OTTAWA – Late Monday afternoon, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology heard from digital giants Facebook, Google, Spotify, as well as some interesting testimony from a fellow named Jeff Price during its mandatory review of the Copyright Act.
It appeared at first the witnesses were guarded – as if expecting fireworks, but there was little of that as the members of the committee stayed focused and stuck to the subject at hand. The words Cambridge Analytica were not heard.
The witnesses were Kevin Chan, head of public policy, Canada, for Facebook (screen-capped from ParlVu), Probir Mehta, head of global…
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“THE WORST ENEMY of a regulatory lawyer is the marketing guy,” said Willie Grieve to me during a break at a hearing once. Perplexed, as a new CRTC communications person at the time, I said, “How so?”
“At the beginning, marketing guys come to you asking: Can I do this promotion? And we always say no. So, they stop coming and I get in trouble,” he added, and he walked away.
Those were the days when incumbents telephone companies were not allowed to lower their rates, in order to give a chance to competitors, even for promotions (the bread and butter…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) is applauding new federal incentives designed to accelerate capital investment by facilities-based carriers.
The Accelerated Investment Initiative, announced earlier this week by Minister Morneau in the Fall Economic Statement, will have a positive impact not only on 5G, but on other areas of the industry which demand capital investment, including continued expansion of networks in both urban and rural areas, said CWTA president and CEO Robert Ghiz.
"Investment drives success and innovation in our industry”, said Ghiz, in a statement. “It is critical that Canada's policies support continued innovation and investment in order…
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Ethnic license now held by OMNI up for grabs next week
SECTION 9(1)(h) OF THE Broadcasting Act says the CRTC can “require any licensee who is authorized to carry on a distribution undertaking to carry, on such terms and conditions as the Commission deems appropriate, programming services specified by the Commission.”
It’s commonly known in the industry as the must-carry clause, the one applied to certain TV channels in which cable, satellite and IPTV are forced to offer in their entry packages. They include the main local broadcasters and a handful of other channels which the Regulator believes fills an “exceptional…
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But it’s no save for indy news, says Tory MP and former broadcaster
OTTAWA – While the news media are under attack from President Donald Trump’s administration in the U.S., their counterparts in Canada have found a strong ally with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.
In Wednesday’s fall economic statement, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced a multimillion-dollar investment in Canadian journalism for both producers and consumers of news.
Starting in the 2019-20 fiscal year, the federal government proposes to allocate $14.6 million over five years to help create a Francophone digital platform with French-language global broadcaster, TV5MONDE, to boost the presence of…
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TORONTO – Digital radio streaming app Radioplayer Canada has announced a prototype touchscreen radio app for dashboards designed to show how smart 'hybrid' technology can transform in-car listening.
‘Reference Radio’ displays HD Radio, FM, and Internet radio streams as a single list of stations, meaning that the driver just taps a station logo to play it, and the system automatically selects the best signal source. Voice control, podcasts and personalization will be trialled in the next phase of development.
"Reference Radio represents another major step toward an even better user experience for radio listeners," said Radioplayer Canada board chair and Rogers…
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TORONTO – CTAM Canada is seeking eight new members to join its board of directors to serve in 2019/20.
The industry association brings research, education and networking opportunities to its many members in the video content distribution business in Canada.
In order to be considered as a nominee, candidates must be must be an active CTAM Canada member; an established professional in the video content industry in Canada; commit to attending monthly board meetings (by phone, in person or by proxy); and commit to participating on at least one committee or sit on the board as a member of the executive…
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OAKVILLE – On Wednesday, November 28, provincial and territorial emergency management organizations will be issuing public test messages through Alert Ready, Canada's emergency alerting system, that will hit TVs, radios and wireless phones all around the country.
Each province and territory will issue one test message at 1:55 p.m. local time, with the exception of Quebec, where the test will occur at 2:55 p.m. local time. This will be the second live Alert Ready test this year. The first occurred during Emergency Preparedness Week in May 2018 and readers may recall there were a few glitches.
The…
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OTTAWA – The Connecting Families program which was announced in June by Navdeep Bains, Minister of Industry, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) at the Telecom Summit, in Toronto was unveiled this week.
The government is not subsidizing ISPs to provide the low-cost Internet service but is investing $13.2 million over five years to refurbish and deliver up to 50,000 computers to eligible families through the Computers for Success Canada program, as well as to develop a secure online portal through which eligible families can sign up for the initiative and access the low-cost Internet service and/or a refurbished computer.
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Receives $52M in federal, provincial funding
MONTREAL – The governments of Canada and Quebec are throwing their support behind the development of NorthStar, a new global environment information platform that aims to help humanity track our impact on Earth and its natural resources.
The NorthStar platform is being developed by Montreal-based satellite technology start-up NorthStar Earth & Space, which has now received C$52 million in additional financing from strategic partners.
Based on a 40-satellite constellation with sophisticated sensors and information delivery capability, NorthStar will enable new advances in continuous environmental management including pollution detection, charting the health of the world's oceans and…
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