Part VI in our series on rewriting the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts
TODAY’S COMMUNICATIONS WORLD is marked by a few large, vertically integrated companies offering Internet access, broadcasting, telecommunications and wireless services. These firms have considerable control over who has access to their networks and what content is available over their respective pipes.
This means governments and regulators must ensure smaller independent competitors have access to these networks and to make this access as competitively neutral as possible. Even more, the big owners of those networks shouldn’t be able to favour some content over others. This, in a nutshell, is net…
Continue Reading
6e partie dans notre série sur la révision des Lois sur la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications
LE MONDE DES communications d’aujourd’hui est dominé par quelques grandes entreprises intégrées verticalement qui offrent de l’accès à l’Internet, de la radiodiffusion, des télécommunications et des services sans-fil. Ces firmes exercent un contrôle considérable sur qui a accès à leurs réseaux et quel contenu est disponible sur leurs réseaux respectifs.
Cela veut dire que les gouvernements et les régulateurs doivent s’assurer que les petits concurrents indépendants aient accès à ces réseaux et s’assurer que cet accès soit aussi neutre que possible. De plus, les grands…
Continue Reading
5e partie dans notre série sur la révision des Lois sur la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications. Une entrevue exclusive
EN 1999 LORSQUE PIERRE Karl Péladeau était le PDG de la plus grande imprimerie au monde et un important propriétaire de journaux, il ne connaissait sans doute pas l'ordonnance d'exemption relative aux nouveaux médias (OERNM) du CRTC, rendue publique cette année-là. Et pourquoi aurait-il été préoccupé?
À cette époque, les téléphones cellulaires étaient encore un nouveau phénomène utilisé que pour faire des appels téléphoniques et qu’une personne sur cinq possédait.* Tout le monde regardait la télévision grâce à des oreilles de lapin ou au…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – EnStream is offering more services that use real-time mobile network and account information to protect and confirm a consumer's online identity.
The mobile commerce joint venture company owned by Bell, Rogers and Telus said that the new services include enhanced analytics for name and address matching, mobile device authentication and mobile location services covering over 90% of the Canadian market, all without requiring any pre-loaded software on mobile devices.
"Validating identity is perhaps one of the biggest challenges on the Internet today, especially with the move to mobile," said EnStream’s chief identity officer Robert Blumenthal, in the news release….
Continue Reading
Part V in our series on rewriting the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts. An exclusive interview
BACK IN 1999, WHEN Pierre Karl Péladeau was the CEO of the world’s largest printer and a significant Canadian newspaper publisher, he didn’t know or care about the CRTC’s New Media Exemption Order, released that year. Why would he?
Back then, cell phones were still-new devices that primarily just made phone calls – which only about one in five of us owned.* Everyone got their TV off-air or via cable and just over a quarter of Canadians reported a home internet connection – upon which precious…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal ruled late yesterday that a Montreal man was indeed enabling the pirating copyrighted content by making TV shows from Rogers, Bell and Quebecor available online through a website dubbed TVAddons – and that the search and seizure of evidence done in 2016 was done lawfully.
A lower court judge had originally sided with TVAddons owner Adam Lackman, but yesterday’s decision overturns that.
The appellants (Bell, Rogers and Quebecor division TVA and Vidéotron) have established “a strong prima facie case of copyright infringement for the purposes of the Anton Piller order sought, and the Judge’s…
Continue Reading
Phase one of “Total Business Transformation” had targeted just 650
CALGARY – Over the next 18 months, fully 25% of Shaw Communications’ current workforce will leave. Company president Jay Mehr says that’s a good thing.
Last month the company offered 6,500 employees the chance to move on with their careers outside of Shaw, enticing them to think hard about their futures with one of the most generous severance packages we’ve ever heard of – six months of full pay plus one month of pay for every year worked at Shaw. These are the types of buyouts companies normally save for executives.
When…
Continue Reading
THE HEADLINE WAS a typical one: “Thousands slam Bell coalition’s website blocking proposal,” said the Globe and Mail two weeks ago.
That number (4,700-plus comments from Canadians to the CRTC over the Part I proceeding begun thanks to the FairPlay Canada coalition proposal), should not matter. At all. It will of course, especially to skittish politicians, but it shouldn’t. A large count of submissions to the CRTC on this or any topic shows people are engaged, which is a good thing, but that doesn’t make them correct.
It’s the subject and the substance the arguments which are…
Continue Reading
Towards a Canadian strategy
OVER THE LAST two weeks, I’ve argued the Canadian strategy of supporting, and indeed actively pushing for, the vertical integration of our broadcasting system was a mistake, suggesting the vertically integrated companies – namely Bell, Shaw, Rogers and Quebecor – had not and will not become international distributors of content as it was presumed.
(Click here for part one and here for part two)
A reader pointed out it’s always easier to take the position of a critic – particularly in hindsight – so let’s look at the changes which…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – The CRTC this week told consumer group Public interest Advocacy Centre that there are already ample ways for customers to lodge complaints over what they feel are unfair telco sales practices and that no new public hearing is needed.
After some 2017 CBC.ca stories levelled accusations of potentially unfair, high-pressure sales tactics against Bell Canada (the CBC in January then did a similar story about Rogers Communications), PIAC last month called on the CRTC to launch a formal inquiry into the matter.
Both Bell and Rogers have vehemently denied the claims which were made by…
Continue Reading
