INDUSTRY MINISTER JAMES MOORE has fair sized reservoir of stamina. After two full days of going west to east talking wireless with just about everyone who’ll ask for his time – and with three days of that still lying ahead – he sounded fresh and combative when it was our turn Tuesday afternoon to talk with him.
For readers not vacationing incommunicado for the past two months, Minister Moore has taken this week to tour the country to talk up the federal government’s wireless policies in the face of an all-out onslaught of sustained criticism from…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – A survey released Wednesday morning by Nanos Research, commissioned by Telus and Bell, says a clear majority of Canadians (81%) believe that neither foreign? nor Canadian-?owned telecommunications companies should be favoured in the upcoming 700 MHz wireless spectrum auction.
“If the government were to create an advantage in the marketplace in any industry, respondents prefer that the government favour Canadian (70%) over foreign?owned companies. Only 2% prefer that foreign?owned companies be given an advantage,” reads the Nanos press release.
Respondents are clearly more likely to think that Canadian companies would do a better job at creating jobs, investing and…
Continue Reading
MARKHAM, ON – Raj Shoan, Ontario Commissioner at the CRTC, will be the luncheon keynote speaker at Connection 2013, the Ontario Association of Broadcasters announced Friday.
Shoan was appointed to the Ontario Commissioner position in June and has broad public and private sector experience in communications law and regulatory affairs.
He previously served as the CBC/Radio Canada's director of regulatory affairs, where he led the Corp's…
Continue Reading
IN WHAT APPEARS TO be a big blow to the federal government’s plans to entice outside investors into Canada in order to be a fourth national wireless carrier, American wireless company Verizon has apparently pulled the plug on buying Wind Mobile or Mobilicity, reports the Globe and Mail.
The report, citing anonymous sources, says Verizon has – for now – decided to set aside any attempted purchase of the two companies, both of which have been for sale for months, until after the January 2014 auction of 700 MHz spectrum.
The report says Verizon will now decide…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Some Bay Street telecom analysts believe that Verizon’s decision to walk away (for now at least) from purchasing Wind or Mobilicity is a negotiating tactic and not a signal it has decided to shelve a move into the Canadian wireless market.
As reported by the Globe and Mail Wednesday night (and re-reported by us and everyone else), unnamed sources have told the newspaper that Verizon has decided not to push ahead with a purchase of the two struggling wireless companies after all. (Ed note: It’s worth observing that the original stories saying Verizon has…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Industry Minister James Moore took the Big Three to task in a new statement posted to his website Tuesday evening, calling the telcos’ PR campaign pressing Ottawa to change its wireless policy a “dishonest attempt” to sway public opinion through “misleading campaigns.”
“I think Canadians know very well what is at stake and they know dishonest attempts to skew debates via misleading campaigns when they see them,” Moore said in his online statement.
Moore’s open letter was in response to criticisms of the government’s “handling of the Verizon file” levelled by…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – New research released today reveals that, while overall numbers are still small, the phenomenon known as “cord-cutting” is showing signs of accelerating in the Canadian TV market.
What’s become known as “cord-cutting” in the TV industry and beyond is when subscription television subscribers decide to eliminate their TV service altogether (in favour of internet viewing or free over-the-air or a combination of the two).
Canada’s publicly traded television service providers1 (cable, satellite, and telephone companies) lost an estimated 19,624 TV subscribers (see chart below) combined in the second quarter of 2013 (February/March to May/June 2013), according to new research…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – While acknowledging any changes to the 700 MHz wireless auction rules at this stage are “a long shot,” telecommunications and cable analyst Jeff Fan of Scotia Capital still believes that the chances of Verizon coming to the Canadian market are less than 50%.
Simply put, there doesn’t seem to be enough of a return on what would be about a $2.7 billion investment available to the big American cellco, were it to buy Wind Canada and purchase spectrum in the auction, as has been rumoured, plus other costs.
In a research note to investors on Monday, Fan provided an…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Thirty industry experts are on the roster of seminar speakers at this year’s Canadian Wireless Tradeshow being held September 25-26 at the Toronto Congress Centre.
Speakers at Canada’s biggest B2B tech, telecom, and wireless networking event include Rob Auld and Sachin Mahajan, national sales director and M2M director, respectively, from Telus. BlackBerry developer Manny Elawar will provide an introduction to development on the BlackBerry 10 smartphone. Richard Trinder, Google’s head of industry for the tech sector, will talk about today’s wireless shopper.
The complete list of speakers can be viewed here.
Continue Reading
THURSDAY SAW THE continued condemnation of the federal government’s wireless policies by three of the country’s telecom executives as they reported their quarterly results.
Each of Quebecor CEO Robert Dépatie, BCE CEO George Cope and Telus CEO Darren Entwistle used their second quarter 2013 conference calls with financial analysts to take additional public shots at the federal government, whose 700 MHz auction rules coupled with altered AWS spectrum transfer conditions seem poised to give American cellco Verizon an easy, cheap way into the Canadian market. That assumes reports that the American company hopes to purchase Wind Canada are true and…
Continue Reading
