Not-for-profit media company Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) filed a Part 1 application with the CRTC late last month requesting that the regulator hike the rate broadcasters pay to carry its programming temporarily until the next licence renewal period in August 2026.
Broadcasters are required to carry English-language AMI’s AMI-tv and French-language AMI-tele programs, which are funded by the fees AMI is paid for that mandatory carriage under the Broadcasting Act’s 9(1)(h) rule. AMI says an overwhelming majority of the revenue of its services come from these BDU subscription fees.
However, because the cost of doing business has gone up due to…
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The Canadian telecommunications sector experienced a 3.5-per-cent increase in total revenues in 2022, similar to the 3.4-per-cent growth achieved in 2021 and a clear progression from the sector’s revenue decline in the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic year, according to the CRTC’s Communications Market Report (CMR) for calendar year 2022, released Tuesday.
Telecom revenues totalled $57.2 billion in 2022, primarily driven by the almost $1.7-billion increase in mobile revenues, which represents a 5.7-per-cent increase over 2021, according to the report. Mobile service revenues grew to $30.9 billion in 2022 from $29.2 billion in 2021. This was mostly due…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Cogeco is warning the CRTC that an application by TekSavvy requesting that the cableco be forced to maintain its coax facilities or else provide aggregated last mile fibre access so it can maintain connectivity to its customers at locations in Burlington and Windsor is offside.
TekSavvy filed the Part 1 application last month warning that its customers at those locations will lose access if Cogeco continues its migration away from older coax technology and toward fibre, alleging that the only means for the wholesaler to get fibre access from a cable company is through the disaggregated regime…
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Bell says market has ‘never been more competitive’
By Ahmad Hathout
Telus said Wednesday that it should be allowed to use the wholesale internet regime outside of its operating territory, but noted that an unfettered framework without limits will create a disincentive to invest in networks.
Telus took issue Wednesday with being labelled a national “incumbent” because it mainly operates in the west and has few facilities east of its home court, including some in Quebec.
The telco argued that it be given access to the wholesale regime in areas outside of its operating territory because that would boost competition. In contrast, it…
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Opponents say spectrum leasing serves the same purpose
By Ahmad Hathout
In an effort to maximize the use of a finite resource, Innovation Canada introduced Tuesday a long-expected policy for spectrum called access licensing, which would facilitate the migration of licenses not in use by holders toward other providers who will use them in smaller remote and indigenous territories.
The hotly debated policy will impact smaller Tier 5 areas and immediately target the 800 MHz (cellular) band, the Personal Communications Services band (1850-1910 MHz and 1930-1990 MHz), and the 900 MHz Land Mobile Radio (LMR) band. ISED said it will evaluate on…
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Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson announced Monday it has partnered with Telus to launch and optimize the Canadian telecom company’s 5G standalone (SA) network from coast to coast.
The Telus 5G SA network leverages Ericsson’s 5G Core technologies, delivered through Ericsson’s cloud-native dual-mode 5G Core solution, says an Ericsson press release.
“This network is purpose-built to power the 5G ecosystem,” Jerome Birot, vice-president of platform technology and services at Telus, said in the release. “Our new standalone network provides never-before-seen speeds and low latency to enable the next generation of 5G edge…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Eastlink is alleging that competitors using its network – who have complained to the CRTC about negligence in relation to an Eastlink network failure that affected their customers – are misrepresenting claims about the aftermath of the July outage.
City Wide, Frontier Networks, and Purple Cow Internet allege in a Part application filed last month that Eastlink disconnected their customers’ service for 24 hours starting July 3 due to an error caused by a new software update to the company’s billing system that they said incorrectly flagged all of the cableco’s third-party internet access customers as not having…
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Telecoms note spectrum cap kept prices reasonable
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Innovation Canada released the results of the 3.8 GHz spectrum auction Thursday, with Cogeco getting a piece as it prepares mobile wireless market entry and Quebecor capturing a slice for its western Canada push.
Telus took home the largest number of licences with 1430 for a price of $620 million to cover 33 million Canadians. Bell was next with a spend of $518 million for 939 licences with expected population coverage of 34.6 million Canadians. Rogers spent $475 million for 860 licences with expected population coverage of 35 million. Videotron…
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Eastlink says claims are ‘inaccurate’
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Third-party competitors using Eastlink’s network are asking the CRTC to find the cable company guilty of negligence when a network outage this summer that affected tens of thousands of Canadians allegedly caused “significant economic and reputational harm” to them.
Competitors City Wide, Frontier Networks, and Purple Cow Internet allege in the Part 1 application dated November 9 that Eastlink disconnected their customers’ service for 24 hours starting July 3 due to an error caused by a new software update to the company’s billing system that they said incorrectly flagged all of the…
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HALIFAX – Eastlink last week launched a new brand platform and updated brand look in collaboration with its new agency partner, Trampoline Branding.
“We’re really excited to work with Trampoline on the evolution of our brand, which in this phase maintains the core of our customer-centric approach while expanding our focus on flexibility for the customer,” Rob Curley, vice-president of sales and marketing at Eastlink, said in a press release.
“Our goal was to develop a brand platform that gets to the heart of why people should choose Eastlink and why it…
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