TORONTO – “With legal and regulatory certainty, the time for Wind on the defence is at an end. The big three no longer have the luxury of a distracted and artificially crippled new competitor,” Globalive chairman and CEO Anthony Lacavera said on the final day of the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto. “The time for Wind on offence has arrived.”
But it isn’t only the big three incumbents – Rogers, Bell and Telus – that Wind Mobile is suiting up to take on. Wind is also looking to differentiate itself from its fellow new entrants by shifting its marketing and…
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TORONTO – The emerging era of multi-screen video offers both great opportunities and daunting challenges to traditional media players and equipment suppliers, according to a panel of industry experts who spoke at the Canadian Telecom Summit here late Tuesday afternoon.
With consumer adoption of smartphones, tablets, game consoles and other web-enabled devices exploding, the four panelists agreed consumers will increasingly use three, four or more screens to view video content whenever and wherever they want.
In fact, smartphones accounted for a whopping 80% of all handsets shipped in the Canadian market in the first quarter, said Paul Bannon, vice-president of the…
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TORONTO – If there’s one thing on which all Canadian wireless players agree, it’s that more wireless spectrum is needed and needed right now.
Speaking at the Canadian Telecom Summit here on Wednesday afternoon, three wireless carriers, one public safety agency and one major technology supplier all said demand for mobile spectrum is far outstripping supply. Despite continued complaints by smaller carriers that the larger providers are hoarding unused spectrum and differences over set-aside rules, they all urged the federal government to release fresh swaths of spectrum as quickly as possible over the next couple of years.
Bruce Rodin, vice president…
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OTTAWA – Cellular-enabled broadband devices like tablets, coupled with Canada’s proliferation of smart phones, will result in mobile data traffic growth of up to thirty-fold in the next three years, according to a new study released by Industry Canada.
The Study of Future Demand for Radio Spectrum in Canada 2011-2015, conducted by Markham, ON-based Red Mobile Consulting in conjunction with PA Consulting Group, examines the demand for spectrum from 52 MHz to 38 GHz across 15 different service sectors in Canada.
Over that same time period, total consumption from voice, data and messaging in Canada is forecasted to grow…
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By Greg O’Brien
TORONTO – As a newcomer to the wireless game, Mobilicity executive chairman John Bitove offered his “different perspective” to the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday.
During his luncheon keynote, the entrepreneur, who also launched XM Satellite Radio in Canada, among other businesses, noted he paid $243 million for his wireless spectrum the same week Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 – and then proceeded to hunt for capital for a wireless build, right in the middle of the economic downturn. “You want to talk about some sleepless nights,” said Bitove.
Saying “consumers have more choice now and lower prices” since the…
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TORONTO – Chris O’Neill believes that Canadians worry too much about failing.
O’Neill, managing director of Google Canada, said failed high-tech ventures are actually a badge of honor in Silicon Valley, where Google is headquartered. Speaking in Toronto at the Canadian Telecom Summit late Monday afternoon, the native Canadian and Western University grad argued that failed ventures by entrepreneurs increase their odds of succeeding the next time around.
“Canadians view failure as something to be ashamed of,” he said. “That’s not true.”
Concerned that Canada won’t take steps to create a lasting digital economy, O’Neill rattled off statistics about the rapid growth…
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TORONTO – Telus and Rogers Communications may disagree on many things. But they both strongly favor a national consumer protection code for the telecom industry.
Echoing the call by Rogers communications divisional president Rob Bruce on Monday, Robert McFarlane, executive vice president and CFO of Telus, urged the federal government to adopt a national regulatory standard for protecting mobile phone customers. In Tuesday’s opening keynote at the Canadian Telecom Summit here, McFarlane argued that the country needs a single national code rather than “a patchwork of provincial rules” covering wireless contracts and services.
“It has been 20…
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TORONTO – Marking his first appearance at the Canadian Telecom Summit as acting chairman of the CRTC, Len Katz shared some statistical highlights from the Commission’s upcoming Communications Monitoring Report during a fireside chat with CTS 2012 co-organizer Michael Sone on Tuesday morning.
“Effectively, Canada has the most connected infrastructure probably in the world, and we have the most advanced systems,” Katz said, basing his comments on data that will be released in about a month in the CRTC’s annual Monitoring Report. According to CRTC data, 99% of Canadians now have access to high-speed Internet, he said.
As part of its…
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TORONTO – Machine to machine communications, the mobile wallet and mobile video (mmmm…) are the three most exciting opportunities on the immediate horizon for the Canadian wireless industry, but only if we get a few things done first, Rogers' communications division president Rob Bruce told the Canadian Telecom Summit this morning.
Bruce explained in his opening keynote how machine to machine (M2M) technology is transforming health care, security, government and energy, among other things. He predicted the Canadian M2M market would be providing $400 million in network revenue by 2015.
The mobile wallet, on the other hand, will alter the way…
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TORONTO – We Canadians just can’t get enough of our mobile devices and all they do for us, said Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association president and CEO Bernard Lord.
Lord (pictured below) gave the day one luncheon keynote at the Canadian Telecom Summit at the Toronto Congress Centre and since his speech laid down a long list of some pretty serious numbers from research done by Quorus Consulting, to go along with the ones CWTA commissioned from Ovum Group which we detail in another story, we thought we’d reproduce our top-ten right here, for those who missed them:
1. Canadians send…
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