TORONTO – Rogers received 113,655 requests for customer data from federal agencies in 2014, down more than 61,000 from nearly 175,000 requests in 2013, the company disclosed Thursday in its second Transparency Report.
Rogers credited the decrease in requests to modifications that it made to its disclosure policy last June requiring a court order, warrant or equivalent (except in emergencies) for all requests. The company said that it made those changes in response to customer concerns and after further review of the Supreme Court ruling in the case of R v Spencer.
The report says that Rogers fully complies…
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TORONTO – After offering up a free two year Spotify Premium subscription last week, Fido threw its wireless customers another bone Tuesday with new plans that include exclusive content from Vice Canada.
The new plans, known as Fido Pulse, include a news and culture service called the Daily Vice available at 8:00 AM ET Monday-Friday in English and French. Daily Vice will also dedicate an episode every Saturday to an in-depth interview with one of Canada’s top news or cultural figures.
The first episode of Daily Vice aired Tuesday and featured a sit-down interview between Vice founder Shane Smith and Liberal Party Leader…
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DENVER and TORONTO – Just in time for spring, World Fishing Network will be available on a free preview to cable, satellite and telco subscribers in North America for the month of April and into early May.
Dedicated to the angling lifestyle, the network’s programming includes instruction, tips, travel, tournaments, cooking, boating and outdoor recreation with some of the most recognized personalities in the angling community. Starting April 4, World Fishing Network will begin airing 21 new and returning shows with new episodes, including original productions JP DeRose Breaking Boundaries, Bill Boyce’s Cali and Hookin’ Up with Mariko Izumi, along…
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OTTAWA – Canadians’ complaints over their telecom and Internet services continue to fall, but breaches of the country’s Wireless Code of Conduct are on the rise now that more Canadians fall under it, says the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS).
In its first ever mid-year report released Thursday, the CCTS said it accepted 5,468 complaints between August 1, 2014 and January 31, 2015, down 8.5% from the same period a year earlier. Last year’s annual report showed a 17% year-over-year drop in complaints.
The report says that billing errors continue to be the most commonly raised issue…
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TORONTO – Rogers has turned on Voice over LTE (VoLTE) across Canada, giving customers with a VoLTE device clear, natural sounding voice and video calls that also connect faster.
The VoLTE technology platform allows users with a compatible phone to place and receive calls over the Rogers LTE network instead of the traditional voice network. Before VoLTE, only data was transmitted over the LTE network, and voice calls were carried over the HSPA network.
Starting today, Rogers customers will be able to experience VoLTE on the LG G3 Vigor, Canada's first VoLTE-enabled device, and the company said that more VoLTE-ready…
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SEATTLE and TORONTO – Popular online video publishing and video management solutions provider thePlatform is providing the back-end video management for Rogers’ and Shaw’s subscription video-on-demand service shomi.
An independent subsidiary of Comcast, thePlatform’s cloud-based mpx video management system provides several back-end functions for shomi. Specifically, mpx provides easy workflow management of video ingest; metadata management; subscriber management and viewing rights enforcement; and automated publishing across device and video player profiles, says a press release the company put out this morning.
“Shomi has raised the bar for multiscreen video entertainment for Canadian viewers,” said Marty Roberts, co-CEO of thePlatform,…
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TORONTO – Rogers is offering its Fido wireless customers a free 24-month premium subscription to music streaming service Spotify.
The company said Monday that the exclusive agreement will allow Fido customers to choose from over 30 million songs to stream to their wireless device, ad-free with unlimited skips, plus the ability to download and listen to the tunes offline.
The announcement was short on specifics, however, other than advising customers to “stay tuned” for more updates on how to start streaming Spotify Premium with their wireless plans.
"We know our customers love to stream music and Spotify is the obvious choice for us," said…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s publicly traded television service providers combined lost a record 65,000 TV subscribers in their respective 2014 fiscal years (November 30/December 31, 2013 to November 30/December 31, 2014), up sharply from just a few hundred lost in their 2013 fiscal years, according to a new report released today
New research from Ottawa-based research and consulting firm Boon Dog Professional Services also shows that the publicly traded TV service providers lost 21,380 TV subscribers combined in their 2014 fiscal fourth quarters, almost double the 11,323 lost in the same periods in 2013.
“The trend continues to show the…
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GATINEAU – There are always some interesting figures which emerge with the publishing of the annual aggregate returns of the large carriers and broadcasters by the CRTC.
Below are a few highlights from the data filed by Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV companies (we’ll look at the conventional TV, pay and specialty and radio numbers later) for the broadcast year ended August 31, 2014.
Of the subscriber losses suffered by the large, established TV carriers (cable and satellite brands Rogers Cable, Shaw Cable, Shaw Direct, Videotron, Bell Satellite TV, Cogeco Cable and Eastlink) almost all went to…
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TORONTO – Alek Krstajic has been named the new CEO of Wind Mobile, and founder Anthony Lacavera is stepping away from the company’s day-to-day operations to take on the role of honorary chairman, the company announced Monday.
Krstajic replaces former CEO Pietro Cordova who “has transitioned away” to rejoin the Vimpelcom group, according to the announcement. No stranger to the Canadian wireless industry, Krstajic was founder and CEO of fellow new wireless entrant Public Mobile, bought by Telus in 2013, plus was previously president of Bell Mobility and SVP at Rogers Cable.
"We are very happy to welcome Alek as…
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