OTTAWA – “The Governor in Council, having considered the petitions, is satisfied that the decision does not derogate from the attainment of the objectives of the broadcasting policy for Canada," reads the Order-in-Council on the appeals to cabinet over the CRTC’s decision to grant Rogers Media a 9(1)(h) licence for its national ethnic TV channel.
The decision was made Saturday, but made public Wednesday, and there was as little explanation as possible. TLN Media, ECG, Corrcan, and ICTV, all rejected applicants, had filed appeals to cabinet over the…
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MONCTON – Rogers announced Wednesday its IPTV service, Ignite TV, is now available across New Brunswick, in English and French.
Initially an English-only service in Canada, Rogers customers can now search for their favourite content and navigate the platform in both French and English using their voice, says the company, saying it has been uniquely designed for the region as more than 500 employees across the province helped Rogers perfect voice technology in both northern and southern Acadian accents.
“We’re excited to bring Ignite TV to our New Brunswick customers in the language of their choice,” said Eric Bruno, SVP 5G,…
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Eastlink says it'll slow network spending because of CRTC. Videotron, Shaw to review network investments; estimated costs now over $300M
WHILE LARGE INCUMBENT network operators mull their legal options in the wake of last week’s CRTC decision to decrease the wholesale rates third party ISPs must pay them, three more have said the decision not only costs them millions, but will cause them to rein in network expansion, which will affect rural broadband builds.
The Commission’s decision to retroactively impose the rates with the decision that took more than three years to complete also threw…
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New mega-streamer to launch here on same day and date as U.S.
BURBANK, Calif. – The Walt Disney Company announced Monday its direct-to-consumer streaming platform Disney+ will launch in Canada and The Netherlands on November 12th, the same day as its much-anticipated U.S. launch.
It will then debut in Australia and New Zealand one week after that.
However, with the Canadian rights to certain Disney content still owned by Canadian companies, we wondered what the Disney+ offer will actually look like here, because it will be a different. Netflix subscribers and CBS All Access subscribers, for example, know the content libraries found…
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OTTAWA – Back in September 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada established ISPs were entitled to be compensated when providing copyright owners with contact information of alleged movie pirates when required by a so-called Norwich Order.
It then sent back the decision to the Federal Court to determine the amount Rogers can charge for each search.
Voltage said that $3.50 to $5 would be a reasonable cost of compliance while Rogers argued at court that $100 per hour would me more like it.
After a long examination of the process and the labor costs at Rogers, Justice Keith Boswell decided that…
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Bell to cut rural broadband rollout by 20% in response; Other carriers equally disappointed, angry
MONTREAL – Bell Canada spent the weekend crunching numbers (update: Rogers did the same) and announced today that last week’s CRTC decision to slash the rates paid by independent third party internet access (TPIA) providers – retroactively, too – will have a cost which will be paid by rural Canadians.
Bell said Monday morning it has estimated the impact of the CRTC’s decision to lower wholesale fees, retroactively, to be $100 million, and in order to pay for that, it will reduce…
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VICTORIA – Rogers Radio is bringing the JACK brand back to B.C.'s capital.
JACK 103.1 returned to Victoria today with the familiar format featuring music from a variety of genres under the “playing what we want” tagline.
The radio brand plays hits from the likes of Queen, Prince, Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Fleetwood Mac, and The Rolling Stones. Later this month, JACK 103.1 will launch its new morning show “JACK Mornings with David & Heather” co-hosted by David Larsen and Heather Backman.
In addition to his role as morning show co-host, Larsen is also JACK’s new program director. Larsen…
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GATINEAU – In a long-awaited decision, the CRTC today set final rates for wholesale access to the high speed wired networks of Bell, Cogeco, Eastlink, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw, Telus, and Vidéotron.
The process had started in May 2015 and interim decision was rendered in October 2016. That said, this is a fight that has been going on for more than a decade.
The rates released today (which are paid by independent third party ISPs like TekSavvy and Distributel) are lower than the interim rates and retroactive to 2016. The monthly capacity rates are 15% to 43% lower…
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Telus has the overall edge among the Big Three
MOBILE ANALYTICS COMPANY Opensignal this morning released its latest study of the Canadian wireless market, work which reveals some hard numbers to support the claims often made by Canadian carriers about how their networks are fast and world-class.
Let’s start with download speeds. “Opensignal recorded big surges in download speeds for all of Canada's major operators,” reads its report. “Telus and Bell both boosted their Download Speed Experience scores beyond 50 Mbps, and all three operators now provide our users with 4G Download Speeds faster than 50 Mbps. And these rapid increases…
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However, content deals are something of a struggle
TORONTO – Iristel plays in many sandboxes in Canadian telecom.
As a national voice over IP CLEC, it’s a wholesale voice and broadband data supplier (with clients such as TekSavvy, Distributel and Magic Jack). It’s a retail voice and broadband provider to residential and business customers and also a wireless provider.
However, there has been a missing component to the bundle it offers retail customers: Television. Soon, however, that missing bit will be ready for launch, as soon as it can get more content deals signed, that is.
The look and feel of Iristel TV’s…
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