By Ahmad Hathout
Bell announced Monday it has entered into an agreement to buy Ziply Fiber, representing a push by the telco into the United States’s northwest fibre internet market.
The value of the deal, expected to close in the second half of 2025 following regulatory approvals, is $7 billion – $5 billion in cash and $2 billion in Ziply debt. Bell said Ziply – the largest fibre provider in the U.S. pacific northwest serving Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana – is expected to bring in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $400 million next year. Ziply also offers…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC has launched a proceeding into the planned operation of a temporary fund intended to put base contribution money from streamers toward the programming of commercial radio broadcasters outside of major metro markets.
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) was required to file to the CRTC a detailed operational plan for the so-called Commercial Radio News Fund (CRNF), which will handle money from the five per cent base contribution large foreign and standalone Canadian streamers are required to put into the broadcasting system to float key programming, including local news. The target markets for…
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Telco says it did not receive any wholesale orders in Quebec
By Ahmad Hathout
Telus is asking the CRTC for a four-month extension to provide competitor access to its last-mile fibre network in British Columbia and Alberta.
The Vancouver-based telecom said in a review-and-vary application made public Wednesday that — after two months of work on the framework since the August decision mandated that access — “it will be impossible to implement an automated and reliable system” by the current deadline of February 13, 2025. It is asking for that to be extended to June 13.
“TELUS’ implementation work so far has made…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Monday approved an application by Google to be exempted from the Online News Act for a period of five years in exchange for releasing the $100 million it allocated to host Canadian news content.
The decision triggers a 60-day timer for Google to release the money to the Canadian Journalism Collective (CJC), the news rep that Google agreed to work with on the distribution in June.
Google held an open call, as it’s required under the new law, between February 28 and April 30 to field prospective eligible news businesses that want a piece…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Friday set the interim rates competitors will pay large telephone companies to use their last-mile fibre network outside of Ontario and Quebec, while adjusting the existing rates for that access in those two provinces. The rates are being received with reception ranging from lukewarm to outright disappointment.
For all provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, the CRTC set Bell’s last-mile interim access rate – which competitors can lease with its middle-mile facilities – at $68.94 per month for between 3 Mbps to 1.5 Gbps and $78.03 for 1.5 Gbps to 3 Gbps. To bulk buy the…
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By Connie Thiessen
Corus Entertainment says it’s been able to renegotiate its credit arrangement through the end of March, as the company reported its fiscal fourth quarter earnings.
Led by RBC Capital Markets and TD Securities, Corus’s restated credit facility has been amended to reduce its revolving facility limit to $150 million from $300 million, and increase its maximum total debt-to-cash-flow ratio to 5.75 through the end of the year, and 7.25 from January through March. Corus paid down $2.7 million of debt in the fourth quarter and $38.8 million for the year.
Co-CEO John Gossling told a Friday morning conference call…
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The CRTC on Tuesday granted Uvagut TV mandatory distribution on basic TV, beating out its fellow Inuktut-language broadcaster Inuit TV for the spot.
Distributors will need to pay a monthly per subscriber fee of nine cents to carry the channel run by the Nunavut Independent Television Network (NITV), which proposes to run 24 hours a day, for a five-year term until August 2029. Inuit TV had proposed 18 hours a day but said it would have difficultly meeting that threshold in the immediate term.
Uvagut TV has been on the air since January 2021, offering Inuit-made children’s shows,…
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By Ahmad Hathout
A television network that focuses on Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ communities wants the CRTC to broaden its distribution on basic television, or at least set a base wholesale fee for negotiations with distributors.
When the CRTC came to renew the licence for OUTtv in 2022, it granted the service in the English-language market must-offer status – requiring broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) to carry the channel but leaving it to the subscriber to pay for the service – instead of must-carry status with a guaranteed wholesale fee that is available to all subscribers of the BDU. That status will remain until…
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Eatrides says internet ‘nutrition’ label possibly on menu
By Ahmad Hathout
The head of the CRTC said Monday that the regulator will be launching public consultations “in the weeks ahead” related to ease of contract cancellation and more transparent information on telecom plans, including a broadband label already in force in the United States.
“In the weeks ahead, we will also be launching public consultations to ensure that Canadians have the information and flexibility they need when choosing or switching cellphone and Internet plans,” Vicky Eatrides said at the Canadian Chapter of the International Institute of Communications.
That will include “seeking views on…
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Telecom also wants high court to revisit bias allegations against former chair Scott
By Ahmad Hathout
TekSavvy is asking the Supreme Court of Canada this month to help define the meaning of the terms “method or technique” that were at the centre of a decision by the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) to side with the CRTC in its 2021 determination to quash lower wholesale access rates proposed two years prior.
In simple terms, this is a case about whether the CRTC must follow the rigidness of an established costing methodology to set and justify the rates competitors pay to lease internet…
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