OTTAWA – The CRTC rejected Monday an application by Quebecor to force the legacy telephone companies to refund amounts collected and impose a pay-per-use system as they work to fully implement the next-generation 911 network.
Quebecor said in the application filed in December that it’s not fair for providers like itself to simultaneously pay for both the existing 911 and future next-generation network – which will include the capacity to handle audiovisual information from distressed callers. It asked the CRTC to refund the fees paid toward the NG 911 network development – expected to fully replace the…
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Cogeco hopes for mobile wireless launch by this time next year
By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri said Tuesday that Freedom’s competitive mobile wireless offers ahead of the back-to-school season didn’t have a “material impact” on its market share in Ontario.
“They launched a few, I would say, price points didn’t have a material impact on the market, frankly,” Staffieri said during the BMO telecom conference.
“So one of the things we’ve gotten a lot better at is to let the competition do their thing, we’ll do our…
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Quebecor CEO asks, ‘Should we be surprised…?’
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Bell has sent a letter to the Federal Court of Appeal backing Rogers’s appeal of the CRTC’s decision to choose Quebecor’s price to access the cable company’s national wireless network.
“The proposed appeal raises crucial issues relating to the ‘just and reasonable’ standard pursuant to which the CRTC sets the rates for a wide range of regulated telecommunications services, including the facilities-based MVNO access service mandated by the CRTC in 2021,” Bell, which isn’t a party to the matter, said in a letter dated August 31.
“These issues include the ability…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has denied Tuesday an application requesting that the regulator increase the price of the basic television package from $25 to $28 per month and to index the price to inflation.
The application, filed by Bell, Cogeco, Eastlink and SaskTel, was denied on the basis that there was insufficient evidence provided to suggest that the $25 price was no longer economically viable for the providers, the regulator said, noting the “strength of the BDU industry.”
Ironically, the CRTC argued inflation actually provides more justification for a price cap on the cost of the mandatory carriage package because consumers…
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By Connie Thiessen
The CRTC is immediately lifting advertising time limit requirements for discretionary television services to position them to better compete with online platforms.
The move is in response to a 2020 application from Quebecor Media, on behalf of TVA Group, asking for the removal of the advertising time limit of 12 minutes per clock hour on its discretionary services. The commission moved to lift time limits for conventional services in 2007.
TVA argued that with only discretionary services subject to an advertising time limit, foreign online platforms are unduly benefitting as they capture a growing share of advertising revenues. TVA’s…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC approved an application by Natyf TV forcing broadcasters in Quebec to carry its channel on basic TV packages for five years.
The regulator approved a monthly wholesale cost per subscriber to carry the channel of 12 cents for the term, which will run from September 1 this year to August 31, 2028.
The channel, owned by Melkisedek Media Inc., caters to Francophone “racialized” communities in the province, “with the aim of reflecting those communities’ interests and encouraging a new group of Francophone creators from ethnocultural communities,” the CRTC said. The programming is entirely broadcast in French and…
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OTTAWA – TerreStar this week filed a review and vary application challenging the CRTC’s decision in June to deny its application to reduce its regulatory fee obligations by deducting its spectrum leasing revenues.
The regulator had rejected the Montreal-based mobile satellite and cell services provider’s argument that the revenues generated from the sale or leasing of spectrum did not qualify as a telecommunications-related expense, which would have reduced its obligation to the National Contribution Fund. The NCF goes to fund broadband infrastructure in the country.
TerreStar argues that the CRTC made a decision that is inconsistent with previous…
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Iristel urges PM to do something about withheld CRA funds affecting its response
By Ahmad Hathout
YELLOWKNIFE, NWT – Wildfires ravaging parts of the Northwest Territories are causing widespread devastation to homes, families and telecommunications networks, forcing operators to install backup systems and carefully enter repair territory as critical infrastructure burns.
Cartt asked some of the primary providers in the region to provide their perspectives on how they’re dealing with the wildfires that have burned many millions of hectares of land. It is Canada’s worst wildfire season ever, with more fires expected to come this fall.
Bell subsidiary Northwestel told us the company…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC last week launched the second phase of its implementation of the Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11), calling for comments on the Commission’s proposed new broadcasting fees regulations, which would apply to broadcasters and online streaming platforms alike.
“The amended Act broadens the pool of potential feepayers from licensed broadcasting undertakings to all broadcasting undertakings, including online undertakings (undertakings ‘for the transmission or retransmission of programs over the Internet’), a newly defined class of undertakings in the amended Act. It also eliminates some of the fees paid by broadcasting undertakings…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Electricity Canada said in a filing to the nation’s highest court this month that Parliament’s refusal to amend “transmission line” under the Telecommunications Act is evidence of its belief that it does not foresee an obstacle for telecoms getting wireless access to municipal structures without CRTC jurisdiction.
Electricity Canada is opposing a Telus application for the Supreme Court of Canada to hear its argument that a lower court erred when it upheld the CRTC’s decision to decline to regulate wireless attachments on municipal structures on the basis it does not have jurisdiction. The…
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