OTTAWA – While official spectrum license transfer applications were filed by Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications in early September, sources tell Cartt.ca senior officials at Industry Canada have let Rogers executives know they’re unlikely to be granted control of Shaw Communications’ unused AWS wireless spectrum.
In January of 2013, as part of a larger deal, Rogers bought an option from the Calgary-based company to acquire its AWS spectrum in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Northern Ontario to be exercised when the moratorium on its sale expires. It ended September 1st and the two companies applied to…
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GATINEAU – The lack of wholesale access to last mile fibre infrastructure hasn’t deterred competitors from investing in their own high-speed networks, Bell Canada told the CRTC during its appearance as part of the Fibre Hearing on Wednesday.
The media and communications giant’s assertions come a day after Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) argued its members need wholesale access to the incumbent telco’s local fibre networks in order to compete.
The group noted Tuesday that in its view the current regulatory environment acts as a disincentive to invest in fibre to the premise (FTTP) facilities….
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GATINEAU – The argument which says the incumbent telcos would simply stop investing in fibre networks if competitors were granted access to them is just not true, according to the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) and Primus Telecommunications Canada.
Chris Tacit, legal counsel to CNOC, told the CRTC on the second day of the hearing that telcos will continue to build because they need to compete with the cable companies (and vice versa, for that matter).
“First of all, they have a natural incentive to build wherever there is a cable carrier because otherwise the cable carrier will eat their lunch,”…
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GATINEAU – While the Competition Bureau argued Monday it’s better not to regulate fibre facilities, others countered that Canada is far too big for facilities based competition and that the Commission should switch its focus to a more service-based approach.
The Competition Bureau kicked off day one of the Commission’s hearing into wholesale fibre access for independent third party broadband providers that it shouldn’t jump the gun on regulating access to wholesale facilities including fibre to the premise (FTTP) networks. The agency said the risks of imposing mandated access to FTTP now may be higher than if the Regulator waited…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has issued determinations to resolve a billing dispute between Bell Aliant and Eastlink over payments for service poles.
The Commission clarified that a “service pole” is to include all poles on which the only attachment is a wire that provides service to a particular customer. It also found that an error rate should not be applied to the pole census results in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and that Eastlink should be required to pay census fee charges but not late payment charges where there is a valid dispute.
The Commission further determined that, where…
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TORONTO – Rogers wants the CRTC to dismiss Bell’s allegations that its new GamePlus online hockey viewing app provides Rogers with an “anticompetitive advantage.”
In a submission Thursday to the Commission, filed in response to Bell’s complaint last month, Rogers described Bell’s application as “nothing more than Bell’s attempt to use the Commission’s regulatory processes to inhibit or hinder our ability to provide Canadian consumers with new and innovative content offerings”.
GameCentre Live is Rogers’ new online platform that allows fans to stream over 1,000 regular season and playoff games online and to whatever device they like for $200 a…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has directed Cogeco to implement a mechanized customer transfer process for television and Internet services customers as soon as possible, and no later than January 1, 2015.
In its decision issued Thursday, the Commission responded to an application by Bell Canada submitted in June claiming that Cogeco’s “large number of manual customer transfer requests were inefficiently diverting Bell Canada’s resources and harming consumers”.
As part of the implementation of local competition in the telecommunications industry, a process was developed by the industry for the efficient transfer of a customer’s service, commonly referred to as the customer…
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MONTREAL – Coming just three days after a protest just outside the building, the Annual Public Meeting of CBC/Radio-Canada held Wednesday at its Montreal HQ was expected to be difficult.
Though there were hecklers and tough questions for president and CEO Hubert Lacroix — one member of the crowd even handed him a pre-written resignation letter and asked him to sign it — the event did not degenerate into complete chaos.
In his speech, Lacroix took pains to explain that he wasn’t a secret agent of the Conservative Party put in place to dismantle the public broadcaster,…
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GATINEAU – Here we go again.
Several years after the CRTC set the rules for mandated access to essential broadband facilities, the big telecommunications service providers (TSPs) and their smaller competitors who rent space on those TSP networks, will once again take their turns before the Commission beginning Monday to argue about mandated access to incumbent networks, specifically the deep fibre networks built by the large cable and telco incumbents.
As can be expected, the incumbents are going to argue that the retail broadband market is already highly competitive, the result of vigorous battles among facilities-based competitors. Any unwarranted…
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MONTREAL – A decade ago, Evanov Radio Group had three radio stations in the Greater Toronto Area. Now, it has 17 in four provinces, and is about to expand to 18.
On Tuesday, Evanov announced the latest addition to its radio family would be multilingual ethnic station CFMB 1280 AM in Montreal, Canada’s oldest multilingual radio station. The sale, for $1.125 million through a purchase of all the company’s shares, requires CRTC approval, for which an application was filed on Friday.
The acquisition fits with Evanov’s business plan of developing synergies by sharing resources, explained vice-president and radio group manager Carmela…
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