OTTAWA – Calling the wireless contracts from Rogers, Bell and Telus “anti-consumer”, Mobilicity has launched a national push for new laws that would make some of the contract terms offered by wireless carriers illegal.
Such a law already limiting wireless contracts exists in Quebec (although it’s really a larger consumer protection law that doesn’t target cell phones) and a private members’ bill on the same topic is now before the Ontario legislature.
In letters to Industry Minister Tony Clement as well as to the B.C., Alberta and Ontario provincial governments – the other provinces where Mobilicity has spectrum (consumer…
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JAY SWITZER IS ABOUT to find out if Canadians want to accept an invite into his new Hollywood Suite.
That’s the name Switzer, the former CHUM Ltd. CEO, and David Kines, another former CHUM executive (who was EP of the just-wrapped Gemini Awards) have given their new company, which is about to launch four new high definition movie channels: dubbed at their license approvals: Velocity, The Love Channel, Kiss, and Adventure.
The independent broadcaster will officially launch in the coming days, announcing key people, branding and programming, aiming at an April 2011 launch with Canadian carriers.
Switzer and…
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GATINEAU – Canada’s DTH carriers must do a far better job of carrying French-language programming in all regions of Quebec, said the Bloc Québécois, the syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada (SCRC) and the CBC, who spoke in near unison at the CRTC’s Direct-to-Home policy hearing on Wednesday.
The three groups each took their turn on November 17, calling on the Commission to force the DTH companies to carry more French-language programming than they currently do. They noted that while the various regional TVA affiliates are carried by both DTH companies, the lack of Radio-Canada carriage is disconcerting.
Bloc MP Carole…
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PITTSBURGH, PA – WESCO Distribution Inc. is buying TVC Communications for US$246.5 million, subject to certain closing adjustments.
TVC, headquartered in Annville, Pennsylvania, is a distributor of broadband communications network infrastructure products serving the cable, telecommunications and satellite industries. With annualized sales of approximately $300 million, the company operates 20 locations serving markets in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Europe.
“Our strategy of providing industry leading supply chain solutions to our global customers is being executed as we continue to expand our business through above-market organic growth and accretive acquisitions”, said WESCO president and CEO, John J….
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TORONTO – Broadcast and distribution industry veteran Darrell Atherley died Tuesday at his home in Oakville, Ont. Atherley, 59, had battled cancer since the summer of 2009.
Len Cochrane, president of Teletoon Canada Inc., and a colleague and friend for over 25 years, described Atherley “one of the great guys in our industry”.
“If you knew Darrell, you loved him”, Cochrane told Cartt.ca. “What you saw was what you got. He had the innate ability to be friends with everyone, and he had tremendous respect for everyone – he was just a classic ‘no games, no bullshit’ kind of guy. And from a BDU point of…
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TORONTO – Tony Ciciretto directed a rather unusual question to Canada’s telecom sector – why does it insist on competing in areas where it would make more sense to work together?
In a speech on Monday as part of the Toronto Board of Trade’s technology series, the president of Cogeco Data Services said that fierce competition on infrastructure development has served to turn networks into just a commodity.
“This may seem like heresy coming from a guy who runs a company that may be best known for its network, but as an industry we are over-building our network infrastructure”, Ciciretto…
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TORONTO – Wind Mobile’s complaint to the CRTC over its customers’ dropped calls due to so-called “hard handoffs” is not something the Commission needs to deal with, says Rogers Communications.
As reported by Cartt.ca, Wind wants the Commission to grant it soft handoffs so that its customers aren’t hung up on as they move beyond a Wind network zone as they talk. A hard handoff, for example, means a Wind customer call is cut off as she moves out of out of a Wind network zone into a Rogers area, which is Wind’s roaming partner. A soft, or seamless,…
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OTTAWA – Mark your calendars for the hottest place to be this February – the CMPA’s Prime Time in Ottawa 2011.
Scheduled for February 16-18 at the Westin Ottawa, the conference is a national networking event for Canada’s business leaders, decision-makers and policy experts in the television, film and interactive media production industry.
The event will kick off with predictions from world-renowned keynote speaker Richard Tercek who has been dubbed one of the “Digital Dozen” to watch in new media. Delegates will also find out how consumers are consuming content. Are Netflix and YouTube the biggest game changers in Canada? What about…
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TORONTO – Bell Canada CEO George Cope couldn’t have been more blunt or matter of fact when asked about what the auction of 700 MHz wireless spectrum, which is expected in 2012. “It has to be a wide open auction,” he said. “There can be no discussion on this.”
Cope was speaking Tuesday afternoon at the Scotia Capital 2010 Telecom and Technology conference in downtown Toronto.
Cope spoke just after both Globalive (Wind Mobile) chairman Anthony Lacavera and Public Mobile CFO Jim Hardy had addressed the very same issue – albeit with different opinions than Cope, or earlier in the…
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THE CAMPAIGN CALLING for a ban on usage-based-billing has caught the attention of Industry Minister Tony Clement, but that’s not enough for the group behind the ‘Stop the Meter’ initiative.
The SaveOurNet coalition called on Minister Clement to support an open Internet, and to request that the CRTC conduct regular audits of Internet service providers (ISPs) in order to prevent traffic shaping practices that discriminate against content or services. After the Twitter version of the petition was directed to his account, an email reply on Clement’s behalf was issued by Pamela Miller, director general of the Telecommunications Policy Branch of the federal government, to those…
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