GATINEAU – The CRTC today asked Canadians what they think about “online broadcasting services,” and to provide it with data and information on the impact of the various over-the-top video options available to online Canadians.
(We bet many Canadians will obsess over what’s not available to them.)
“The digital environment is providing Canadians with more programming choices than ever before,” said Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the CRTC, in the press release. “Canadians have access to libraries of online content that can originate from anywhere in the world, and which can be watched on different screens. This fact-finding exercise will give us…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Diffusion said that it is “pleased” that the CRTC has promised to review its application for two new traffic-oriented radio stations “without delay.”
As Cartt.ca reported, the radio division of Coegco Inc. is seeking licences to operate two AM specialty traffic news stations in the Greater Montréal area under a cooperation agreement with the ministère des Transports du Québec.
The move is part of the provincial government’s measures to reduce the impact of the major work on the Greater Montréal area road network over the next few years which it estimates will impact some 1.3 million road…
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DARTMOUTH – Newcap is selling its two Winnipeg-based radio stations to Evanov Radio Group subsidiary Dufferin Communications for $5.5 million.
The deal includes news station CKJS AM, K-Rock 100.7 (CHNK FM), and the new station CFJL 106.1 FM which is set to launch this summer.
"While we enjoyed being in Winnipeg, we have been unable to grow our presence in Manitoba and decided to redeploy our capital to other markets in Canada”, said president and CEO Rob Steele, in Thursday’s announcement. "We would like to thank all of our Winnipeg employees for their dedication and support over the years."
“Together, these three locally…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC will examine a number of new specialty TV channel and radio applications this July.
The applications, made public Thursday, include a new French-language channel from Astral called Tele-Vitesse that would showcase the vehicles and technologies that make speed possible; three new Hindi movie channels from Asian Television Network International; a Spanish-language children’s channel from Telelatino Network; and a new animated channel to be known as Teletoon Kapow!
Intervention and comments are due by June 20, and the non-appearing hearing is scheduled for July 18, 2011 in Gatineau.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – The country’s big Internet service providers will be required to provide static Internet protocol (IP) address allocation for their third-party Internet access (TPIA) services, the CRTC has ruled.
A static IP address is a number that is assigned to a device, such as a computer, to be its permanent address on the Internet. An ISP assigns the address when it provides an Internet access service to an end-user.
Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw and Videotron originally told the Commission that it is unclear whether the managed router solution they use to provide static IP addresses for business customers would work for their TPIA…
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OTTAWA – Regina-based Access Communications Co-operative has told the CRTC that it no longer wishes to pay into the country’s Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF).
Canada’s cable and satellite companies must contribute 1.5% of their gross broadcasting-related revenues per year to the fund, which can then be accessed by broadcasters serving markets with less than 1 million people to help fund local programming.
In an application made public earlier this week, Access asked the Commission to amend its BDU licence to relieve it from its LPIF contributions, citing its “unique corporate structure” as compared to other BDUs (Access is a community-owned not-for-profit cooperative…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has turned down a request from the Canadian Network Operators Consortium Inc. (CNOC) to merge the retail component of usage-based billing (UBB) with the residential proceeding.
In a letter to the Commission earlier this month, CNOC said that if the business wholesale and residential wholesale proceedings are kept separate, parties will have to repeat many of their submissions in both proceedings, “resulting in confusion, unfairness, and inefficiency”.
The group also argued that the parties participating in the business wholesale proceeding are at a disadvantage because that proceeding does not include an oral hearing; that separate proceedings will result…
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OTTAWA – The pace of play at the Federal Court of Appeal’s (FCA) hearing on Globalive Wireless’ ownership yesterday was certainly not like an NHL playoff game, but both sides used their opportunities to rough up their opponents.
After an in-depth explanation why the Federal Court erred in its decision to overturn the Governor in Council (GIC) decision giving Globalive the green light to operate, lawyers for the government of Canada took their first jab at Public Mobile, arguing that the company shouldn’t have even had the right to appeal the GIC in the first place. They said…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has ordered the country’s telcos to pay over $215,000 to the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) in order to cover its costs during the obligation to serve hearing last fall.
The consumer group asked the Commission that it be reimbursed for legal fees, consultant fees, expert witness fees, disbursement fees and tax while representing the organizations Canada Without Poverty, Option consommateurs, and Rural Dignity of Canada, an amount that it said totaled $216,795.66.
On Monday, the CRTC agreed that PIAC should be paid $215,276.46, and that the amount should be divided up among all telecommunications service providers…
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GATINEAU – Independent Canadian ISPs say that while they welcome new proposals to charge for wholesale high-speed access to incumbent facilities such as Bell Canada’s aggregated volume pricing (AVP), most everyone is missing the point by focusing on usage rather than congestion.
Movie streaming service Netflix also filed its own opinion on the Bell proposal, too.
Canadian Network Operators Consortium Inc. (CNOC) criticizes both Bell’s AVP model and the blended charge approaches suggested by the cable companies for linking high volume users with those who create congestion on the network.
“This is a crucial distinction because all of the other proposals…
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