TORONTO, MONTREAL and WOODSTOCK – Industry stakeholders wasted little time before commenting on Industry Minister James Moore’s spectrum announcement, with the majority expressing optimism, albeit cautiously.
Rural broadband provider Xplornet Communications said that it was “pleased and relieved” that Industry Canada and Minister Moore revised the previously proposed 3500 MHz spectrum policy, saying that the approach proves that the Minister understands the importance of 3500 MHz spectrum in providing fast and affordable high-speed Internet to rural Canadians.
“The Minister has taken a balanced approached that does no harm to the tremendous gains that have been made in the past few…
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“I BEGAN MY CAREER AT ROGERS 45 years ago, just after the 1968 Broadcasting Act was enacted and this Commission was created,” Phil Lind told CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais during the company’s appearance at September’s TV Policy Review hearing.
“Since that time, Mr. Chairman, I have had the pleasure of appearing before you and all your predecessors. I reckon I have represented Rogers at more than 100 broadcasting hearings over the past four-and-a-half decades.” That’s right, Lind has appeared before every single CRTC chairman there has ever been. His fingerprints are all over broadcasting policy in Canada.
There are very few…
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BURNABY – Independent wireless retailer Glentel said Wednesday that the terms of a retail agreement that it renewed with Rogers Wireless earlier this year is not enough to block its proposed sale to Bell.
Rogers Communications Partnership filed an application in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) against Glentel Wednesday, seeking, among other relief, to prohibit the transactions contemplated by the BCE acquisition plan of arrangement announced last month. According to the injunction, Rogers’ retailer agreement with Glentel, renewed in July, requires Rogers' approval prior to a change of control of Glentel. Rogers said that it…
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TORONTO – Rogers Media said Tuesday that Paul Ski will retire from his position as SVP and CEO of radio and regional broadcast operations, plus announced the appointment of three new members to the Rogers Media senior leadership team: Julie Adam as SVP of radio, Navaid Mansuri as VP of content partnerships, and Colette Watson as VP of television & operations.
With more than 30 years of experience, the last seven of which have been with Rogers, Ski (pictured) was inducted into the Canadian Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame and honoured with the Allan Waters Broadcast Lifetime Achievement Award last May. …
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GATINEAU – The increasing of usage-sensitive rates such as capacity-based billing (CBB) as a tool to incent competitors to build their own high speed networks, as was suggested by Rogers Communications on Tuesday, would have a disastrous impact on the independent ISPs, the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) argued in its oral reply on Thursday.
Even using current Third Party Internet Access (TPIA) rates from Rogers, combined with its own projected data usage growth of 60% annually, wholesale customers would be saddled with unsustainable prices over the next decade, the group told…
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GATINEAU – “Contrary to the assertions of some parties, there is simply no problem to solve when it comes to Canadian broadband.” Those comments from Ted Woodhead, senior VP of federal government and regulatory affairs at Telus Communications, during the company’s reply on Wednesday pretty much sum up the views of all the major incumbent ISPs when it comes to wholesale broadband access regulations which the CRTC has under review.
The big players have argued throughout the hearing that competition is alive and well in retail Internet access markets between the cable and telephone companies, and any decision that grants…
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TORONTO – Launching next Thursday for customers of Bell, Telus, Bell Aliant and EastLink is the traditional TV industry’s latest salvo in the battle to retain customers by providing more content to television subscribers on more devices at any time.
This morning at the Bell TIFF Lightbox, the company officially revealed CraveTV, a $4-a-month service which will give subscribers to a traditional TV package access to more than 10,000 hours of content on their handsets, tablets, PCs and their regular set top boxes. It will also be available soon on other platforms such as AppleTV, Chromecast and Xbox.
Costing…
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GATINEAU – Wholesale access rates that are too low, as Rogers Communications contends they are now, will not lead to further competitor investment in networks, the company said on Tuesday to the CRTC. Rather, it will continue to encourage independent ISPs to lease capacity from the incumbents in perpetuity.
Rogers said its wholesale business – customers who pay 45% less than retail consumers – has grown from essentially zero to nearly 15% of customers in the last four years. If the current growth trajectory continues, it will top 30%. Company executives appeared before the Commission as part of its look…
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GATINEAU – With a cost profile four times higher, an unclear applications future and potentially new access technologies, fibre to the premise (FTTP) carries far too high a risk profile to allow competitors to ride on the networks at low mandated rates, Telus told the CRTC on Monday.
The communications giant kicked off the second week of a hearing into wholesale wireline services by arguing the question about mandating access to competitors isn’t about whether such a decision will cause Telus and others to stop investing, it’s about how and where that capital would be deployed.
“These networks require care and…
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MONTREAL – Bell, Rogers, Telus and Videotron flipped the switch on the first phase of the new $50 million mobile network for the Montreal metro.
The green line segment, which runs through the downtown area between the Guy-Concordia and Saint-Laurent stations, is now equipped with mobile technology including 3G, 4G and 4G LTE, allowing customers of all four wireless providers to browse the Internet, watch videos, listen to streamed music, make and receive calls from within the metro cars and throughout the tunnels and stations.
The project, first announced in September 2013, will take five to seven years to fully…
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