MONTRÉAL and HALIFAX – BCE has tapped Dan McKeen as its new Atlantic regional leader after completing the privatization and integration of Bell Aliant into its national operations on Monday.
The former EastLink co-CEO (pictured) joined Bell Aliant in 2010 as SVP of customer solutions in charge of marketing, sales and customer contact centres. McKeen will lead Bell's Atlantic presence from the Halifax headquarters of Bell Aliant in the newly created positions of vice chair, Bell Aliant and senior vice president, Residential Services, Bell Aliant.
BCE added that the $3.95B transaction to privatize Bell Aliant has formally closed now that…
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HALIFAX – Home-grown entrepreneurial success story Eastlink is partnering with the Centre for Entrepreneurship Education and Development (CEED) to offer a helping hand to Nova Scotia entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Founded in 1971 by local entrepreneur John Bragg, Eastlink provides communications, entertainment, television and advertising services to residential, business and public sector customers in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia and Bermuda. It is one of the province’s largest employers with almost 1000 employees headquartered in Nova Scotia, and over 1,600 Canadians nationwide.
In addition to working with CEED on initiatives like specialized workshops, Eastlink will showcase CEED clients…
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HALIFAX – Eastlink is encouraging customers to cut their wires in favour of its new wireless TV service that debuted nationally on Thursday.
Building on its Maestro DVR service that launched early last year, Eastlink's wireless receiver eliminates the need for cable wire connections by extending Maestro's capabilities to up to six TVs anywhere in the home. Eastlink customers require the Maestro DVR and company's high speed Internet to receive the wireless TV service.
Eastlink Wireless TV costs $2.95 per month in addition to a $49.95 installation fee.
"The other guys have tried to convince customers that they can do things we can't. That's simply not true and never has…
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OTTAWA – Spectrum set asides, eligibility to purchase set-aside spectrum, and the band plan remain the primary sticking points for Canada’s wireless service providers in reply comments to Industry Canada’s consultation on the AWS-3 spectrum auction framework.
The country’s large wireless operators have panned many aspects of the department’s proposed approach to the AWS-3 auction. A 30 MHz set-aside that includes spectrum contiguous to previously auctioned AWS-1 spectrum gives new entrants a considerable leg up, they argue. Not only do they believe that the set aside is the wrong approach, they think if the department does indeed set…
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OTTAWA – The Recycle My Cell Student Challenge is back for a fifth year, so c’mon kids and gather up those old mobile devices.
Canadian students from kindergarten to post-secondary are challenged to recycle as many old wireless devices and accessories as possible between October 20 and November 21, 2014. The school in each province and territory that collects the most cell phones (based on school population) will be awarded $500 to be used towards a school environmental project. As a participation prize, eligible schools will receive $1 for every phone they collect and recycle through Recycle My Cell (up to a…
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OTTAWA – Bell Aliant has agreed to lease part of Ontera’s network to Eastlink in response to concerns by the Competition Bureau over the proposed sale of Ontera to Bell Aliant.
Following a recent investigation into the potential deal, the Bureau determined that the transaction would “likely substantially lessen and/or prevent competition in the sale of wireline telecommunications services in up to 16 Northern Ontario communities by providing Bell Aliant with the ability and incentive to exclude its competitors from access to high-bandwidth telecommunications transport services or raise the cost of those services”.
In light of the Bureau’s concerns, Bell Aliant…
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NEW YORK – PC Mag said that it has awarded a tie to Bell and Rogers for the title of fastest mobile network in Canada.
Its second annual test of Canadian wireless service, published Monday, the on-line magazine said that both companies “could really teach U.S. carriers how to build urban LTE networks”. With a focus on speed and reliability and its results weighted for population, the test found that Rogers' LTE network had blazing download speeds for large files, and Bell's network had superior upload speeds and often better webpage download times.
While noting that Telus appeared to have some…
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GATINEAU – The funding of big budget Canadian programming as well as the role of the U.S. TV channels in the broadcasting system were put under the microscope during the fourth day of the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV policy hearing.
Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications and Cogeco Cable warned of significant negative consequences to the Canadian system if the commission removed US 4+1s (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX + PBS) from basic cable packages. The CRTC’s proposal was certainly a bone of contention for Rogers with the company saying it would face the wrath of subscribers if these channels were removed from…
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GATINEAU – Late Wednesday evening, after the TV lights had long been turned off and almost everyone else had gone home, Corus Entertainment stated its belief that despite the myriad changes happening in the global media market, the CRTC shouldn’t really do too much to upset the Canadian apple cart.
However, if the Commission does move on a smaller, mandated basic package, which is one of the many proposals under review, Corus asked that new regs be sure to include kids programming in the lineup. Corus is a big kids content producer, of course, but the company didn’t ask that…
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GATINEAU – The biggest stir on the third day of the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV policy hearing centered on the possible inclusion of revenue earned from broadcasters’ online activities when calculating Canadian programming expenditures (CPE) Bell Canada arguing that it’s illogical, odd and added insult to injury.
“Working document item 10 concerns us greatly,” said Mirko Bibic, Bell’s executive VP and chief legal and regulatory officer, adding that the proposal on the table “would treat Canadian licensees in that space differently than the Netflixes of the world.”
That bit of the CRTC’s discussion document says: “The definition…
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