OTTAWA – Canadian wireless service providers are at least partly compliant with the CRTC’s accessibility policy, but gaps in handset accessibility remain. That’s the gist of Assessing the Compliance of Wireless Service Providers with the CRTC Accessibility Policy, conducted by Connectus Consulting Inc. and released Wednesday by the CRTC.
The study was undertaken to accomplish three interrelated objectives: provide the CRTC with a better understanding of the level of compliance by WSPs with the requirements set out at paragraphs 44 and 46 of Broadcasting and Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-430 (the Accessibility Policy); identify on-going gaps in the provision of…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC and Access Communications worked together this summer to shut off a deluge of spam messages that were unknowingly being sent from a server owned by a Saskatchewan-based computer reseller.
The Commission got involved after the Spam Reporting Centre received reports of spam messages routed through Access Communications. During its investigation, it was discovered that the spam messages were actually coming from a small business’s server, which used Access Communications as its ISP. This business’s server had become infected with malware, which had caused it to join the botnet ‘Ebury’.
According to spamrankings.net, the Autonomous Systems (AS21804)…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The 13th annual International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter conference gets under way two weeks from today and there is still room to register for this informative gathering.
Speakers include CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais, Deloitte Canada’s Duncan Stewart, Google’s Jason Kee, Microsoft’s David Laliberte, Blue Ant’s Asha Daniere, Cartt.ca’s Greg O’Brien, Ubisoft’s Lesley Phord-Toy, FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn, privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien, Bell Canada’s Jonathan Daniels, Wind Mobile’s Simon Lockie and many others.
Provocative, interesting conference sessions centre on recent communications industry developments, disruptive innovation in the gaming industry, the desires of Canadian consumers, the democratization of technology, the…
Continue Reading
SOMETIMES A QUESTION can send you back to first principles. Last Wednesday I heard one, and it kept me awake while I pondered it.
The question was asked by a commissioner at the mobile wholesale hearing. It went like this: "The mobile sector has seen the most wonderful progress in the last 20 years. The landline side is in relative decline. Yet you say we should apply more of the approach we adopted for ensuring landline competition worked for mobile. Can you explain why? Is that not a contradiction?"
The question is fiendishly difficult to answer, because it embedded a false…
Continue Reading
WE COULD WALK through the various undertakings and final replies filed by the many contributors to the CRTC’s TV Policy Review, but we’ve done more than 40 stories on the whole proceeding. The issues are well known and have been dismantled and well-explained repeatedly here – but it’s the final brief filed by American broadcaster Viacom which has set tongues wagging.
(Ed note: Yes, the filings and oral presentations of both Netflix and Google have been stricken from the record as threatened since neither company responded to the October 2 compliance deadline set by the Commission)
In its final reply…
Continue Reading
WHITEHORSE – Bell Mobility launched its 4G wireless service in Pelly Crossing and Burwash Landing, YT on Monday.
This expansion, completed in partnership with the Government of Yukon, is part of Northwestel's modernization plan, the company said. Launched in 2013, the plan must deliver advanced Internet and wireless services to northerners in all three territories. Bell Mobility is delivering on the wireless components of the plan after Northwestel transfered its wireless portfolio to Bell Mobility in October 2013.
Bell said that it will invest more than $1.8 million while the Yukon government is committing up to $758,000 over the next…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Quebecor’s Videotron will be Canada’s fourth national wireless player “if the CRTC creates the right conditions”.
The Montreal-based communications giant used its appearance Friday at the CRTC’s wireless hearing to encourage the Commission to regulate tower sharing and introduce roaming charges that are based on real network usage costs.
"Currently, the rates stipulated by Bill C-31 are based on costs that include equipment subsidies, marketing, customer acquisition, retail and online distribution channels, customer service and debt collection," said Videotron president and CEO Manon Brouillette. "It is unfair and absurd to make new entrants finance the incumbent carriers by supporting their…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The phrase ‘you win some, you lose some’ rang true this week for Sun News Network after it won one application for final offer arbitration with Telus, but lost another such application with Rogers.
In final offer arbitration, the Commission examines the final offers submitted by the parties and selects one in its entirety. The Commission’s decision is binding on the parties, though in rare instances, where neither offer is in the public interest, the Commission may reject both offers.
In its decision between Sun News Network (SNN) and Telus, the Commission said that it considered rates paid by…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Consumer complaints received by the CRTC regarding bandwidth throttling by their Internet service providers (ISPs) continued to fall in the third quarter of this year.
In its latest status report issued Thursday, the Commission reported that it received a total of 6 complaints regarding Internet Traffic Management Practices (ITMPs) from July 1 to September 30, down from the 10 complaints that were filed in the second quarter between April 1 and June 30, 2014.
There is no distinction made between ITMP disclosure complaints, (those related to whether the ISP has disclosed information, on its website or in customer materials, about any ITMPs…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC will not try to go to the courts to force compliance and instead has threatened to strip the interventions, submissions, oral presentations, research and other supporting documentation made by Netflix and Google from the public record of its recent TV Policy Review because the companies continued to refuse to provide specific information.
In a letters dated September 29 and addressed to Google’s Canadian public policy and government relations counsel Jason Kee and to Netflix’s director of global public policy Corie Wright, (pictured in a CPAC.ca screen cap, below),…
Continue Reading
