GATINEAU – Including broadband in a redefined basic service objective (BSO) is an absolute requirement, the Nunavut Broadband Development Corp. (NBDC) and SSi Group of Companies told the CRTC on the second day of its basic service obligation hearing. The problem in getting good broadband in the Far North, they say, is the lack of adequate backbone infrastructure.
“The bottleneck for Nunavut is backbone and that cannot be solved with a fragmented approach where services for consumers are supported separately from services for business or government. All Nunavut users rely on the same upstream services delivered over the same inadequate…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC approved ZoomerMedia’s application for religious service VisionTV to completely alter its programming, but denied its request to cut down some of its Canadian content requirements.
UPDATE: However, according to the company, that doesn’t mean it is getting out of religious programming.
Thanks to the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV policy changes, genre exclusivity is on the outs, so the Commission decided because of that, (and the fact that Vision will no longer be a must-carry for Canadian carriers as of August 31, 2020), it would allow Vision’s request to drop its current conditions of license (COLs). All of…
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GATINEAU – The Government of Yukon and the Kativik Regional Government both told the CRTC on the first day of its basic service obligation (BSO) hearing that broadband is an essential service and that the Commission must take regulatory action to ensure remote and northern communities have future-proof high-speed services.
“Yukon’s position is that the solutions in this proceeding should enable all Canadians in both urban and rural areas, in all regions of Canada, to have access to fast, affordable and reliable broadband service,” Jim Pratt, a consultant with the Yukon government, said in his opening remarks.
He noted…
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GATINEAU – As the CRTC kicked off its public hearing into basic telecommunications services Monday, it reiterated its call for public feedback.
Canadians are encouraged to provide their opinions by participating throughout the hearing in an online discussion forum that will be open until 8:00 PM EST on April 28. While watching the hearing online on the Cable Public Affairs Channel’s website or listening to the audio feed on the CRTC’s website, Canadians may also comment in real-time on issues raised throughout the hearing.
Currently, basic telecommunications services include individual line local touch-tone service; capability to connect to…
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OTTAWA – Rogers Communications won't earn much from its program offering low-cost Internet to low-income households, but it’s worth the investment, says Deepak Khandelwal, Rogers’ chief customer officer.
“This is truly an investment that we are making in Canada and our economy,” Khandelwal told Cartt.ca Thursday at an Ottawa event announcing the expansion of its Connected for Success program to everywhere it provides wireline Internet service. “There are some people that are in financial hardship and lower income and we want to make sure that they can get access to it.”
Khandelwal said Rogers signed up 11,000 households during the program’s…
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OTTAWA – To help promote a more competitive fixed satellite services market, the CRTC has removed the price ceiling currently applicable to Telesat Canada's C-band fixed satellite services.
In its decision on Thursday, the Commission said that the price ceiling for Telesat's C-band fixed satellite services (FSS) “is no longer appropriate or necessary, and is not a regulatory measure that is efficient and proportionate to its purpose, since Telesat's C-band FSS rates are well below the existing ceiling and continue to decline.”
When establishing a transitional regulatory framework for Telesat's FSS before the Canadian satellite market was opened to foreign competition,…
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GATINEAU – Canadians now have a new tool to see where broadband Internet services and the technologies used to provide them are available.
The CRTC released a new map Wednesday showing the availability of broadband Internet services at or above its target speeds of 5 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads as of end of 2014. The map depicts areas served by cable, DSL/fibre, fixed wireless and LTE.
While offering a general view of Internet service availability, the Commission said that the map is meant to provide context to the discussions that will take place during the public…
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GATINEAU/MONTREAL – Canadians wishing to attend next month’s Discoverability Summit in Toronto may now register to receive tickets.
Co-hosted by the CRTC and the NFB, the Discoverability Summit is scheduled for May 10 and 11 at the Thompson Hotel in Toronto. Guest speakers include Jeremy Singer of Entertainment Tonight Canada, Amy Terrill of Music Canada and Louis Lalande, EVP of CBC/Radio-Canada French Services. Other major players from the digital media sector are also expected to participate, and will be revealed in the coming weeks.
The two-day affair will enable participants to discuss strategies, tools and approaches to improve the…
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New three-year plan
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC has released its new three-year plan that includes new basic telecommunications services policy, the Discoverability Summit, and a review of the Wireless Code among its priorities.
Other planned activities include licence renewals for French-language and English-language television services, and an effort to continue to promote and enforce the country’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) and the unsolicited telecommunications rules.
Those initiatives are among the goals that the Commission has outlined for completion during 2016-19 under the pillars of ‘create’, ‘connect’, and ‘protect’, that it says reflect its commitment to “implementing sound management practices and fulfilling its mandate…
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OTTAWA – Consumer groups DiversityCanada Foundation and the National Pensioners Federation has reached the end of the line in its appeal for costs after a long fight with the CRTC that started with the Commission’s release of the Wireless Code of Conduct in 2013.
DiversityCanada sought to have the Wireless Code (Telecom Regulatory Policy 2013-271) reviewed and varied over the expiry of prepaid wireless service cards (which we covered here).
The CRTC denied the R&V and then also denied the group’s subsequent claims for costs (of about $25,000) as well. DiversityCanada then applied for a…
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