STOUFFVILLE – The federal government and Ontario have announced Wednesday that Rogers will get $54 million to connect 83 underserved communities in the province.
The project is expected to provide high-speed internet access to over 20,000 homes in these communities.
The communities are: Acton, Alliston, Alton, Angus, Anten Mills, Ballinafad, Ballycroy, Barrie, Baxter, Baywood Park, Beeton, Belfountain, Bolton, Bond Head, Borden, Brown Hill, Caledon East, Caledon Village, Camilla, Campbells Cross, Cedar Mills, Cedar Valley, Cheltenham, Claremont, Coldwater, Colgan, Connor, Cookstown, Craighurst, Cundles, Elba, Elmvale, Erin, Everett, Everton, Fergus Hill Estate, Ferndale, Forest Home, Garafraxa Woods, Glencairn, Goodwood, Hillsburgh, Hillsdale, Horseshoe Valley,…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Rogers and Quebecor’s Groupe TVA have jointly filed a request asking the Federal Court to order people behind IP addresses allegedly illegally streaming live Major League Baseball games to stop and pay damages, according to court documents filed last week.
The companies, which own the exclusive Canadian broadcasting rights to the Toronto Blue Jays games, say they don’t know the people behind the operation of the addresses.
A “significant number of Canadian consumers” are turning to “unauthorized, user-friendly” websites to get access to infringing live television content, according to the complaint, including highly popular live sports. Consumers…
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Rogers announced Wednesday that its 5G wireless service is available in nine rural eastern Ontario communities previously underserved.
The cable company has completed the building of nine new wireless sites and upgraded 37 existing sites to provide.
The end result is 5G service to the following areas: Ontario County Highway 2 from Belleville to Shannonville; Southern areas of Sandbanks Provincial Park; Healey Falls to Campbellford South in Northumberland County; Archer’s Road to County Road 2 in Northumberland County; Bridgenorth in Peterborough County; Camp Kawartha in Peterborough County; Glasgow Station to ON-17 in Renfrew County; Demorestville in Prince Edward County; and Highway…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Rogers has told the CRTC that it estimates it can take a year for it to provide third party access to its fibre-to-the-home network on newer technologies, according to a tariff letter dated last week.
When the CRTC launched its review of the wholesale internet framework in March, it said it would be expediting its proceeding on mandating third party access to the last mile fibre facilities of the incumbents under the current aggregated regime to speed up the process of driving more competition and lowering prices for higher internet speeds. The aggregated…
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Rogers announced Thursday it has completed eight 5G tower builds to provide connectivity along highway 652 in rural Ontario.
The primarily wind- and solar-powered towers will provide connectivity along a 180-kilomtre stretch of the highway between Cochrane and Agnico Eagle’s Detour Lake Mine, “making travel along the highway corridor safer for residents, business travellers, and Agnico Eagle employees,” Rogers said in a press release, noting that it partnered with Agnico Eagle Mines on the builds.
Rogers also simultaneously announced the build of the first wireless tower on the land of the Taykwa Tagamou Nation.
“We are investing to expand our world-class networks…
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By Connie Thiessen
Without access to funding, Corus Entertainment says its Global television stations across the country will be left “in a precarious and unduly disadvantaged position” as Rogers Communications moves to redirect $13 million in local expression funding to its CityNews stations.
In a letter to the CRTC, dated May 10 and posted to the commission website this week, Corus requests confirmation of its eligibility to participate in the Independent Local News Fund (ILNF), funded by licensed broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs), which are required to contribute 0.3% of gross revenues from the previous broadcast year.
Corus – which is effectively controlled by the Shaw Family Living Trust – says given Rogers’s recent acquisition…
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By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – Executives from the largest telecoms said Wednesday that they are seeing more bundled services as the current and future competitive play in a post Rogers-Shaw merger market.
Doug French, Telus executive vice president and chief financial officer told TD Securities telecom analyst Vince Valentini that the Vancouver-based telecom’s strategy of driving more fibre in its footprint has enhanced the quality of its bundling strategy – the practice of reducing prices by selling more than one service, such as mobile wireless and internet.
French said that the company hasn’t seen a change in Rogers’s networks in western Canada…
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OTTAWA – The head of the Competition Bureau said Tuesday that the watchdog’s opposition to Rogers’s acquisition of Shaw was the correct move, citing high prices Canadians pay compared to international peers.
“While it didn’t go our way, I fully stand by our decision to challenge that merger,” Competition commissioner Matthew Boswell said on the second day of the International Institute of Communications conference in Ottawa.
“We put forward a responsible, evidence-based case. That is our job. We carefully scrutinized all the evidence, knowing the differing incentives of all parties,” he added.
“We fought the right fight for the right reasons and on the right principles.”
The commission’s fight…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The CRTC said in a letter late last month that it has accepted a request by Quebecor and Rogers to hear the telecoms’ dispute over the price of access to Rogers’s wireless facilities.
The regulator received the request from the companies on April 6, which outlined that the parties could not resolve their dispute. They requested an expedited process.
As part of its price exploration, the CRTC is asking for all MVNO and off-tariff agreements to which both parties have agreed. Quebecor, on behalf of Videotron and Freedom, is being asked how much volume it is expecting…
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By Ahmad Hathout
CALGARY — Dean Shaikh is Rogers’s senior vice president of regulatory affairs, moving over from Shaw after it was bought by the cable giant.
Shaikh was most recently vice president of regulatory affairs of Shaw, where he spent 17 years.
Shaikh was, before that, counsel on regulatory law for the now-defunct Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association. The lawyer was also a senior competition law officer at the Competition Bureau around the turn of the century.
Rogers has been shoring up its team as it continues the integration of Shaw into the company. Ted Woodhead, who was Rogers’s chief regulatory and government…
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