OTTAWA – The CRTC has rejected a request to stay its recent decisions on introducing local phone and broadband competition in areas served by small independent phone companies.
The Commission said Friday that the request made by the Ontario Telecom Association (OTA) and Association des companies de telephone du Québec (ACTQ) failed to demonstrate that their member companies will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of being granted their stay requests, and that “the balance of convenience favours not granting the stay requests”. The Commission also asked the small ILECs to track and maintain a record of all relevant costs…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – A five month investigation has resulted in 85 more telemarketing companies, many of them small businesses, caught violating the country’s do not call rules.
The CRTC said Monday that has issued citations to 74 telemarketers who had either failed to register with the national do not call list operator or subscribe to the national do not call list. Notices of violation were issued to an additional 11 companies for what the Commission described as “more significant breaches”, resulting in fines totalling $41,000.
“Today’s announcement should serve as a reminder that registering as a telemarketer is a basic requirement,” said Andrea…
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IT’S PRETTY UNUSUAL for dropped cellular phone calls to be mentioned in a Speech from the Throne.
But, that’s exactly what happened last fall when Saskatchewan Lieutenant-Governor Gordon Barnhart said in that speech that “improving digital and electronic infrastructure is essential to the new economy,” and that “(d)ropped cell phone calls are still a problem, despite an increased investment in SaskTel’s 4G network of $170 million in my government’s first term.”
SaskTel’s ownership – the taxpayers of Saskatchewan – is a holdover of the past, when many telcos were government-owned. While its competitors feel competing against the government is unfair, the…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has put out a call for comments as it prepares to tweak its definitions of “commercial messages” and “demarcation point”.
The Commission said Thursday that it is proposing amendments to the definition of commercial messages, as set out in the Specialty Services Regulations, in order to clarify that non-traditional advertising does not fall within the maximum number of advertising minutes that may be broadcast on specialty services.
The CRTC is also seeking feedback on a request by Bell TV to amend the BDU Regulations so that a licensee that owns inside wire in commercial or institutional properties…
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I READ WITH INTEREST your commentary concerning the dispute between the independent BDUs (CIDG) and Bell Media.
Like Kevin Crull, the CEO of Bell Media, I too have “walked on both sides of the fence” (as noted in his letter of March 28). I was the president of the Canadian Cable Television Association and the CEO of Star Choice, Bell ExpressVu’s principal competitor, now known as Shaw Direct. More recently, I was the head of English services at the CBC, which, like Bell Media, includes a big conventional network and a number…
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LAST FALL, AROUND THE TIME of the CBC’s 75th anniversary, Edmonton MP Brent Rathgeber suggested the broadcaster become more commercially self-reliant. It couldn’t fulfill its mandate if “few people are watching and listening,” in his estimation.
In January, OpenMedia.ca and Leadnow.ca, two citizen engagement groups, launched a campaign to re-imagine the CBC by crowd-sourcing ideas using an online discussion forum. Then, recently, The Toronto Star launched The Network, a site devoted to what’s wrong with the CBC and how to fix it.
The CBC, however, is already “fixing” what it believes needs to…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC introduced new regulations on Thursday designed to help it police spam.
The Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations include Information to be included in commercial electronic messages (CEM), the form of electronic message (unsubscribe mechanism), information to be included in a request for consent, and specified functions of invasive computer programs.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – Finally, all of the laws, regulations, policy and all sorts of other important documents when it comes to telecommunications in Canada are in one handy place.
Lawyer Hank Intven (following in the footsteps of his McCarthy Tetrault colleague Peter Grant) has just released the first edition of the Canadian Telecommunications Regulatory Handbook. As noted in the introduction of the volume, this 1200-page text was inspired by Grant’s Canadian Broadcasting Regulatory Handbook, which was first published in 1993 and is now nearing its 11th edition.
TORONTO – It should come as little surprise Bell Media’s recent $3.4 billion bid for Astral Media was top-of-mind for radio industry executives at last week’s Radio Interactive conference, held as part of Slacker Canadian Music Week in Toronto.
Radio presidents from Bell Media Radio, Corus Radio and Rogers Radio took part in a super session moderated by Ross Davies, director of member engagement for the radio group at BBM Canada. Also represented on the panel were U.K. broadcaster Absolute Radio and U.S. radio station operator Cumulus Media.
Corus Radio president Chris Pandoff said the BCE-Astral Media…
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OTTAWA – GlassBox Television has received CRTC approval for a new French-language music channel.
The category B service, known as GlassBox Créneau musical : musiques émergentes, is a national service that will be devoted to emerging music and its creation and would include programming featuring emerging music with the objective of helping emerging artists. Music videos will play “a key role” in its service’s programming strategy, according to its application.
The new channel’s licence will expire on August 31, 2018.
www.crtc.gc.ca
www.GlassBox.tv
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