YELLOWKNIFE – Bell subsidiary Northwestel announced Wednesday it has launched fibre internet to three more Northwest Territories communities, bringing the total number of NWT communities hooked-up with fibre to 21.
The region’s dominant provider, which also provides live and on-demand TV through its app, now provides download speeds of up to 500 Mbps and unlimited monthly data in the communities of Fort Resolution, Kakisa, and Enterprise.
“These fibre upgrades are part of Northwestel’s Every Community Project, a 3-year project to bring high speed unlimited Internet to 10,000 homes across the Northwest Territories and Yukon,” the company said in a press release.
“Northwestel…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The CRTC has issued a contract Friday for analysts and managers to assist it in managing the workload of implementing legislation that requires online streamers to contribute to Canadian content.
The regulator said it requires the ability to call upon one to eight professionals per year to support its work.
The regulator is now seeking to be able to call upon an intermediate statistical analyst, three senior statistical analysts, a junior project manager, an intermediate project manager, a senior project manager, a senior subject matter expert and a senior technical writer for its consumer, research and communications…
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OTTAWA – Bell filed Wednesday a letter of support for the Supreme Court of Canada to review a Federal Court of Appeal decision affirming that the CRTC does not have jurisdiction over wireless attachments on municipal structures.
The one-page letter supporting Telus’s application includes a copy to Rogers, Cogeco, Quebecor, Xplornet, Ice Wireless, the province of British Columbia and opponents of the argument, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Electricity Canada.
Telus filed the appeal to the high court last month, which has yet to decide if it will hear it. The Vancouver-based telecom argued that the appeal…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The spate of acquisitions by incumbents of wholesale internet service providers in recent months is not because of a difficult market or bad wholesale access rates, Bell argued in its most recent submission to the CRTC’s wholesale internet framework proceeding, which is messaging that runs counter to what competitors have been saying.
“These acquisitions were completed for a variety of reasons, including succession planning, and the sales were made at strong valuations, not because the Resellers went bankrupt, were driven out of the market or…because of ‘the broken wholesale access model,’” Bell said, in reference to…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC said Tuesday that it will be requesting confidential information from the parties in its review of the internet framework to support the Competition Bureau’s study on the state of the wireline internet market.
The commission had previously ordered already-collected confidential information be forwarded to the Competition Bureau in early June.
On Tuesday, the regulator said in a letter that the bureau requested that it “issue additional specific RFIs and order the disclosure to him of any confidential information filed in the responses to those RFIs… he be given 100 days from receipt of that…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Two public interest groups are asking the CRTC to consolidate multiple broadcaster requests of the commission to lessen their local television regulatory obligations and consider several options to tackle the issue.
The Forum for Research and Policy in Communications and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre filed an application Friday asking the regulator to bring together the seven relief applications brought forth by Bell, Corus, Rogers and Quebecor and provide one notice of consultation on them.
The groups then ask for a preparatory conference of interested participants so that the number of issues can be kept at a…
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By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – Corus CEO Doug Murphy reiterated Thursday the need for the CRTC to take immediate action on lessening Canadian content requirements ahead of the implementation of a new Broadcasting Act policy to force foreign streamers to contribute to those requirements.
Praising the death of the old Broadcasting Act and the introduction of three consultations on the implementation of the Online Streaming Act, Murphy said the CRTC needs to set its sights on the now as broadcasters are being squeezed financially.
“We continue to urge the regulator through those consultations and other forums to revisit the obligations on Canadian…
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By Konrad von Finckenstein, former chair of the CRTC
The passage of C-18 seems certain to lead to a confrontation, lengthy litigation and probable impasse between Google and Meta on one side and the federal government on the other.
One way to resolve the issue might be to borrow a page from Australia. That country enacted an Act similar to C-18, the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code Act 2021, but it only applies to companies designated by the minister. While its Act is in force, no such designation was ever made as the industry and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Bell has joined other broadcasters in requesting amendments to its Canadian content spending obligations at least until the next licence renewal period.
In a Part 1 filed this month, the broadcaster said it is seeking a reduction to its Canadian programming expenditures (CPE) from 30 per cent of previous year’s revenues to 20 per cent, a reduction from 7.5 per cent to 5 per cent of revenues for programs of national interest (PNI), and an expansion of the PNI categories to reality television, music and general entertainment in exchange for increasing their obligation from 75 per…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The Competition Bureau said in a submission to the CRTC studying the wholesale internet framework Thursday that mandating last mile fibre could have short-term price benefits but may also negatively impact investments in fibre builds.
The CRTC is seeking comments on a preliminary view it holds that third parties should have mandated access to the incumbent’s last mile fibre under the current aggregated regime, which packages the leasing of the traffic transport (middle) mile and the last mile. Under the current aggregated regime, third parties don’t have commission backing for access to the fibre going straight…
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