By Ahmad Hathout
Telus executives on Friday pointed to competitor aggression for dampening its average revenue per user (ARPU) on wireless, but the company said it is keeping firm on its retention strategy as it heads into the hottest quarter of the year.
The Vancouver-based telecom reported a mobile wireless ARPU of $58.85 in the third quarter, a decline of roughly $2 compared to the same period last year. The company that prides itself on customer loyalty and its historically low churn saw that rate of defection increase to 1.09 per cent from 1.03 over the same period.
The telco said this…
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Company not happy with claims it’s the aggressor on price
By Ahmad Hathout
Quebecor executives said Thursday that aggressive competitor pricing on wireline and wireless and its own immobility on price adjustments have put unnecessary pressure on its revenues in the third quarter, saying they will have to make an annual increase come December.
In response to a question about lower cable revenues despite customer gains in the third quarter, Chief Financial Officer Hugues Simard said the company is “not pleased.”
“Most of the explanation, actually, for the lower revenues has to do with us not making an annual increase for internet and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC is asking Canada’s major telecommunications service providers to explain how their employees are informing customers about the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS), after the regulatory said it found an unsatisfactory number of survey participants even knew it existed.
The regulator commissioned a survey by Nanos Research, which found only 2 per cent of participants who had an unresolved complaint were made aware of the organization by their service provider. The research was delivered in March.
“This finding is supported by consumer feedback data in the CCTS’s annual reports from 2015 to 2023, which shows…
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Quebecor’s Videotron said Wednesday that it is partnering with the Mission Unitaines to provide connectivity to six new affordable housing units in six cities for independent, low-income Quebecers aged 65 and older.
The partnership includes a $300,000 cash donation for development and $200,000 in telecommunications services for the units in Montreal, Levis, Longueuil, Terrebonne, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, and Granby. The first unit is scheduled to be open in 2026.
Videotron Business will also provide television service at preferential rates to the units, a press release said.
“Adequate, affordable housing is a basic need for many elderly Quebecers,” Quebecor head Pierre Karl Péladeau said in…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Friday set the interim rates competitors will pay large telephone companies to use their last-mile fibre network outside of Ontario and Quebec, while adjusting the existing rates for that access in those two provinces. The rates are being received with reception ranging from lukewarm to outright disappointment.
For all provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, the CRTC set Bell’s last-mile interim access rate – which competitors can lease with its middle-mile facilities – at $68.94 per month for between 3 Mbps to 1.5 Gbps and $78.03 for 1.5 Gbps to 3 Gbps. To bulk buy the…
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Telecom also wants high court to revisit bias allegations against former chair Scott
By Ahmad Hathout
TekSavvy is asking the Supreme Court of Canada this month to help define the meaning of the terms “method or technique” that were at the centre of a decision by the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) to side with the CRTC in its 2021 determination to quash lower wholesale access rates proposed two years prior.
In simple terms, this is a case about whether the CRTC must follow the rigidness of an established costing methodology to set and justify the rates competitors pay to lease internet…
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The CRTC is asking the country’s largest telecoms to answer questions as to how the decommissioning of their 3G networks will impact those still on the legacy wireless technology.
In a letter Tuesday, the commission is asking Rogers, Bell, Telus, Quebecor, SaskTel, Iristel, and TBayTel to answer a few questions by November 1.
Those questions include whether the telecoms and their flankers still operate a 3G network and whether they have 3G-only plans available in the market; whether they plan to decommission the 3G network in the next three years and, if so, when that will happen, what will happen to…
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Videotron announced Thursday the expansion of wireless services to the Gaspesie and Cote-Nord regions, as well as a strengthened presence in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region thanks to the mobile virtual network operator regime mandated by the CRTC.
Résidents of Sept-Iles, Baie-Comeau, Port-Cartier, Gaspe, Matane, Chandler, Rimouski, Amqui and Sayabec, among other areas, can now get Videotron’s wireless services.
“We are proud to bring Videotron’s exceptional service and innovative, competitively priced plans to even more Quebecers,” Pierre Karl Peladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor, said in a press release.
“As we continue expanding our telecommunications services across Canada, our commitment to fostering competition for…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The Federal Court of Appeal has granted Rogers’s application to challenge the CRTC’s decision to pick, in final offer arbitration, Quebecor’s offer to ride on the cable giant’s mobile wireless network.
The appeal court released its decision on August 16, almost exactly a year after Rogers filed an appeal disputing the July 2023 decision on the basis of an alleged lack of transparency by which the CRTC decided to select the Montreal-based company’s rate to lease wireless capacity.
Rogers has always claimed that the rate selected by the CRTC is “materially lower than…
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Videotron’s discount brand Fizz announced Thursday it has expanded into new areas of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebecor to cover 2.2 million more people.
The new areas include Whistler and Kelowna in B.C.; Lethbridge and Red Deer in Alberta; Portage and La Prairie in Manitoba; and Gaspesie, Cote-Nord and Bas-Saint-Laurent areas of Quebec. The full service area list as of Thursday is available on the Fizz website.
The expansion is made possible by agreements Videotron has with larger mobile network operators under the CRTC’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) framework.
“We are proud to expand Fizz’s service…
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