OTTAWA – An independent ISP and a big cable company are both lauding Wednesday’s CRTC’s wholesale wireline decision as a win-win.
TekSavvy Solutions hailed the ruling, saying that if implemented properly, it will allow independent competitors to take their game to the next level. Rogers Communications, on the other hand, said that the ruling levels the playing field between cablecos and the incumbent telcos.
Telecom Regulatory Policy 2015-326 determined that access to the ILECs last mile fibre facilities is an essential service and mandated access to competitors. It also ushers in a disaggregated wholesale high speed access (HSA) model…
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TORONTO – Despite an uptick in revenue, Rogers Communications saw its second quarter profits fall 10% amidst on-going losses of cable and home-phone customers.
Rogers said Thursday that operating revenue for the period ended June 30, 2015 totalled $3.40 billion, up 6% from $3.21 billion year-over-year, while net income was $363 million, down from $405 million. On an adjusted basis, net income fell to $412 million from $432 million in the second quarter of 2014.
Consolidated revenue increased 6% this quarter, reflecting revenue growth of 6% in Wireless and 23% in Media, though was virtually flat in its Cable and Business Solutions…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s largest communications companies acknowledge that high speed Internet is now critical for Canadians to participate in the digital economy, but they remain divided as to whether the basic service objective (BSO) should be amended to include broadband.
It’s already “self-evident,” according to Rogers Communications Inc., that broadband is a basic telecommunications service because Canadians require it to access government, health, education, business and entertainment services.
“High-speed broadband Internet access is a necessary prerequisite for Canadians to participate in the digital economy in a meaningful way and almost all Canadians now have access to this important service,” it writes…
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VANCOUVER – Rogers has begun activating some of the AWS-1 spectrum that it picked up from Shaw last month, announcing Thursday that wireless customers in BC and Alberta now have faster speeds and higher quality mobile video.
With this spectrum, which has been unused since 2008, Rogers said that it has doubled the speed that customers can get on its AWS LTE network in the two provinces. The full spectrum is first being activated in Calgary, Edmonton, Medicine Hat, Kelowna, Prince George, Vancouver and select other communities, with the remainder of the spectrum being activated by mid-2016.
"Today we're opening more lanes on…
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TORONTO – As the 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games moves into its final week, CBC-TV is boosting its daily coverage starting Monday, the second time it has pushed aside regular programming to show live and extended packages of the sporting event.
The broadcaster confirmed that an extra hour will be added during the weekdays, on top of the already expanded network coverage announced last week just after the games began. That boosts weekday coverage to seven hours a day, up from the scheduled five hours, plus the added weekend coverage.
The public broadcaster appeared to have been caught off-guard by the…
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OTTAWA – There is broad consensus among the smaller Internet providers, consumers groups and local governments that high speed Internet is a critical part of Canadian society and the economy. They are now telling the CRTC that it should take the steps necessary to include broadband as part of the basic service objective and find ways to ensure its rollout is funded by the industry and government.
As the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) noted in its July 14 submission to the CRTC’s review of basic telecommunications services, broadband has a “prominent influence” on Canada’s economic, social and cultural identity.
“Broadband…
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OTTAWA – Industry Canada is tripling down on the number of licences up for grabs in its auction of unassigned licences from the previous 700 MHz and AWS-3 spectrum sales. The department has decided to license the bandwidth on a Tier 4 basis as well as separate the 15+15 MHz GHI AWS-3 block into three individual 5+5 MHz licences.
This means there will be three licences available in the 700 MHz band, one for each of Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. In the AWS-3 spectrum there are now 15 licences to buy with three in each…
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TORONTO – Bell Media’s CraveTV streaming service will be available to all Canadians with an Internet connection beginning early in 2016, the company said Monday.
When it launched last December, the service was firmly tied to a paid TV service subscription. But that strategy has changed, just weeks after Rogers and Shaw-owned shomi announced that it would open up to all Canadian Internet users this summer. It was not revealed whether CraveTV would continue with its $4 per month price tag.
“As our business model has continued to evolve, the time is right to also offer CraveTV as a standalone product,”…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications could rake in more than $300 million for selling off The Shopping Channel and is allegedly actively seeking bids on the broadcast retailer.
According to a report from Reuters, Rogers began the sale process six weeks ago and is now in the second round of bids. Liberty Interactive Corporation is one of the bidders, according to a source quoted in the report, while other interested parties could include U.S. home shopping channel operators HSN Inc. and EVINE Live Inc., which runs ShopHQ, as well as private equity firms.
The Shopping Channel is part of Rogers' media…
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TORONTO – Former Bell Media exec Rick Brace has been named as the new president of Rogers’ media business unit.
Brace, pictured, succeeds Keith Pelley who has served as president of Rogers Media since 2010, and who announced in April that he was leaving the company to head up the European golf tour.
With more than 35 years of experience in the sports and media industries, Brace started his career at CBC in 1975 before going on to play a founding role at TSN when it launched in 1984, and eventually assumed the role of president from 1998 through 2000. After joining CTV in 2000,…
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