NEW LISKEARD, Ont. – As the provision of rural broadband has been the focus of an ongoing CRTC hearing, one of the companies which faced the CRTC last week today announced the launch of its new wireless network for Northern Ontario.
By early December, mobile customers along the Highway 11, 101, 65 and 66 corridors in Northern Ontario will be able to get on a brand new HSPA+ 3G network thanks to NorthernTel, a division of Bell Aliant. The company will switch on the High Speed Packet Access (HSPA+) network that is being built out across Canada by Bell…
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OTTAWA – The dichotomy of the old and new media was clearly on display at a Parliamentary committee hearing last week. The Canadian music lobby faced off against a new media consulting firm at the Heritage committee which is studying the challenges and opportunities arising from emerging and digital media.
The Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA) and the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC) told the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that the more money is needed to support Canadian artists (something talked about today in the House of Commons as the latest re-write of the Copyright Act, Bill C-32, has…
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TORONTO and LOS ANGELES – E! Entertainment Television will return to Canadian airwaves this month thanks to a partnership between CTV and Comcast International Media Group (CIMG).
The companies said Monday that CTV’s Star! channel will be rebranded as the new Canadian E! channel beginning November 29. Dedicated exclusively to all aspects of the entertainment industry, E! will immediately be available in more than 6.2 million Canadian households.
“E! is a specialty brand for a specialty service. It’s a hot network that has seen dramatic year-over-year ratings growth,” said Susanne Boyce, president of creative, content and channels for CTV, in the…
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TIMMINS – It became clear through the first day of the CRTC’s obligation to serve hearing that commissioners would like to set some sort of speed target for service providers to hit when it comes to providing broadband for rural Canadians.
Both chairman Konrad von Finckenstein and vice-chair telecom Len Katz repeatedly asked executives with Bell Aliant, Barrett Xplore and Northwestel if they would accept some sort of megabits per second speed target to come out of this proceeding.
All were reluctant.
While government and the industry has tended to define a base of 1.5 Mbps as “broadband”, most recognize that just…
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TIMMINS – It’s hard to disagree with Northwestel’s assertion that when it comes to telecom operations, it is like no other.
The Bell Canada-owned company’s networks cover about 115,000 people spread across 40% of Canada’s total land mass – or four million square kilometres.
To say “there are important differences between the environment and the provision of telecommunications services in the far north as compared to the rest of Canada,” as the company’s president and CEO, Paul Flaherty told the CRTC Tuesday morning in Timmins, is quite an understatement.
Flaherty appeared in front of commissioners during day one of the Regulator’s obligation…
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TIMMINS – On Wednesday everyone, save one company, told the CRTC that adding broadband delivery to the telecom industry’s basic service objective is something that the Commission must do.
And a few even said nevermind those paltry 3-4 Mbps goals, we need to aim at 10, at least (but we’ll get to that in a bit).
MTS Allstream, as we detailed here, not only said the CRTC should make broadband a BSO, but even tied a number, $7 billion over 10 years, which would pay for broadband to every single Canadian household – because letting market forces take care of…
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TORONTO – Canada’s telco TV providers say that they are getting better and better at eating their cable competitors’ lunch, so to speak. And, they have no intention of easing up any time soon.
Bell Aliant, MTS, SaskTel and Telus met with broadcasters and content providers this week in Toronto to chat about their successes and plans for the future. And, they introduced a new member of their informal consortium, TbayTel, who recently began offering digital TV in Thunder Bay, ON.
The majority of the telcos extolled the virtues of their Microsoft Mediaroom platform, particularly how it allows them to offer functionality…
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TORONTO and CALGARY – After decades as one of the leading Canadian media companies, the name Canwest will fade into the history books, replaced by Shaw Media.
After Shaw Communications assumed full ownership of Canwest Global’s TV assets on Wednesday, the company unveiled its new broadcasting group – to be known as Shaw Media – plus its new branding and management team.
"The Asper family built a broadcasting organization which served our country well. We look forward, under our stewardship, to strengthening these important assets for the benefit of all Canadians", said JR Shaw, executive chair and founder of Shaw Communications.
"Today…
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TIMMINS – MTS Allstream dropped a number, a big one, onto the CRTC’s lap this morning as to what it would cost to serve the remaining 5% of Canadians who can’t get access to broadband because of their remote locations.
Seven billion dollars. More specifically, $700 million spent per year over 10 years.
MTS executives faced the Commission Wednesday morning in Timmins at the CRTC hearing into the telecom industry’s “obligation to serve” and offered a much different opinion than some of its incumbent telco counterparts who said yesterday that the market can take care of getting broadband to the…
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TIMMINS – Bell Aliant’s service areas are, quite literally, all over the map of eastern Canada.
From the tip-top of Quebec to southwestern Ontario, the westernmost regions of Ontario to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland & Labrador. It provides fully half of all high-cost serving area customers in Canada.
And while the wheels are rolling towards where it will be re-incorporated inside of Bell Canada, “our company is at a crossroads,” said Denis Henry, vice-president of legal, regulatory and governmental affairs to the CRTC during the opening morning of the Obligation to Serve hearing (CRTC 2010-43). “(W)e face declining…
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