TORONTO – Rogers will introduce its Fido wireless customers to its LTE network this summer.
Fido customers in the cities and surrounding areas of Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and St. Johns will be the first to take advantage of the faster service, with more cities scheduled to launch throughout 2012.
Also coming this summer is the brand’s first LTE-enabled device, known as Fido Mobile Hotspot, which creates a Wi-Fi hotspot wherever and whenever customers need it, and wirelessly connects up to 10 Wi-Fi capable devices simultaneously. LTE-enabled smart phones will also be available at Fido later this year.
www.fido.ca
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TORONTO – Rogers and software provider SAP are joining forces on enterprise mobile applications for Canadian businesses.
A first between SAP and a Canadian wireless carrier, the offering is being designed to help simplify the way organizations mobilize their workforce, by helping employees gain real-time access to enterprise mobile applications on tablets and smart phones that traditionally sit on desktop computers.
"Businesses are transforming their IT resources to stay competitive and the four walls of the office are now transparent – anytime, anywhere access to mobile enterprise applications and software on any device is essential for efficiency and workforce productivity," said…
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TORONTO – Rogers Digital Media has named Jennifer Holgate to the role of vice-president, digital sales and operations.
Holgate joins the company on September 4 and will be responsible for direct and integrated digital sales across Rogers Media’s owned and exclusive brands, as well as its advertising network business. She will play a pivotal role in planning, implementing and directing sales and client delivery strategies for the company’s continued digital business growth.
Prior to joining Rogers Media, Holgate served as SVP digital at Starcom MediaVest Group Canada, where she led digital and strategic integration. She also spent several years at Canwest…
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TORONTO – Cogeco has added Rogers’ channels CityNews Channel and FX Canada to its digital TV lineup in Ontario.
CityNews Channel will air on channel 415 in standard definition and in high definition on channel 821. FX Canada can be found in standard definition on channel 410 and channel 750 in high definition, and will be available on free preview through August 31.
TORONTO – Competition continued to weigh on Rogers, pulling down second quarter profits and holding revenues flat.
Consolidated financial results released Tuesday for the three months ended June 30, saw revenue of $3.12 billion virtually unchanged from $3.10 billion in same period last year, while profits dipped 2% to $400 million from $410 million.
Wireless activated and upgraded approximately 629,000 smart phones this quarter, predominantly iPhone, BlackBerry and Android devices, of which approximately 36% were for new subscribers. This means that smart phone subscribers now represent 63% of the company’s overall postpaid subscriber base, up from 48% in the same period last…
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OTTAWA and TORONTO – Reaction from the broadcasting industry to the CRTC’s plan to depose of the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) was swift and virtually unanimous.
Mirko Bibic, chief legal and regulatory officer and EVP at Bell, told Cartt.ca that while his company is still “analyzing the new model and its financial impact”, the decision could serve to reignite the value-for-signal/fee-for-carriage debate.
“There’s no doubt, however, that local stations in small and medium-sized markets will receive significantly less revenue”, he said. “At a time when conventional television continues to be under tremendous financial pressure, including from a soft advertising…
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TORONTO – Sportsnet’s Connected is packing its bags – and studio desk – for the UK to bring Canadians live coverage from downtown London during the 2012 Olympic Games.
Ken Reid will host a live two-hour edition of Connected every night at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT starting July 28, accompanied by reporter Ian Mendes who will also file daily reports and features from London.
Connected on location at London 2012 complements Sportsnet’s 252.5 hours of live event coverage as part of Canada’s Olympic broadcast media consortium. Other Rogers media properties that are official London 2012 broadcasters within the consortium are OMNI…
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CANADIAN BROADCASTERS HAVE gone off script to find their next popular homegrown sitcom.
Betting nothing breeds succeeds like success, the Canadian networks are trying a new business model where Canadian screenwriters with Hollywood studio experience are brought on board to showrun their sitcoms. The trend has CTV ordering the pilot Satisfaction, written and showrun by Los Angeles-based scribe Tim McAuliffe, whose U.S. network credits include Up All Night and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
A Los Angeles rep for McAuliffe said he has rearranged his schedule to be in Toronto to shoot the ensemble comedy pilot for DHX Media, while at…
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OTTAWA – The Supreme Court sided with the likes of Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Telus, and Apple Thursday in a number of copyright cases related to the use of music on the Internet.
In the first case, the court determined that Internet service providers (ISPs) and other digital providers that offer music services should not have to pay copyright fees when music is downloaded, but that artists should be compensated when their music is streamed online.
In another case, broadcasters, TV service providers and movie theatres won’t have to pay fees for the music used in a film or a television show that they air. That’s…
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TORONTO – Seven world mobile operators, KPN, NTT Docomo, Rogers Communications, SingTel, Telstra, Vimpelcom (majority owner of Wind in Canada), and Telefónica (through its Telefónica Digital unit) have entered into a memorandum of understanding to form an alliance to support a single, global platform that multinational businesses will leverage to enable connected devices in multiple countries.
The goal of the global alliance, according to a joint press release, “is to create efficiencies for manufacturers and enhance the end user experience by enabling delivery of a global product with a single SIM, eliminating roaming costs in the countries of participating operators….
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