TORONTO – Broadband and IPTV provider VMedia will launch its new basic TV package, TheSkinny on Thursday, June 4, becoming the first broadcasting distribution undertaking (BDU) to offer Canadians the skinny basic package which the CRTC has demanded, as part of the Let’s Talk TV policy hearing, that carriers launch by March, 2016.
TheSkinny costs $17.95, and has all the Canadian and U.S. over-the-air networks, such as CBC, CTV, Global, CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC and PBS, and other channels required to be included in basic packages.
"From our launch VMedia has been all about providing more choice and flexibility…
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TORONTO – In a bit of a departure from the messages we’ve heard from Bell Media in recent years and months, its new president said Wednesday that she is confident in the future of local TV stations and local content.
While Bell Media went into the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV process last year saying drastic action is needed to save local TV, its new president, Mary Ann Turcke had a more positive message. In a luncheon speech to the Canadian Telecom Summit (on day 56 into her job) she said local content “is fun, it’s relevant,…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC is sponsoring a new prize for excellence in public policy research to encourage research in the communication field.
In joining together with the Canadian Communication Association (CCA) to create this prize, the CRTC said that it is continuing to build bridges with the university community as a way to encourage a new generation of researchers with the potential to contribute to Canadian information and communications policy.
The prize will be administered by the CCA and presented each year in the Master’s, Doctorate and Post-doctorate categories. Graduate-level students who are members of the CCA have until January…
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TORONTO — This year’s regulatory blockbuster panel at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday turned into a bit of a public hearing on wholesale telecom rates as the Big Three carriers’ pricing structures came under fire from TekSavvy and Wind Mobile.
Calling wholesale network access rates “crazy”, Bram Abramson, TekSavvy’s chief legal and regulatory officer, said wholesale prices can vary among telecom providers by as much as 700%. With the current pricing schemes of the large, vertically integrated incumbents, TekSavvy is unable to offer higher-speed services to its customers because it couldn’t be price competitive, Abramson said.
“TekSavvy is not the…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Calling it “critical” that Canadians receive emergency alert messages on their mobile devices, the CRTC said Tuesday that an industry working group is ready to begin testing new standards that will assist in making mobile public alerting a reality.
Developed by the Network Working Group under the CRTC’s Interconnection Steering Committee, the new specifications will apply to mobile devices, as well as the interface between the national public alerting system and LTE wireless networks. Mobile devices that support the specification will be able to receive and display emergency alert messages in both English and French.
The Commission added that…
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TORONTO – Calling ongoing discussions on net neutrality a “distraction”, John Lawford, executive director and general counsel for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) said the bigger issues needing to be examined currently are vertical integration and competition law in Canada. Lawford spoke during a panel discussion Monday on “Competition in Telecom: Net Neutrality and Innovation” at the Canadian Telecom Summit being held this week in Toronto.
“Net neutrality is done,” Lawford said, with the CRTC’s acceptance in 2009 that the Telecom Act’s non-discrimination provision (Section 27(2)) applies to Internet services in Canada.
“The real work is at the…
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OTTAWA and TIVERTON, ON – Ontario nuclear generating facility Bruce Power has asked the CRTC to order wireless service providers to carry and deliver emergency public alerts to all Canadians with mobile phones by September 30, 2015.
In a letter dated May 29 and addressed to CRTC secretary general John Traversy, Bruce Power noted that the Commission’s mandatory distribution of emergency alert messages in 2014 only applied to broadcasters, as it waits on the outcomes of voluntary activities like the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee’s work on developing a Wireless Public Alerting System (WPAS) using cell broadcast technology on LTE networks.
“This work…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has kicked off a call for comments as it prepares to review certain issues associated with wholesale high-speed access services.
The Commission said Thursday that it wants to gather information from the industry to better understand whether certain costing assumptions, such as those in Telecom Regulatory Policy 2011-703, remain appropriate, as well as consider whether a streamlined tariff application process should be established to lessen the regulatory burden. That should be welcome news for CNOC which complained last month to the CRTC that its cost studies for wholesale rates are out of whack.
The CRTC is…
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OTTAWA – The iconic American talk show Late Show with David Letterman may have wrapped up last week, but it’s still top of mind with some angry Canadian viewers, and the CRTC.
The Commission has fired off letters to Rogers Media, Rogers Communications, and Shaw Communications over alleged simultaneous substitution errors made by the companies during the show’s much-hyped finale on May 20. According to the letters, dated May 27, the Commission has received “several complaints regarding improperly executed simultaneous substitutions” that took place near the end of the show.
Referencing Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2015-25, where the CRTC…
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THIS MONTH’S CRTC DECISION TO regulate wholesale wireless roaming rates is just the latest in a long line of seminal processes and decisions which have come under the tenure of chairman Jean-Pierre Blais.
Just about 60% the way through his five-year term, Blais has had to digest major developments in the industry, technology, and political environment—which is pushing for more competition and consumer rights – while dealing with an often-cranky TV and telecom executives trying to steer their ships through the same choppy waters.
Here are many of the key CRTC developments since Blais, a lawyer and lifelong bureaucrat, was named the…
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