By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Following three complaints made by Teksavvy, a competitive telecommunications provider, the Information Commissioner ruled the CRTC did not respect the timelines of the service provider’s requests for information as required by the Access to Information Act.
The rulings – one of which was issued in March and two in April 2022 – were posted on Teksavvy’s blog.
“The time extension was claimed within the initial thirty-day deadline, however, while CRTC successfully demonstrated that an extension under 9(1)(c) could be justified, CRTC failed to respond to the request not only by the statutory due date, but…
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Updated with comment from petitioner, dotmobile.
OTTAWA — The federal cabinet has denied a petition today to overturn a decision by the CRTC that only allowed a limited group of wireless service providers to force negotiations to use national telecom facilities, saying it believes the decision will provide consumers with greater choice and bring down prices.
Mobile virtual network operator Data on Tap (dotmobile) filed the petition in May 2021 to reverse the part of the CRTC’s decision that excludes full MVNOs like itself from participating in those mandatory negotiations. The decision by the regulator…
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QUISPAMSIS, NB — The Canadian Communication Systems Alliance (CCSA) said today it has called on the CRTC to stop Rogers Communications “from shutting down the satellite delivery of television signals to thousands of Canadians living in rural communities and the Far North.”
Just prior to the Commission’s March 24 approval of Rogers’ purchase of Shaw Communications, which includes Shaw Broadcast Services (SBS), “Shaw announced that a critical component of the SBS service, known as HITS-QT Plus, would be shut down by year end,” according to the CCSA’s press release.
The CCSA has been calling on the…
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By Howard Law
IT’S FIVE YEARS since the Public Policy Forum published The Shattered Mirror calling for Facebook and Google to become major funders of the journalism ecosystem that their digital advertising oligopoly impoverished.
Bill C-18 the Online News Act will do just that. The legislation is about a year behind the Liberal government’s schedule, having been derailed last spring by the Conservative filibuster of the Netflix Bill C-10 and a federal election.
That unanticipated delay after years of lobbying by news publishers discouraged most of them enough to sign take-it-or-leave-it deals with Google and Facebook on compensation for…
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Also proposes $5M for new Changing Narratives Fund
OTTAWA – While Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez has sought to reassure Canadians the CRTC will have the resources it needs to take on the new responsibilities proposed for it in the recently introduced Bills C-11 and C-18, today’s budget provides a few actual details.
Tabled by the federal government today, Budget 2022 proposes to provide the CRTC with $8.5 million over two years, beginning in 2022-2023, “to establish a new legislative and regulatory regime to require digital platforms that generate revenues from the publication of news content to…
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OTTAWA – With lots of people busy posting spicy takes on the federal government’s recently introduced Bill C-18, it is worth a reminder we are coming up on a year since two major CRTC decisions were issued.
The first is the CRTC’s decision on mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), issued April 15, 2021, and the second is its decision on wholesale Internet rates, issued May 27, 2021.
Both have proved controversial, and CRTC chair Ian Scott has found himself in the position of defending each decision on multiple occasions in the past year. (You can catch up on…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC yesterday initiated a show cause proceeding and call for comments on the use of the term “manufacturer’s suggested retail price” (MSRP) in the Wireless Code.
The CRTC is examining the term after Quebecor submitted a letter to the Commission last March, which claimed it had observed Bell, Rogers (RCCI) and Telus “appear to be inflating the retail price of their mobile devices,” the CRTC’s notice of consultation says.
The retail price of mobile devices is relevant to the fees consumers are on the hook for if they terminate their wireless contracts early.
Termination costs are limited “to the…
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TORONTO – CRTC chair Ian Scott told Ryerson students last Friday the Commission supports the approach of the government’s Bill C-11, known as the Online Streaming Act, and indicated he agrees with Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s assertion that it will not regulate user-generated content.
In his speech, a copy of which was distributed by the CRTC today, Scott said that while some argue Bill C-11 will give the Commission the authority to regulate users’ content on social media sites, “That’s just not true.
“As it’s drafted at the moment, the Bill draws a distinction between the users of…
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OTTAWA – The National Post reported earlier this week the CRTC could be named the regulator in charge of the upcoming legislation that will compel platforms including Google and Facebook to share revenue with Canadian news organizations.
“Several industry sources told the National Post that, following meetings with the government, they expect the CRTC could be tasked with the new regime,” an article from the National Post says.
A government source told the newspaper the CRTC will have a “light touch” and “will not be doing the arbitration itself – that will be left to an independent arbiter that both…
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OTTAWA – Distributel Communications has asked the CRTC to revise the interim access rates for disaggregated wholesale high-speed access (HSA) services to bring them in line with those of aggregated HSA services.
In a Part 1 application posted to the CRTC’s website today, Distributel asks the Commission to establish the revised rates “to ensure that disaggregated HSA access rates are not higher than the access rates for aggregated HSA services where the access components for each HSA service use the same underlying technology and are within the same tariffed speed band.”
Distributel says the revised rates will remove a barrier “that…
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