OTTAWA – The Governor in Council (GIC) did not exceed its authority under the Telecommunications Act when it ruled that Globalive Wireless met the Canadian ownership and control test, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) said in a June 8 decision.
In a statement, Globalive’s Wind Mobile proclaimed its vindication.
“We and our 300,000 customers are thrilled with this decision,” said Anthony Lacavera, chair of Globalive. “Now we can continue delivering value and choice to Canadian consumers without the distraction and expense of challenges by our competitors to our right to operate.”
The ruling comes after the Federal Court of Canada…
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OTTAWA – The cost of telecom regulation in Canada will be $27.26 million this year.
The CRTC said Monday that it expects that its total telecommunications regulatory costs for the 2011-2012 fiscal year to total $26.396 million, and that it will add an $0.862 million adjustment from last year’s figures to the amount.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC said Friday that it has launched an on-line consultation asking for feedback from Canadians on the way large cable and telephone companies charge independent Internet service providers (ISPs) for the use of their networks.
Canadians can access the Internet through wireless service providers, satellite companies, independent ISPs or large cable and telephone companies, and in light of this competition, the Commission does not set rates or regulate the services’ terms and conditions. To ensure that the market for retail Internet services remains competitive, however, large cable and telephone companies must offer their wholesale customers (independent ISPs) access to…
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TORONTO – It’s a message the entrenched telecom incumbents have been hammering home all three days of the 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit: Don’t hate us because we’re beautiful.
Okay, maybe “beautiful” is kind of a stretch, but executives from Bell Canada, Rogers and Telus are dying to make it clear to anyone who’ll listen that while they do have millions of subscribers and excellent profits, they have also been the ones who have taken most of the risks on wireless and other telecom investment in Canada – so how can that mean rules have to be built (like those to…
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I SHOULD BE FIRED as moderator. It’s as simple as that.
As referee of the lively Canadian Telecom Summit “Regulatory Blockbuster” panel in Toronto Wednesday, I accepted questions from the floor, via text and on Twitter while Ed Antecol (Globalive), Mirko Bibic (Bell), Ken Engelhart (Rogers), John Lawford (PIAC), Chris Peirce (MTS Allstream) and Michael Hennessy (Telus) lobbed verbal brickbats at each other.
How great would it have been if, while these regulatory lawyers were hurling oral grenades, the chairman of the CRTC, Konrad von Finckenstein, were to ask them a question? Turns out he did, on Twitter. And I missed it as…
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TORONTO—CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein defended the Commission’s broadband speed targets, consumer complaint resolution process, planned vertical integration hearings and other moves in a 40-minute public fireside chat Wednesday morning.
Speaking at the Canadian Telecom Summit held at the Toronto Congress Centre, von Finckenstein dismissed criticism by some made at the Summit Tuesday that the CRTC recently set its broadband speed goals for Canadian Internet service providers too low. In early May, the agency announced that it expects all Canadians to have access to broadband speeds of at least 5 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream by 2015, targets…
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Perry Hoffman
OTTAWA – Bell Canada says it’s patently wrong for Rogers Communications to suggest that the CRTC can adopt a competitive bidding process for the rights to roll out broadband networks in Bell’s deferral account communities and not experience any further delays.
In its April 18 comments, Bell highlights where the delays would come from. First, if the CRTC opted for an auction now, it would have to conduct another public consultation to determine the auction framework. “Based on prior experience, this, in and of itself, would be a very lengthy exercise which would involve many parties and competing…
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THE LITANY OF REGULATORY issues facing the Canadian telecom business is long and the stakes are huge. It’s why this year’s Regulatory Blockbuster session held Wednesday at the Canadian Telecom Summit yet again delivered a lively, sometimes heated, discourse among the industry’s key regulatory players.
Moderated by Cartt.ca’s editor and publisher Greg O’Brien, the panel featured senior regulatory experts from Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, Telus, MTS Allstream, Globalive Communications and PIAC (the Public Interest Advocacy Centre) and the issues ranged vertical integration, foreign ownership, usage-based billing, wireless spectrum auction rules, rural broadband initiatives, and so on.
With the CRTC’s public hearing…
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AS THE WAYS IN WHICH consumers can get video content proliferate, traditional media producers and distributors are worried about their future.
They hear tons of anecdotal evidence that Canadians are ending their cable, satellite or telco TV subscriptions in favour of getting their favourite shows online: the so-called cord-cutting phenomena.
Is it real? For some we’ve talked to, it sure is. They’ve abandoned their cable subscriptions in favour of a combination of off-air digital signals from TV broadcasters with a broadband connection where they can go “over-the-top” to find enough TV and movie content (from the likes of YouTube, Netflix, broadcaster…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s wireless industry injected $41.2 billion into the Canadian economy in 2009, according to a new report commissioned by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA).
The report, The Benefit of the Wireless Telecommunications Industry to the Canadian Economy, calculated that the wireless sector contributed more than $17.2 billion in terms of direct contribution to the GDP through the sale of goods and services; an additional $14.98 billion due to the economic flow through to contributing suppliers in the supply chain; and more than $9 billion in consumer surplus – the additional benefit or satisfaction that consumers…
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