OTTAWA – Existing specialty services which don’t move to high definition "on a timely basis" risk losing their genre protection, the CRTC said last week.
On Thursday, the Commission released its long-awaited framework for the licensing and distribution of HD pay and specialty services, outlining how licenses will be issued, how they will be distributed on cable and how many hours of high definition programming the new HD specialty services will have to air in order to merit carriage.
Also – an additional public notice to come up with a framework to apply to the direct to home satellite…
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OTTAWA – As CRTC chair Charles Dalfen mentioned in his speech to the Canadian Telecom Summit on Wednesday, the Commission has put out a call for comments to figure out whether or not wireless service should be factored into the local phone deregulation calculation.
When the CRTC set out its rules surrounding the deregulation of local telephone service, it did not include the so-called "wireless substitution" phenomena in the framework. Wireless substitution happens when a telephony customer abandons a wired line altogether in favour of wireless only, something Industry Minister Maxime Bernier says he has done already.
Telus CEO…
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IF RHETORIC AND HYPERBOLE were gasoline, a single spark would have razed the entire Toronto Congress Centre this week.
The speeches from Bell Canada Enterprises CEO Michael Sabia and Telus CEO Darren Entwistle at this week’s excellent Canadian Telecom Summit – as well as comments from a few others who work under them – suggest that not only are the communications of all Canadians utterly crippled by wacky regulation, but that our CRTC stands in the way of all Canuck creativity, innovation and productivity.
It’s an absurd notion, really. But it’s one much of the nation’s consumer media has…
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BANFF – The Banff World Television Festival is the place to be heard.
Although the pitch sessions, the keynote address and the behind-the-scenes deal making is a major part of the conference, it will not be what we remember most about these past few days in June.
It appears this, the 27th year of the annual conference, is where people went to make substantial announcements.
In a mere few days, we’ve seen the Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women announce the government will ask the CRTC to study the technological changes facing the broadcast industry…
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TORONTO – Fair and not-too-expensive access to the incumbent telco infrastructure must be maintained, especially in the enterprise market, for real competition to be seen, MTS Allstream CEO Pierre Blouin said in a keynote address to the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday.
"For competition and innovation to thrive in the national business market, Canada needs a regulatory environment that creates a level playing field."
He spoke prior to Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, who told conference attendees that the government was telling the CRTC to let the market decide – and that includes wholesale arrangements.
Last year, MTS Allstream paid…
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BANFF – Canadian industry execs filling the halls at the Banff World Television Festival told Cartt.ca they welcome CRTC review of conventional television and the request from the Heritage Minister Beverley Oda to study the technological changes facing the broadcast industry.
“We want a little freedom,” says Phil Lind, vice-chairman, Rogers Communications.
“We have been shackled to death with regulation over the years, and we want to break out of that somehow. We’ve got to realize that people just don’t really understand all of these arcane rules and regulations that have been developed in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s,…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Telecom Summit’s "regulatory blockbuster" session is a must-view event every year.
This year was no different as regulatory chiefs from Bell Canada (Mirko Bibic), Rogers Communications (Ken Englehart), Telus (Janet Yale), Shaw Communications (Jean Brazeau), and MTS Allstream (Chris Peirce) traded barbs for over an hour about the competitive state of the industry, and just whom is benefiting most from the current state of regulation. It was funny and terse and interesting. ("Ken Englehart’s has such a learned and scholarly style, you automoatically think what he’s saying must be true, even though it isn’t," said…
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TORONTO – Industry Canada and Heritage Canada will work together when it comes to telecom and media policy, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier said today.
Since many of those working in the telecom and cable side of the industry would like to see a more holistic approach to regulation, rather than maintaining two different silos of telecom and broadcast rules, Cartt.ca asked the Minister if he will be working with Heritage Minister Bev Oda on new combined policy directives for the CRTC, given her own new tasks she has set out for commissioners?
"Yes we are working very closely," said…
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BANFF – In her speech launching the 2006 Banff International Television Conference on Sunday, Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, announced the government will ask the CRTC to study the technological changes facing the broadcast industry and throws her support behind sustaining our public broadcaster.
“Other nations began to build the policy framework for the new digital world decades ago,” says the Minister. “Unfortunately, Canada did not.”
“Without a doubt,” she adds, “there are challenges.”
“With the arrival of new technologies, the growth of the private sector and the virtual explosion of choice on our…
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TORONTO – Providing voice over Internet is only the beginning.
A richer, fuller feature set (video, videoconferencing, seamless wireless and wireline integration and other niche services) will be what truly leads that market into profits and potential, said a panel discussion at the Canadian Telecom Summit, which began this morning at the Toronto Congress Centre.
With companies like AOL and Yahoo! and MSN and Google turning voice into some sort of free throw-away to attract more eyeballs to its clients’ ads, the traditional voice providers – as well as the newcomers such as VOIPsters Vonage and the cable companies…
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