TORONTO – Bell Media’s 24-hour news network CTV News Channel has launched a nationwide free preview, the broadcaster announced today.
The free preview is available through participating television service providers across the country, including but not limited to Bell, Bell Aliant, BellMTS, Cogeco, Eastlink, Rogers, SaskTel, and participating members of the CCSA.
Please click here for more.
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Feds say attachment costs “often prohibitively expensive”
By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – The newly-appointed board of directors of the Ontario Energy Board will oversee a review of pole attachment rates in the province, according to a mandate letter sent earlier this month, a priority assignment that is aligned with the province’s efforts to reduce equipment install costs to drive its broadband expansion goals.
Captured in just one line underneath a section on reducing regulatory burdens, the letter requires the “modernized” board to “consider pole attachment policy in the context of opportunities to better serve areas that are currently underserved.”
Ontario has the highest…
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MORE TV DISTRIBUTORS in Canada are adding CBC/Radio-Canada’s 24-hours news channels, CBC News Network and ICI RDI, to the lineup of channels available to all of their subscribers.
The public broadcaster says it is collaborating with the country’s TV distributors as Canadians face a resurgence of Covid-19. Back in mid-March at the beginning of the pandemic, many of Canada’s TV distributors made the two news channels available to their subscribers.
CBC News Network is now available to all subscribers on Bell TV, Rogers, Cogeco, Eastlink, SaskTel and others, with Telus and Shaw joining next week. In addition, as of tomorrow,…
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GATINEAU — As the CRTC continues a Review and Vary of its August 2019 order which slashed the wholesale rates third-party Internet access (TPIA) companies pay to the incumbent network owners, the Commission announced today it is approving a stay of the order’s implementation while it completes its review.
The stay was requested by Bell Canada and cable companies Cogeco, Eastlink, Rogers, Shaw and Videotron when those incumbents requested in December 2019 that the Commission review and vary its Telecom Order 2019-288 decision.
The Commission’s announcement today comes after the Federal Court of Appeal on September 10 dismissed the…
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Telus leads all global operators in download speeds
CANADA’S BIG THREE wireless operators are providing superior data speeds to their customers, better than any other operators in the world, according to the most recent wireless performance research done by Opensignal.
In fact, Telus stood head and shoulders over everyone Opensignal measures when it comes to wireless download speeds, posting the highest average overall in the world at 75.8 Mbps, with Bell coming in second at 70.6 Mbps. Rogers placed 5th at 54.7 Mbps.
Opensignal’s testing software can be found on 95.9 million devices around the world, as of June 28, 2020 and…
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Incumbents have already asked the CRTC for a stay of the rates
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – In a lengthy, thorough decision, the Federal Court of Appeal on Thursday said the CRTC’s August 2019 decision setting final wholesale rates for aggregated wholesale high-speed access services, and hundreds of millions in retroactive payments, was just fine.
The decision goes through the history of wholesale rate setting, which actually dates back to 1979. The Court outlines the details of decision CRTC 2019-288 referencing productivity factors, upstream traffic growth rates, attribution of segmentation costs, speed-banding, unrecovered costs, working fill factors (WFF), coaxial cable…
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HALIFAX, – Eastlink announced today it will present, in partnership with the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia and the Delmore Buddy Daye Learning Institute a new weekly series on its community TV channels called Black Films that Teach.
“Black Films that Teach amplifies Black voices through powerful stories that confront racial discrimination,” said Deborah Shaffner, CEO of Eastlink in the announcement. “I hope this series will help foster a deeper understanding of and appreciation for Black experiences and inspire change, particularly in these most recent troubling times.”
Featuring curated films from across the country, Black Films that Teach offers insights…
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HALIFAX — Eastlink today announced it wants to make things easier for TV customers to manage multiple streaming services and find live content through voice command with its new TV viewing experience powered by TiVo.
Eastlink TV customers who subscribe to the new service can use the TiVo voice-command remote control to access content by saying the name of a show, an actor or even a line from a movie, says the news release.
“We are so excited about the launch of our new TV experience,” said Deborah Shaffner, CEO of Eastlink, in the release. “While these past several months…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC today announced it has approved a broadcasting licence for Toon-A-Vision, the kids channel owned and operated by Dartmouth, N.S.-based Atlantic Digital Networks.
Toon-A-Vision currently operates as an exempt programming service, but with today’s CRTC decision it is now licensed as a national, English-language discretionary service. The animation channel launched in 2018 and is widely distributed on Eastlink and Bell. Earlier this year, Toon-A-Vision announced it was launching on Cogeco. Exempt specialty services have to apply for a licence once they reach 200,000 subscribers.
Toon-A-Vision has been granted a five-year licence which will expire August 31, 2025….
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Bell and cablecos argue Cabinet proves them right
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Independent and incumbent internet service providers have filed letters to the Federal Court of Appeal explaining the impact of the Federal Cabinet’s decision last weekend on the CRTC’s decision to slash wholesale internet rates and whether it should factor into the court’s ultimate decision.
On August 15, one year following the decision by the CRTC to slash wholesale internet rates, Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) said the Regulator’s decision “do not, in all instances, appropriately balance the policy objectives of the wholesale services framework” and that in…
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