TORONTO – Wind Mobile’s complaint to the CRTC over its customers’ dropped calls due to so-called “hard handoffs” is not something the Commission needs to deal with, says Rogers Communications.
As reported by Cartt.ca, Wind wants the Commission to grant it soft handoffs so that its customers aren’t hung up on as they move beyond a Wind network zone as they talk. A hard handoff, for example, means a Wind customer call is cut off as she moves out of out of a Wind network zone into a Rogers area, which is Wind’s roaming partner. A soft, or seamless,…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC kicked off hearings into the Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite TV policy yesterday with chair Konrad von Finckenstein questioning why Bell TV hasn’t yet started to transition to MPEG4, a move that would add more capacity to the company’s satellite distribution offering.
Under questioning from the chairman, Bell Canada acknowledged that it has yet to begin transitioning to the higher compression standard.
“We’re evaluating methods by which we may be able to stage that migration obviously because of the limited number of MPEG4 boxes that are in our installed base,” said Heather Tulk, senior VP of residential…
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OTTAWA – Fight Media has wrestled control of The Fight Network and Le Réseau des Combats from its former owners. At least for now.
After a public hearing on the matter last month, the CRTC approved an application by current owners Fight Media Inc. to acquire, as part of a corporate reorganization, the assets of the two Category 2 specialty television channels.
As Cartt.ca reported, the Commission originally decided not to review the application after learning of a lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court which included, among others, the channel’s founder Mike Garrow.
In an e-mail to Cartt.ca, Garrow vowed…
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THE CAMPAIGN CALLING for a ban on usage-based-billing has caught the attention of Industry Minister Tony Clement, but that’s not enough for the group behind the ‘Stop the Meter’ initiative.
The SaveOurNet coalition called on Minister Clement to support an open Internet, and to request that the CRTC conduct regular audits of Internet service providers (ISPs) in order to prevent traffic shaping practices that discriminate against content or services. After the Twitter version of the petition was directed to his account, an email reply on Clement’s behalf was issued by Pamela Miller, director general of the Telecommunications Policy Branch of the federal government, to those…
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SHERIDAN SCOTT KNOWS she’s going to have to improvise somewhat when she opens her panel session at the International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter conference on November 22.
Her panel is called “taking stock of national digital strategies” and is scheduled to happen about two hours after Industry Minister Tony Clement is scheduled to speak. He is expected to give a progress report on where he and his ministry are in crafting Canada’s national digital strategy – a process the minister kicked off in May (Some are also expecting an update on the federal governments thinking on…
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OTTAWA – New funding criteria could mean greater flexibility for Canadian new media projects and program development.
In a decision on Tuesday, the CRTC said that it would amend the criteria for determining which independent production funds are eligible for contributions from Canada’s big BDUs.
Class 1 and Class 2 cable BDUs and satellite operators may direct up to 20% of their required contributions to Canadian programming to one or more independent production funds that meet the eligibility criteria.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – Television distributors have received official CRTC approval to offer a package of local programming to viewers in smaller markets where local stations decide not to convert to digital.
The Commission announced Wednesday that, subject to certain conditions, BDUs have been granted a general authorization to distribute a local package both in and outside mandatory markets for digital transition, without having to provide users of the local package with the full basic service.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the global village continues its digital evolution, it is critical that all of its citizens be able to use its products and services, and that includes the disabled and the elderly.
That was the key message in a speech that CRTC secretary general Robert Morin made Tuesday to the Global Forum conference in Washington.
“We live in a world where technology is evolving at such a fast rate that it’s sometimes hard to keep up”, Morin said. “Who would have thought 10 years ago that we would be able to access the Internet from almost anywhere on our cellphones, laptops, netbooks and…
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TORONTO – Glassbox Television has completed its acquisition of the Category 1 specialty channel Travel + Escape from CTV.
Under a transitional services agreement, the physical broadcast operations of the service will continue at CTV through Fall 2011. The CRTC approved the $10 million transaction late last month, as Cartt.ca reported.
www.glassbox.tv
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A GRASSROOTS INITIATIVE designed to stop incumbent ISPs like Bell, Rogers and Shaw from implementing usage-based billing seems to be quietly gaining momentum.
Led by the consumer group OpenMedia.ca, the campaign launched a petition late last week which calls usage-based billing “a blow to consumer choice, to access, and to free expression” and “devastating not only for the user experience, but for all innovation and entrepreneurship online”.
Using an image of a parking meter whose red ‘expired’ tag reads “Too Much Internet”, the petition had over a thousand names in less than 24 hours. This prompted the OpenMedia.ca network to kick off an…
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