By Ahmad Hathout
The head of Quebecor on Thursday excoriated the federal government’s decision to up CBC/Radio-Canada’s annual funding while not forcing it out of commercial advertising sales.
The Liberals allocated an additional $150 million to the public broadcaster’s annual appropriation, which was a pre-election commitment from Prime Minister Mark Carney, but did not push it out of those ad sales for which private television broadcasters compete.
“Regrettably, this new government has missed an opportunity to support an industry facing ever-growing challenges and job losses at an alarming rate,” Pierre Karl Peladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor, said during…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Bell’s president and CEO said Thursday that the telco is targeting the new year for the full launch of fibre-based internet service for its mobile wireless customers in western Canada.
Mirko Bibic said during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call that Bell already has a trial in Kelowna, British Columbia for fibre internet service using Telus’s network, and that the telco is targeting January for a full launch.
“We are going to do all this in a very disciplined way,” Bibic said.
During its investor day conference last month, Bell said it was launching the service this…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The Federal Court of Appeal will hear a SaskTel challenge that alleges the CRTC’s decision to mandate access its bundled fibre facilities was based on a cabinet direction that conflicts with the Telecommunications Act.
The court approved the telco’s leave to appeal application on Friday, just over a year after it was filed in September 2024.
The gist of the argument is that the CRTC allegedly preordained a decision based on what it was told by the federal government, which, through section 10 of the 2023 cabinet direction, ordered it to adopt a specific policy of…
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The CRTC last week approved an application by Vista Radio to acquire CJGY-FM Grande Prairie (Reach 96.3 FM) in Alberta and its rebroadcasting transmitters in Dawson Creek and Fort St. John, B.C., from Golden West Broadcasting.
In its decision to approve the change in ownership of the Christian music format station, the CRTC said Vista Radio had proposed a value of the transaction of $1,531,576 and had requested an exception to the payment of tangible benefits to allow all of its proposed $98,000 contribution to go to the British Columbia…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Cable companies will have to tough out the extended implementation time of the next-generation 911 networks after the CRTC rejected Monday a review-and-vary application from Rogers and Quebecor that said an extension was undue because they have to pay for two different emergency networks simultaneously until the old one is phased out.
Rogers and Quebecor filed the application in April, arguing that the CRTC’s extension by two years to fully replace the old system is unjust because no one in the proceeding asked for an extension that long and it would cost cablecos millions of…
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Being one of the major telecoms to receive funding from Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology Inc. (SWIFT) to build broadband networks in southwestern Ontario, Bell is being asked by the CRTC to respond to questions relating to a Part 1 application from consulting firm Broadlytics that requested the CRTC clarify that SWIFT-funded builds are subject to the commission’s aggregated wholesale access framework for fibre facilities.
The CRTC made its information request to Bell via a Nov. 3 letter, after the telecom giant did not intervene in the commission’s proceeding on…
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The CRTC said in a letter last Friday it is temporarily suspending the Nov. 4 implementation deadline for its new telecom service outage reporting requirements as it considers an Oct. 7 review-and-vary application jointly filed by major telecoms Rogers, Bell, Telus, Eastlink, Cogeco, Quebecor and SaskTel.
The group has requested changes be made to the new outage reporting requirements to address operational challenges and to reduce the administrative burden on them, while also asking the CRTC to extend the implementation deadline.
The CRTC is granting an extension,…
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The CRTC in an Oct. 30 letter has asked Bell and Telus to provide information in response to allegations of tariff violations the companies may have committed contrary to the commission’s wholesale fibre access regulatory policy.
It isn’t clear who complained against whom initially, but the telecom regulator gave Bell and Telus until Oct. 31 to provide copies of all communications between the two companies relating to any dispute involving the provision of wholesale high-speed access (HSA) fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) services at speeds of 1.5 Gbps or higher since Oct. 1, 2025.
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC denied Friday an application by Rogers to convert its rebroadcasting transmitter into a commercial radio station because it would have an undue economic impact on the incumbent stations.
The regulator received an application from Durham Radio in January 2024 requesting a licence amendment to operate a rebroadcasting transmitter serving Vancouver, which is intended to improve and expand coverage of its CIWV-FM station within its existing licensed area.
The application triggered interest from Rogers, which sought to convert its rebroadcasting transmitter, CKKS-FM-2 Vancouver, into a standalone station. The media giant argued that the reach of the new station…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The head of Cogeco said Thursday that the internet resale policy has not impacted the company’s ability to grow as a reseller nor has it turned customers off its brand.
“At a higher level, internet resale in Canada between the different players is a fact of life and it’s been a fact of life for quite some time,” said President and CEO Frederic Perron during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call Thursday. “Two of the big three that we don’t already compete with on an infrastructure basis are already reselling our network in Quebec and Ontario and have…
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