TORONTO – Freshly minted Canadian citizen Kevin Crull said Wednesday that without some regulatory change, he fears for the future of the Canadian television system.
Perhaps newly emboldened after becoming a Canadian citizen just last week, the Bell Media president used his luncheon keynote at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Wednesday to heap criticism on the way the regulations governing the Canadian TV industry have mutated over the past couple of years, and to wonder why our knee-jerk reaction as Canadians always seems to fear the big company and how badly it could act, even in the face of the…
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TORONTO – It might be a sign of the ingrained competitive spirit of the telecom industry in Canada that even when wireless carriers manage to agree on a vital issue – the need for a national code to protect wireless consumers’ interests – they still manage to bicker with one another.
During the Canadian Telecom Summit’s “regulatory blockbuster” panel discussion on Tuesday morning, moderated by Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien, regulatory experts from the big three incumbents – Rogers, Bell and Telus – along with MTS Allstream, Wind Mobile Canada and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), appeared to…
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OTTAWA – The cost of telecom regulation in Canada is estimated at just over $26 million this year, a slight drop from $27.26 million last year.
The CRTC said Wednesday that it expects that its total telecommunications regulatory costs for the 2012-2013 fiscal year to total $26.421 million. After taking in to account a $0.078 million credit from last year, the amount will equal $26.343 million.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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CAN’T. HELP. MYSELF.
I’ve told everyone who’s listened to me of late that I won’t write any more speculation on who will be the new chair of the CRTC. “I look foolish,” and “I’m tired of being wrong,” is what I keep telling people. We’ve speculated here throughout the year, we’ve been wrong quite a bit, and since these are real people with real feelings and aspirations, we do take these sorts of stories seriously before putting names out there into the ether, even if our tone sounds a little flippant.
That said, a good publication is also supposed to reflect…
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TORONTO – “With legal and regulatory certainty, the time for Wind on the defence is at an end. The big three no longer have the luxury of a distracted and artificially crippled new competitor,” Globalive chairman and CEO Anthony Lacavera said on the final day of the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto. “The time for Wind on offence has arrived.”
But it isn’t only the big three incumbents – Rogers, Bell and Telus – that Wind Mobile is suiting up to take on. Wind is also looking to differentiate itself from its fellow new entrants by shifting its marketing and…
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GATINEAU – Area code 873 will be rolled out in the area currently served by the 819 code in Quebec starting September 15, the Telecommunications Alliance confirmed Tuesday.
The 819 area code serves western, northern and central Quebec, including the Outaouais, Abitibi, Temiscamingue, the Higher Laurentians, central Quebec (Trois-Rivières, Grand-Mère, Drummondville, Victoriaville) and part of the Eastern Townships (Sherbrooke and Magog).
The two area codes will coexist within the same geographic territory. The 873 code will come into use gradually after September throughout the entire area served by the 819 code. Until then, new numbers with the current area code will continue…
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By Greg O’Brien
TORONTO – As a newcomer to the wireless game, Mobilicity executive chairman John Bitove offered his “different perspective” to the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday.
During his luncheon keynote, the entrepreneur, who also launched XM Satellite Radio in Canada, among other businesses, noted he paid $243 million for his wireless spectrum the same week Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 – and then proceeded to hunt for capital for a wireless build, right in the middle of the economic downturn. “You want to talk about some sleepless nights,” said Bitove.
Saying “consumers have more choice now and lower prices” since the…
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TORONTO – Marking his first appearance at the Canadian Telecom Summit as acting chairman of the CRTC, Len Katz shared some statistical highlights from the Commission’s upcoming Communications Monitoring Report during a fireside chat with CTS 2012 co-organizer Michael Sone on Tuesday morning.
“Effectively, Canada has the most connected infrastructure probably in the world, and we have the most advanced systems,” Katz said, basing his comments on data that will be released in about a month in the CRTC’s annual Monitoring Report. According to CRTC data, 99% of Canadians now have access to high-speed Internet, he said.
As part of its…
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TORONTO – Machine to machine communications, the mobile wallet and mobile video (mmmm…) are the three most exciting opportunities on the immediate horizon for the Canadian wireless industry, but only if we get a few things done first, Rogers' communications division president Rob Bruce told the Canadian Telecom Summit this morning.
Bruce explained in his opening keynote how machine to machine (M2M) technology is transforming health care, security, government and energy, among other things. He predicted the Canadian M2M market would be providing $400 million in network revenue by 2015.
The mobile wallet, on the other hand, will alter the way…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s 669 commercial radio stations saw 2011 revenues increase by 4%, on par with pre-recession levels, according to data released Monday by the CRTC.
For the broadcast year ending August 31, 2011, total revenues for AM and FM stations increased from $1.55 billion in 2010 to $1.6 billion in 2011, though expenses also rose from $1.21 billion to $1.26 billion during the same period. As a result, profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) climbed from $298.3 million to $311 million, and the PBIT margin went from 19.2% to 19.3%.
AM radio
The number of AM stations in Canada continued to decline from…
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