Access Communications Co-operative announced last week the membership of Regina’s only community radio station, 91.3 FM CJTR, voted overwhelmingly in favour of transferring ownership of the station to Access in a vote held during a special meeting on April 16.
Several months ago, the non-profit organization that runs the station, Radius Communications, presented Access with the opportunity to own the station to preserve community radio, says an Access press release. CJTR was facing financial hardship and was looking for an alternative operating model, the release explains.
“We extend our sincere appreciation to…
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By Doug Barrett, adjunct professor in the Arts, Media & Entertainment MBA program at the Schulich School of Business
It is well known that the Canadian government has directed the CRTC to review its definition of Canadian content, and that the Commission is currently wrapping up a vast series of Canada-wide and industry-wide consultations on the topic. Everyone is treating this as an important and vital process.
But the CRTC is not the principle Canadian content certification authority. That role belongs to the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office (CAVCO). CAVCO is an office within the Department of Canadian Heritage which certifies the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Telus is proposing an additional recurring charge for the implementation of a new feature for its next-generation 911 system that will allow smartphones to provide more accurate location information to emergency dispatchers.
The Emergency Location Service (ELS) is a Google location service that allows Android-based devices – relying heavily on Wi-Fi sensors, but also using GPS and cell towers – to provide enhanced location data directly from the device to the public safety answering point (PSAP) where 911 calls are received. The result, it is said, is accuracy, speed and reliability of location information for emergency calls.
The ELS…
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Videotron has filed a Part 1 application asking the CRTC to force the city of Ottawa to reimburse it for being made to reallocate its telecommunication line to make way for city construction projects.
The city had requested that the telecom move its transmission lines and equipment at two locations, one at Montreal Road and another at Woodroffe Avenue, less than five years after it installed the equipment on Hydro Ottawa poles.
When Videotron went to the city in early 2022 to get reimbursed for the $300,000 move, it was denied on the basis that the request to reallocate came from…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Cogeco is still working toward securing a deal with the national carriers to launch its mobile virtual network operator business on their networks, the telecom’s senior vice president and chief financial officer said Friday.
“Where we are right now is we’re still in negotiations…at the same time building what is required to launch as well,” Patrice Ouimet said during the company’s fiscal second-quarter conference call with analysts. “I would say the situation is not that different from what I said last quarter. That being said, we are making progress.”
Ouimet said he couldn’t go any deeper because these are…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Corus is urging the CRTC to hurry up and make a decision on a proposal to grant the media company temporarily relief on its financial obligations to Canadian content and pandemic back pay.
Next Friday will mark exactly six months since the CRTC proposed granting the pure-play media company “exceptional” relief by reducing its spending to programs of national interest from 8.5 to 5 per cent of previous year’s revenues and by extending the time to pay back what it already owes the regulator from the pandemic relief period.
In the days after the decision, Corus…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC is asking for comments by Friday on a request by a consortium of internet service providers urging the regulator to rule on the eligibility of the big three telecoms to lease bundled access to middle and last mile fibre facilities both under the interim, and any future permanent, mandated regime.
The consortium – which is made up of Bell, Cogeco, Eastlink, TekSavvy, and the indie rep the Competitive Network Operators of Canada – filed a request dated March 28 to the CRTC asking for a final ruling before May 7 on whether Bell, Rogers, Telus and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers wants the CRTC to limit the time telcos reserve space to attach wireless equipment on their own poles, according to a submission to the regulator.
The ask comes in response to a consultation launched by the commission inquiring, among other items, about whether it has jurisdiction over wireless attachments on telco-owned or controlled structures. The CRTC holds the preliminary view that it has concurrent jurisdiction over those structures with the department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), which has domain over towers and siting.
Beside recommending that the CRTC confirm that jurisdiction – which…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC has ordered Cogeco on Monday to ensure TekSavvy can continue to access its facilities at two Ontario locations the cable provider said it would need to migrate to fibre by May 1.
Cogeco’s transition to fibre facilities would lock TekSavvy and its customers out of locations in Burlington and Windsor – where it uses the Montreal company’s older coax facilities – in part because the commission does not allow mandated access to cablecos’ bundled middle and last mile fibre infrastructure, the Chatham-based company argued in an application in January. TekSavvy also alleged Cogeco…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The country’s largest broadcasters are asking the CRTC to wait until it has implemented the rules from the Online Streaming Act before it does anything to the rate that broadcasters must pay to carry certain television programs.
Not-for-profit media company Accessible Media Inc. filed a Part 1 application in February asking the regulator to up the price broadcasters pay it to carry its English-language AMI-tv and French-language AMI-tele programs, citing financial difficulties. It is asking for “modest” 1 cent and 2 cent increases per subscriber per month for the programs, respectively, until the next licence…
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