TORONTO – Rogers is rolling out a new tool designed to save their customers time by allowing them to use their phone to track exactly when a technician will arrive for an installation or service call.
The service, called Rogers EnRoute, sends a unique URL to the customer by email or text once an appointment has been booked. On the day of the appointment, a reminder notification is sent, along with an updated ETA. Once the technician is on the way, customers may receive real-time updates by checking a map to see the technician's exact whereabouts and estimated number of minutes…
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Hint: Check your pocket
TORONTO – When Doug Bingley, CEO of Central Ontario Broadcasting, went to a Best Buy recently in search of a clock radio he was shocked to find out there are almost no more radios for sale in the country’s largest electronics retailer.
He told delegates at Thursday’s Ontario Association of Broadcasters annual one day conference at the Toronto Airport Marriott that he found extensive displays of Bluetooth speakers and other devices which wirelessly link to the smartphones or tablets or PCs of Canadians – but only two stand-alone conventional radios – off on their own in a…
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TORONTO – With more than 350 delegates, a strong group of sponsors and vendors and 21 educational sessions, the 2016 Canadian ISP Summit was the biggest edition yet.
Focused on independent ISPs like Teksavvy, Distributel, Sogetel and Execulink, the annual gathering is a place to hear war stories, get the latest and greatest in tech developments, hear marketing successes and, of course, regulatory wins and losses.
2016 has featured a few wins for the independent ISPs on the wholesale wireline front, especially (even though that still isn’t over, yet).
The final session…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has ordered Rogers Communications to allow TekSavvy Solutions to provide Internet access services to its customers at a Toronto townhouse complex.
The Commission said Wednesday that Rogers must continue to provide TekSavvy with access to its existing and new retail end-users in the complex by way of aggregated wholesale high-speed access (HSA) service provisioned over Rogers’ fibre-to-the-premises access facilities, subject to the conditions set out in its decision. Furthermore, Rogers must provide other ISP competitors with access to their existing and new customers at that complex through the same service, and subject to the same conditions set…
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TORONTO – Long-time Rogers radio personality Erin Davis said Wednesday that she is retiring from her popular morning show Erin and Darren in the Morning on Toronto’s 98.1 CHFI FM.
Davis (pictured) will return to host future specials and features on the station, but her last day on the morning show will be December 15. Details of a new co-host to join Darren B. Lamb will be announced in the coming weeks.
An Edmonton native, Davis got her start hosting an afternoon radio show on CIGL-FM while attending radio broadcasting at Loyalist College in Belleville, ON. She joined 98.1 CHFI in…
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OTTAWA – Canadians continued to cut the TV cord in record (if still pretty small) numbers since launch of a CRTC-mandated skinny basic TV package on March 1st.
In the two fiscal quarters since phase one of the Commission’s new consumer choice policy came into effect (which mandated a $25 skinny basic package of over-the-air stations and must-carry channels and the launch of smaller, theme packs of channels), Canada’s publicly traded TV service providers combined lost approximately 98,500 TV subscribers, according to new research and analysis from Ottawa-based research and consulting firm Boon Dog Professional Services.
That’s a loss of 11,500…
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TORONTO – Food lovers may gorge on Bell Media’s Gusto over the holiday season thanks to a national free preview of the food and lifestyle channel.
The exclusive home to all-new Jamie Oliver programming in Canada, programming also features cooking series from lifestyle guru Martha Stewart, including the new Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party where she cooks and entertains alongside her unlikely friend and King of Kush, Snoop Dogg. Gusto’s lineup also includes superstar British chef Lorraine Pascale in her new series Lorraine’s Fast, Fresh And Easy Food, the perfectly paired exclusive series The Wine Show, plus hours of original Canadian programming,…
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GATINEAU – Differential pricing can benefit a broad range of players in the communications market, Telus told the CRTC on the fourth day of its DPP hearing, but just don’t let the vertically integrated (VI) entities use their “unnatural incentives” to give themselves an advantage.
“Since differential pricing practices increase the size of the market, they allow both carriers and content providers to spread these fixed costs over a larger number of consumers. This process has produced, and should continue to produce, newer and better services at stable or falling prices throughout the Internet ecosystem,” said Dr. Jeffrey Eisenach, managing…
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GATINEAU – Smaller broadcasters warned the CRTC on Wednesday that it must guard against differential pricing practices because they could have a significant negative impact on their content.
The Independent Broadcast Group told the Commission Wednesday morning it has to consider potential abuses from media companies which own both content and ISPs.
Brad Danks, CEO at OUTtv, noted in his opening remarks to the IBG’s appearance in the DPP hearing that it’s pretty clear that vertically integrated (VI) media companies are able to prefer their own content in ISP distribution. In addition, once the VI’s affiliated broadcast distribution arm gets ISP…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications (RCI) has priced a US$500 million underwritten public offering of 2.90% senior notes due in 2026.
The net proceeds from the issuance of the will be approximately US$487 million and are expected to be used to repay outstanding advances under RCI's bank credit facilities and for general corporate purposes, the company said late Tuesday. The sale of the debt securities is expected to close on November 4, 2016. The debt securities will be issued by RCI and guaranteed by its wholly owned subsidiary, Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (RCCI).
Moody's Investors Service assigned a Baa1 rating to the…
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