OTTAWA – When it comes to wholesale access services, the CRTC should no longer make incumbent telephone companies share parts of their networks with competitors in the residential telephone market, recommends an independent report released Monday by the Commission.
The author of the report, competition and commercial litigation lawyer Michael Osborne, makes the recommendation for areas of the country where large cablecos are emerging as big telephone players.
In business markets, Osborne suggests the CRTC adopt an ex post regulatory approach to allow wholesale access-dependent competitors to demonstrate that mandated access must be continued, because there is less facilities-based…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Ian Scott, vice-president of government affairs at Telus, has agreed to participate, for a two year period, in an executive interchange with the Commission, the CRTC announced Friday.
Effective October 1st, Ian will become Chief Policy Advisor to the Chairman on strategic issues such as the CRTC’s role on the international scene and its new approach to regulatory convergence. Scott’s agreement with the Commission is governed by the terms of the Interchange Canada Program and the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service.
Scott had been with the Commission from 1990 to 1994, where he was…
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MONT TREMBLANT – Cogeco CEO Louis Audet said Thursday he thought it pretty improbably that Rogers Cable would want to overbuild his company’s regions of Halton, Oakville and Burlington.
He was responding to a question at the CIBC Institutional Investor Conference at the Fairmont Mont Tremblant, Quebec.
Cartt.ca broke the story last week that Rogers had applied to the CRTC to expand its cable licensed territories to include the large piece of Cogeco’s Ontario territory as well as that of Aurora Cable.
Audet doesn’t figure Rogers has any plans to completely overbuild, as it would be far too costly….
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC today approved Rogers Media’s $375 million purchase of Citytv as well as Astral Media’s Standard Broadcasting buy. A decision that took about than a month from the end of the hearings.
Rogers had proposed the acquisition of the Citytv stations in Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, which the Commission wouldn’t let CTV have when it bought the stations’ former owner, CHUM Ltd.
In its decision, the Commission is also requiring that Rogers Media sell, within the next 12 months, its two religious stations, CHNU-TV Fraser Valley and CIIT-TV Winnipeg, since maintaining these two stations would…
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VANCOUVER – On Thursday, the CRTC deregulated 35 exchanges for local business phone services in Telus regions in Alberta, B.C. and Quebec, including all major metropolitan areas.
"We welcome today’s announcement by the CRTC of deregulation of local telecommunications services for businesses in these regions. It will allow Telus to bring the full benefits of competition to these customers, providing us with the flexibility to quickly bring creative offers to the marketplace while continuing our investment in technology and innovation for the benefit of businesses across the country. We look forward to similar decisions that will enable us to…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC announced Wednesday it is giving interested parties more time to prepare their submissions for the regulatory review of broadcasting distribution.
Responding to a series of requests, the CRTC has decided to extend the deadline for the filing of comments by 10 days, to Oct. 19th, and the filing of replies to Nov. 16th. The oral public hearing will also be delayed, by one week, and will be held beginning Feb. 4, 2008 in Gatineau.
Most of the country’s cable and telephone companies, along with the Canadian Film and Television Production Association and the Canadian Conference…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has approved the transfer of Persona Communications Corp., and its subsidiary Northern Cablevision, to Bragg Communications, the parent company of EastLink, effectively doubling Bragg’s size and allowing it to extend its cable and telephony interests from the East Coast to the West.
The Commission said it did not receive any interventions against the proposed sale, and so concluded the deal “would be in the public interest”.
In its application, Persona said the sale would enable Bragg to provide broadcasting distribution services on a national basis, and thus would be able to compete effectively against larger…
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OTTAWA – New technologies. New platforms. The new consumer. New business models.
Delegates to the annual Canadian Association of Broadcasters convention will have some meaty issues to tackle when they gather in Ottawa November 4th – 6th.
The theme is “Broadcasting, Redefined”, and CAB President and CEO Glenn O’Farrell says the two-plus days of workshops and informal discussions will focus on issues of fundamental importance to Canada’s private broadcasting sector.
On the agenda: • The impact of new technologies and platforms, including broadband, the Internet, high-definition television, and digital radio; • The new consumer, whose needs and expectations are…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications Inc. says it’s “extremely disappointed” with the CRTC’s decision last week to deny its application to add USA Network to the list of eligible foreign satellite services for digital distribution, as Cartt.ca reported last week.
“The CRTC is continuing on a path of protectionism for the benefit of certain Canadian programmers at the expense of Canadian television customers,” said Peter Bissonnette, President of Shaw Communications.
“Shaw strongly believes that Canadians deserve access to the best national and international sources of programming – that is what the Broadcasting Act promises,” he said in a statement.
In…
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MONT TREMBLANT – When Cogeco Cable began rolling out video on demand about five years ago, “we thought we were building a virtual video store,” says the company’s director of affiliate relations JP Caveen.
Not any more, of course. VOD has moved leaps and bounds away from that.
Caveen was part of a video on demand panel organized by CTAM Canada held Monday afternoon during the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance 14th annual general meeting that included a programmer, an aggregator and three operators.
They were there to share their success stories and challenges with the independent cable companies who…
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