TORONTO and MONTREAL — Rogers and Videotron announced Monday that they have closed their respective purchases of Shaw and Freedom, after the innovation minister blessed the mega-merger on Friday.
The parties agreed to a deadline of April 7 to close following the go-ahead decision by Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne on Friday that put commitments from the companies into legally-binding contracts for a period of 10 years. Those commitments include billions of dollars in investments from Rogers and Videotron providing lower prices compared to the large players outside of Quebec.
“This is a momentous day for our customers, who…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The CRTC has sent a letter to Rogers and Bell on Thursday asking them to lay out what off-tariff wholesale internet access agreements they have with competitors.
The request for information includes details of a proposed arrangement that would see Rogers give Videotron access to its broadband network at favourable wholesale rates to win over regulators in its pursuit of Shaw.
The request is part of the CRTC’s evaluation of an application filed by TekSavvy, which alleges that Rogers and Bell are engaging in agreements that are disadvantaging competitors who don’t get similar rates…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC ruled Thursday that Rogers gave itself and its own sports channels an unfair preference by refusal to carry for broadcasting Timeless’s OneSoccer.
Timeless first brought the complaint last summer that alleged Rogers refused to carry OneSoccer because it was concerned about competition with its own Sportsnet channels. Rogers said it refused to carry the channel because it allegedly had limited appeal to viewers. Telus, which has carried the channel since 2021, urged the commission to investigate the matter.
The regulator ruled Thursday that OneSoccer is a comparable service to the sports channels of…
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By Ahmad Hathout
MONTREAL – Just over a week before the transaction deadline, Rogers president and CEO Tony Staffieri said Tuesday that the company believes Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne has all the information he needs to make a decision on the company’s proposed purchase of Shaw.
Two weeks ago, Staffieri said at a Scotiabank event that the minister had been asking the company to provide additional information about the transaction and said the company has been actively providing material to the minister, who holds the final say in whether to allow the transfer of Shaw’s Freedom to Videotron required to…
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Buying smaller ISPs “a strategy” for getting to 100% coverage, Rogers CEO says
By Ahmad Hathout
Note: This story has been updated with comments from Bell CEO Mirko Bibic.
TORONTO – Rogers president and CEO Tony Staffieri said Tuesday that the delay in getting approval for the company’s proposed acquisition of Shaw has allowed it to refine its strategy as a consolidated entity.
“While we’re disappointed with the delay…what the time has allowed us to do is solidify our integration plans while at the same time – over the last year and a bit – we went through a bit of our own…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Rogers has told the CRTC that there is no undue preference given to Videotron in its proposed wholesale access agreement.
The Toronto-based company was responding last week to a Part 1 application by independent internet service provider TekSavvy, which is accusing Rogers and Bell of providing to certain competitors preferable network access rates compared to others, who must follow the costs regulated by the CRTC – called off-tariff agreements (OTA).
But in response, Rogers challenged TekSavvy’s knowledge of its deal with Videotron, which has so far been hidden from public view.
“The rates in the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The CRTC has put out a contract notice Thursday for a consultancy firm that will assist in analyzing the network outage at Rogers last summer and improvements the company has committed to going forward.
The July 8 network blackout brought down critical services for millions of Canadians, including government, banking and emergency services in some cases.
This week, the regulator announced the launch of the first of a number of proceedings on telecom network resiliency, the first of which will include mandatory notification requirements on all service providers when outages like these happen. As…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The CRTC is asking Rogers if it would like to withdraw or amend an application related to a years-long dispute involving its access to New Brunswick poles, following the commission’s decision establishing concrete timelines for access to those support structures.
In the summer of 2020, the cable company filed a Part 1 application asking the CRTC to intervene in a dispute in which it alleged that Bell was delaying providing access to parts of the pole it co-owns with the utility, NB Power. Rogers alleged Bell was playing a “gatekeeper role” over access, which it…
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TORONTO – Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor have once again agreed Friday to delay the date of their respective transactions, as the previous deadline has come and after the innovation minister said this week he isn’t close to making a decision on the transfers.
The outside closing date has been pushed back several times for the deals involving the transfer of Freedom to Videotron and then Shaw to Rogers. It was previously January 31, then it was pushed to February 17, and now the parties are hoping that the minister makes a decision by March 31, which is the date…
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Company also said it is confident it will compete against fourth player in Videotron
By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – Rogers executives said the company expects network resiliency to be a more important factor than price in driving up new subscribers going forward.
The company is coming off a network outage last summer that paralyzed the country, impacting critical institutions like government and banking. The fallout of the outage put a spotlight on the importance of network resiliency and redundance and spawned a commitment from the large carrier to physically separate its mobile and wireline networks and invest $20 billion…
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