By Ahmad Hathout
GATINEAU – The CRTC’s second attempt at determining the wholesale costs of internet capacity will determine whether or not third party internet access providers can lower customer rates, if it continues to allow the big telecoms to execute on network investment decisions, or if it elicits yet more appeals.
Striking the right balance on rates for competition and network investment is not only a goal of the Regulator, but it’s a requirement under a cabinet direction from 2020. And Thursday’s upcoming decision – coupled with the CRTC’s decision to force open the big wireless networks to regional carriers…
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TORONTO — The Canada Media Fund (CMF) today released its findings from a first-of-its-kind, in-depth survey of racialized creators, organizations and production companies in Canada’s screen industry.
The survey was conducted online between December 21, 2020, and February 16, 2021, by Ipsos Research and provides a picture of the current financial and personal status of racialized stakeholders in the country’s audiovisual industry.
“Producing the first quantitative report like this is an important step for the CMF. It highlights both the inequities in the system and the barriers that prevent racialized producers from fully participating in the industry,” said CMF equity…
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Production volume for Canadian content was $2.92 billion, a 12.4% decrease
OTTAWA — For the 12-month period ending just prior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Canadian film and television production sector generated $9.32 billion in production volume, $12.24 billion in gross domestic product and created 224,500 jobs across Canada.
That’s according to a new report, released last week by the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), which provides an analysis of economic activity in Canada’s screen-based media production industry during the period between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020.
“These numbers are an important reminder of the boundless economic…
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TORONTO — The Banff World Media Festival today announced a new initiative, the International Indigenous Screen Industry Summit, which will take place Monday, June 21 via the festival’s virtual conference platform.
Timed to coincide with Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day, the Indigenous summit aims to facilitate conversation, and highlight and empower Indigenous media industry professionals from around the world. The day-long virtual event will include panels, roundtable discussions, curated networking events and two sessions with ground-breaking Indigenous creators.
The program was created with the guidance of a dedicated advisory board including: Monika Ille, CEO of APTN; Melanie Hadley, program director at…
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TORONTO — Facebook Canada announced today it has signed commercial agreements with 14 Canadian publishers to participate in the News Innovation Test, which the social media giant calls “a new initiative to help promote a healthy news ecosystem, elevate authoritative journalism, and deliver a valuable experience for people on Facebook who are interested in news.”
The 14 participating publishers (no broadcasters) are blogTO, Canada’s National Observer, The Coast, La coopérative nationale de l’information indépendente (publishers of Le Soleil, Le Droit and others), Daily Hive, Le Devoir, Discourse Media (The Discourse, IndigiNews and La Converse), FP Newspapers (Winnipeg Free Press, The…
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Says facilities-based is best
By Ken Kelley
TORONTO – When CRTC Chairperson and CEO Ian Scott looks back on all that has transpired in the last 15 months, he is especially proud of the way Canada’s ISPs rose to the unprecedented technological demands and other challenges posed by the pandemic. Speaking yesterday during a virtual event hosted by Canadian Club Toronto, Scott told Android Central’s Shruti Shekar industry players both big and small deserved a proverbial tip of the hat.
“Both large and small players navigated network management during an incredibly transformative period without a lot of disruption,” he told Shekar. “The…
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OTTAWA — Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne today announced the federal government’s decision to open the 6 GHz frequency band for licence-exempt use, making an additional 1200 MHz of spectrum available for Wi-Fi, which triples the amount currently available.
Opening up the 6 GHz band (5925-7125 MHz band) for Wi-Fi use is expected to help alleviate congestion in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands currently used by Wi-Fi devices. While Canadian wireless carriers were hoping the government would reserve the band for 5G, the move mirrors the decision made in April 2020 by the U.S….
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TORONTO — CTAM Canada announced its May “Lunch and Learn” virtual event will discuss the topic “The Changing Face of Canada – What’s your Multicultural Strategy?”
Scheduled to take place Wednesday, May 26 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. ET, the online discussion will feature Bobby Sahni (above), partner and co-founder of Ethnicity Matters, plus Liz Riemersma, vice-president of international programming at Sling TV, and Jake Dheer, community liaison at OMNI Television.
Prior to co-founding Ethnicity Matters, a multicultural marketing and advertising agency, Sahni was the head of multicultural marketing at Rogers Communications. He has earned national and international recognition for…
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KITCHENER — Calling it “the industry’s first fully integrated Wi-Fi diagnostics and troubleshooting platform”, RouteThis today launched its Resolve platform to help ISPs more easily solve their customers’ Wi-Fi-related network problems.
Kitchener, Ont.-based RouteThis specializes in remote Wi-Fi network diagnostics and troubleshooting for ISPs and smart home brands. Its remote service platform is currently used by telcos and independent ISPs in North America, Europe and Australia, including Execulink Telecom and Start.ca here in Canada, who use the platform to power their own self-serve customer apps.
With an increasing number of devices connected to home Wi-Fi networks, including not…
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MONTREAL — Telefilm Canada announced today it has invested more than $2.5 million in 143 projects from 93 companies through the inaugural round of funding for its Development Stream for Racialized Persons.
Funding for the new racialized development stream was originally budgeted at $500,000 for the fiscal year, says the organization’s press release.
“The high submission of projects to this new stream demonstrates the need for targeted access to funding for racialized communities,” said Christa Dickenson, executive director and CEO of Telefilm Canada, in the release. “Support in development is a key step in helping projects gain momentum, so an increased…
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