling Broadcast Dialogue that resulting layoffs were in the single digits.
The company will return the licence for 1310 (CIWW-AM) to the CRTC, and restore its Country format station to 101.1 on the dial, following a series of December 2020 moves that saw Country 92.3 debut on CJET-FM in…
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OTTAWA – Telus has been awarded Friday more funding on top of the $12 million it was allocated for four projects backed by the commission’s Broadband Fund.
The CRTC has approved the Vancouver-based telecom’s request for an additional $4.5 million – a nearly 40 per cent increase – on the basis of unanticipated increases in costs including labour since the pandemic and changes in equipment that would “improve the sustainability, resiliency, and cybersecurity of the project.
The projects will build and/or upgrade mobile wireless, local fixed access, and transport infrastructure in a total of 26 communities and along roughly 305 kilometres…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor is patting itself on the back as Statistics Canada’s latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, released Tuesday, indicates cellular phone service prices have fallen considerably since this time last year.
In a press release distributed Tuesday afternoon, Quebecor claims “the decisive factor in the decline of Canadian wireless service prices shown this morning in Statistics Canada’s monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) report is increased competition from Videotron, Fizz and Freedom Mobile.”
Quebecor notes in its release the overall CPI rose 3.8 per cent on a year-over-year basis between September 2022…
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YELLOWKNIFE – Bell subsidiary Northwestel announced Wednesday it has launched fibre internet in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, making it the northernmost community in Canada to have fibre technology.
Northwestel customers in Tuktoyaktuk can now access high-speed, unlimited fibre internet with speeds up to 50 Mbps, up from 15 Mbps previously, says a press release.
“We’re very proud to bring in-community fibre to the first Arctic Ocean community,” Northwestel president Curtis Shaw said in the release. “Technology like this helps break down barriers to distance education, virtual health care and enables more participation in…
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OTTAWA – The Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) announced Tuesday a number of changes to its board of directors that include long-time board member Jim Deane assuming the role of chair.
Until his retirement from Regina-based Access Communications earlier this year, Deane had served as Access CEO since 2000. He has been a CPAC director for more than 20 years “and brings a wealth of institutional knowledge to the role” of board chair, says a press release announcing CPAC’s board changes.
Pam Dinsmore, vice-president of regulatory for cable at Rogers Communications, is joining the CPAC…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Telus is accusing the CRTC of deviating from precedent when it argues that spectrum sale and leasing revenues count toward the telecoms’ total operating revenues for the purposes of calculating what fees are owed to the commission.
The Vancouver-based telecom argued in a submission Thursday that those revenues have traditionally not been filed under total operating revenues when using the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for financial reporting, which has been used by the CRTC to calculate contributions owed to the commission.
Telus was backing a point made by mobile satellite and cell services provider TerreStar, which…
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