OTTAWA – Declining service at Aliant means that the phone company should be paying its customers millions of dollars in rebates, says the head of the telephone workers’ union in Atlantic Canada.
"Ever since the merger of the four provincial telephone companies (NBTel, IslandTel, NewTel and MTT) into Aliant, we have noticed a significant decline in customer service, particularly non business customers," said Ervan Cronk of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada in a press release today.
Customers who can prove they’ve been served poorly can make an application to the CRTC for service rebates.
"Our members…
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GATINEAU – The upcoming hearings to license four new pay TV applicants isn’t just a fight between the incumbents and the possible newcomers, says CanWest Global.
The interventions and replies surrounding the four applications were made public by the CRTC Monday and of course the incumbent pay operators, Astral Media (The Movie Network, Super Ecran) and Corus Entertainment (Movie Central) are solidly against licensing any of the new applicants.
The hearing is scheduled for October 24th.
As many already know from the re-tellings, last year, Spotlight TV, a company led by former Alliance Atlantis executive George Burger (backed…
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VANCOUVER – OMNI TV British Columbia’s first new production is The Standard, a daily prime-time current affairs television program interlaced with spirituality.
It launches Monday, September 26th at 9 p.m. PT.
Viewers of the hour-long show will learn stories from around the world, meet newsmakers up close, and discover the spiritual sides of men and women from all walks of life, and delivered from a Vancouver perspective, says the Rogers-owned broadcaster.
“The Standard grew out of a shared thirst for knowledge and the allied need for enhanced understanding of our rich cultural and spiritual diversity,” said Terry Mahoney, general…
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TORONTO – The four new pay television applications before the CRTC offer questionable customer value, will increase churn and hammer the bottom lines and the share prices of the two incumbent license-holders, says a research report published this week by investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston.
The report, entitled “A Luxury No One Can Afford,” says the four new pay services misinterpret the state of the Canadian pay system (which it characterized as “gold plated”) versus the American system and that any new applicant would find it very tough to stimulate high penetration levels.
The pay TV space in…
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GATINEAU – After a wave of complaints, the CRTC has decided to extend the deadline to respond to a Bell Canada request.
Bell Canada recently applied to the CRTC for permission to price its VOIP voice services differently in Ontario and Quebec. Current regs say that if Bell offers a low price in one of its regions, it must make that price available in all regions.
It made the application on September 2nd, and the Commission gazetted it September 9th, asking for comments from interested parties within five days.
As reported by www.cartt.ca, the Canadian Cable Television Association complained –…
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QUEBEC CITY – Thirteen months after the CRTC ruled that the controversial, market-leading CHOI-FM did not deserve to have its licence renewed and three weeks after the Federal Court of Appeal agreed, the station has hooked itself back up to the “judicial respirator”.
The station’s owners, GENEX Communications, Wednesday received the consent of the Court of Appeal to an agreement reached with the federal Attorney-General on an extension of its licence.
This allows GENEX to file an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, thus “reconnecting the judicial respirator” as Court of Appeal Justice Gilles…
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HALIFAX – Aliant announced today it will invest over $100,000 over the next three years to support wireless research and development at Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC).
The Wireless Network for Environmental Monitoring Project – sponsored by NSCC’s Applied Geomatics Research Group (AGRG) – is a major research initiative that focuses on the development of a wireless network of remote environmental monitoring stations in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia.
Aliant will contribute $25,000 per year for three years, along with over $30,000 of in-kind contributions of equipment and services in support of the project. The funding is provided…
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THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS are the most valuable, most talked about, most loved sports team in English Canada.
Launching a TV channel that’s all Leafs, all the time, was a no-brainer for team brass back in 2001. But without any games, LeafsTV left a little something to be desired, say viewers, and says executive producer and vice-president programming John Shannon (right).
That changes this season (and was supposed to last year, but for the NHL lockout) as LeafsTV will have a total of 21 Toronto Maple Leaf games – eight pre-season matchups and 13 regular season tilts – to…
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OTTAWA – With the hearings on the new pay television applicants scheduled for next month, the two major associations have weighed in with their comments.
While expressing no opinion on the merits of the applications, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters told the CRTC in its submission that since the applications force it to consider altering its policy of licensing just one Canadian specialty or pay service per genre – or in this case, per region – that a separate hearing needs to be held.
As reported by www.cartt.ca, four new applicants will face the Commission October 24th…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC last week turned down Aliant Telecom’s request for relief from the telecom win-back rules and policies against wireline promotions.
The eastern telco said that the market in Nova Scotia is plenty competitive, what with the surging cableco EastLink, which provides local telephony in most regions, and that the win-back rules (which prevent an incumbent from contacting a lost customer for an entire year) and promotional restrictions must be lifted.
The CRTC said no, saying that any determination on matters like this will take place during the hearings coming up next week (and the…
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