GATINEAU – Yak Communications and Wind Mobile (both of which are owned by Globalive) believe that equal access on wireline and wireless may have outlived its useful purpose. Representatives for the companies made the comments before the CRTC on Wednesday as part its interconnection hearing.
Ed Antecol, VP of regulatory and carrier relations for both Yak and Wind, reiterated comments made on Tuesday by Rogers that the cost of doing equal access long distance for wireless doesn’t make economic sense. Yak connects to four Fido switches, yet derives a very small amount of monthly revenue – about $6,000 – from…
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WHILE HIS NAME MAY have been on every submission to the CRTC over the last four-plus years, few, if any know what Robert Morin thinks of Canadian cultural and telecom policy. That’s because he won’t say. It’s beyond his role.
He likens his now-former job as secretary-general of the CRTC (he retired this month) to that of a plumber, where it’s been his duty to make sure the plumbing, or the nuts and bolts of the Commission, work seamlessly and efficiently while policy and other national matters are developed and problems solved all around him. Basically, the type of house…
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GATINEAU – Rogers Communications says the cost and effort required to implement equal access for a wireless CLECs is not worth imposing a similar regulatory requirement on other wireless service providers (WSPs).
Speaking during the second day of the CRTC’s hearing into the interconnection regimes, Rogers VP of regulatory telecommunications David Watt said it’s time for the Commission to allow WSPs to connect to local exchange carriers (LECs) on a shared-basis and benefit from bill and keep, yet not be required to implement equal access for long distance services.
This would constitute a fourth way for WSPs to connect to LECs,…
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OTTAWA – Bell has received CRTC approval to amend its video-on-demand service’s broadcasting licence so that it may offer community programming produced by its corporate cousin Bell Aliant.
In its application, Bell ExpressVu also requested that a new condition of licence be added to allow a third party, in this case Bell Aliant, to be fully responsible for the management of the community programming and the adherence to the applicable regulations related to the community programming that would be offered on the Bell ExpressVu VOD service, a request that the Commission denied.
On Monday, the Regulator expressed concern with “the…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has given the green light to Newcap to proceed with the sale of its two Winnipeg-based radio stations to Evanov Radio Group subsidiary Dufferin Communications.
The $5.5 million sale, first announced in May, includes CHNK-FM Winnipeg (formerly CHNR-FM Winnipeg) and CKJS Winnipeg.
In addition to issuing new broadcasting licences to continue the operation of these stations, the Commission said Monday that it has also approved Dufferin’s request to amend CHNK-FM’s condition of licence relating to the broadcast of musical selections from content category 2 (popular music).
Newcap said in a statement that it expects that…
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GATINEAU – Mandating Internet Protocol interconnection for voice services is unnecessary because doing so will not bring any additional benefits to consumers, three of the country’s incumbent telcos told the CRTC during its first day of hearings into the interconnection regime.
In its opening remarks, Bell Canada said that “no regulatory intervention is required to push the market towards IP interconnection” and that “the market will naturally drive this migration without any need for regulatory intervention,” explained Jonathan Daniels, VP of regulatory law at Bell.
He acknowledged that the company’s network is capable of providing IP voice to most of its…
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TORONTO – Score Media saw its 2011 profits cut nearly in half, despite a modest gain in revenue.
For the fiscal year ended August 31, the company posted net income of $1.48 million, down from $2.5 million in 2010 though revenue increased across its TV and digital media platforms to $47.7 million from $43.8 million. Excluding the impact of the $800,000 CRTC Part II fee reversal in fiscal 2010, EBITDA was $7.9 million compared to $6.8 million last year.
The sports broadcaster reported a fourth quarter loss of $316,000, down from $1.1 million year-over-year, due in large part to a charge for…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has approved Bell Aliant’s request for forbearance from the regulation of residential local exchange services in 19 exchanges in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia.
After applying the local forbearance test, the Commission issued the decision on Friday, and directed Bell Aliant to file revised tariff pages within 30 days of the date of this decision.
Earlier this year as part of its ‘obligation to serve’ decision, the CRTC determined that the large incumbent local exchange carriers would no longer receive subsidies for residential network access services (NAS) in high-cost exchanges for which the Commission…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC estimates that the total amount of Part II licence fees that it will assess in 2011 is $101.8 million.
The Commission said Friday that the fees, payable by the country’s largest broadcasters, were calculated using a cap of $100 million and adjusted to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the prior calendar year. For 2010, the annual average CPI was 1.8%.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – The real battle of the CRTC’s interconnection hearing that starts next week is going to be over whether the new entrant wireless service providers and long distance carriers are able to connect to incumbent and competitor networks at lower costs. In its consultation document, the Commission has asked the telecommunications industry if it would benefit from a consolidated interconnection regime rather than the current situation with three separate regimes: one for each the competitive local exchange carriers, wireless service providers and long distance or toll traffic carriers. Under the current rules, CLECs are…
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