SDI Telecom says Bell is trying to force it out of the payphone business
GATINEAU — Bell Canada says it has evidence illegitimate toll-free calls are being made over SDI Telecom payphones and has filed a request with the CRTC to be allowed to withhold payment of disputed charges to SDI for toll-free compensation per call.
SDI is a competitive pay telephone service provider (CPTSP), and owns and operates approximately 115 pay telephones over the Bell network, mostly in the greater Toronto area. In a decision last December, the Commission determined CPTSPs are entitled to compensation for toll-free calls originating…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC announced today it has agreed to a nine-month extension of the deadline for the implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN framework for authenticating caller ID information for IP-based voice calls. The implementation deadline is now June 30, 2021.
STIR/SHAKEN stands for Secure Telephony Identity Revisited/Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs. The framework provides a suite of protocols and procedures intended to combat fraudulent caller ID spoofing by authenticating and verifying the caller ID information. It’s something upon which the federal government is focused.
In December 2019, the Commission mandated Canadian telecommunications service providers (TSPs) implement the security…
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By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – Since January 2019, Bell Media has been offering a “one-day subscription” to its TSN and RDS services on their website, allowing viewers to therefore bypass buying a Videotron cable package (even if they are already a Videotron internet subscriber) for a day, for $5, perhaps as a test drive, or to see one particular big game.
Videotron claimed in a court filing this is a breach of its contract with Bell and further claimed this type of offering could jeopardize the Canadian broadcasting system by content producers offering their services over-the-top.
In a decision last week, the…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Enough delay, say the independent ISPs.
TekSavvy, Distributel and the Competitive Network Operators of Canada on Friday filed applications with the CRTC demanding the incumbent telco and cable carriers file new tariffs as ordered by the Commission in its August 2019 decision setting new wholesale internet rates (CRTC 2019-288).
The decision gave the network owners until September 14, 2019 to do so, but only Telus filed. Later, SaskTel filed its tariff pages after a CRTC reminder. The other incumbents declined to do so, pending the three appeals of the decision filed shortly after the August 2019 rates…
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GATINEAU – After the CRTC found Iristel and Telus in breach of the Telecommunications Act, the former for traffic simulation in the 867 area code and the latter for the actions it took against Iristel, the Commission started a process to determine whether an Administrative Monetary Penalty should be imposed.
Without surprise, Iristel immediately asked the Commission to review and vary and to stay the decision.
CNOC supported the stay request, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre asked the deadline be postponed and Telus asked for the process to be suspended (it may well have an R&V of its own…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Back in May, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) had filed an application with the CRTC stating contact tracing applications which were then mostly only on the drawing boards were worrisome and asked the Commission to investigate the wireless carriers’ involvement to ensure there would be no violation of the Telecom Act.
On 17 August, CRTC staff wrote back saying they thought the public interest would not be well served by a public inquiry. However, PIAC is trying again, now that the federal government’s app has launched and has been downloaded by many Canadians…
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OTTAWA and GATINEAU — In October of last year, the vast majority of Canadian Internet service providers met or exceeded the maximum download and upload speeds they advertised, according to the second edition of the CRTC’s Measuring Broadband Canada report, released today.
The study was conducted by broadband testing firm SamKnows on behalf of the CRTC, and was based on measurement data collected from October 1 to 31, 2019. Using the data collected from 2,035 “whiteboxes” deployed to Canadian homes, the study examines download and upload speeds, latency, packet loss and web page loading time. Participating ISPs include Bell Aliant,…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Interconnecting on your competitor’s network can be a long, protracted process and Videotron, which is trying to get a foothold in northwestern Quebec, is discovering how frustrating it can be.
If it is tedious for a company of the size and sophistication of Videotron, imagine what it is when you are a smaller entity.
In September 2019, Videotron announced it would offer in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue “a full line of telecommunications services, including Internet, television and IP telephone service” by the end of 2019. But, to do so the company had to ride on Cablevision’s network as…
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By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — In the last six hours of its licence, CJMS 1040 AM program director Jocelyn Benoit hosted a special show reminiscing about the station’s 21-year history, interviewing various guests and playing country music hits.
Though he promised the station, based in the Montreal suburb of St-Constant, would live on as an online-only stream run personally by him, it was clear this would be more of a death than a rebirth.
A few seconds after midnight on Sept. 1, Benoit was cut off mid-sentence, and the station went dead on schedule.
Except the next morning, it was back on the…
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By Konrad von Finckenstein
IN AUGUST OF 2019, after three years of studying submissions and holding hearings the CRTC delivered a ruling on final rates for wholesale internet access, which are the rates large carriers charge their small competitors to access their networks. Up to that date, the large carriers billed resellers based on CRTC-set interim rates.
The rates released a year ago are lower than the interim rates and retroactive to 2016. Monthly capacity rates are 15% to 43% lower than the interim rates and the access rates are 3% to 77% lower than the interim rates. In addition, by…
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