VICTORIA – Cable television engineer Cor Maas passed away on June 7 at his home in Duncan BC after a battle with colorectal cancer. He was 68.
Maas, who had recently retired from Shaw Communications, also held roles at BCTel, Telesat, and Rogers Cablesystems before joining Shaw where he worked on Vancouver Island. He had a lifelong passion for ham radio and was an active supporter of any system using the airwaves.
Long-time colleague and friend Tony van Wouw, who began working with Maas in 1980 at Premier Communications, described him as “a dear friend” and a “walking, talking encyclopedia on…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Rogers is launching a trade-in program for its Fido wireless customers that will allow them to trade-in their old phones to save on a new one.
Called FidoTRADE, the new program is open to new and existing prepaid and postpaid Fido customers starting July 11, 2011. By trading in their old device and battery, regardless of which carrier it is coming from in Canada, the U.S. or anywhere else in the world, customers can opt to receive a credit towards the cost of a new phone activation or renewal of their Fido service.
All devices collected through the…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – We don’t only pay attention to the big companies and their primary talking points. Of course, we do end up telling their stories first, but there are always few other noteworthy hits during hearings such as this week’s CRTC proceeding on Vertical Integration.
************
CRTC CHAIRMAN KONRAD von Finckenstein on Monday apologized for overstepping his bounds a little when he put the brakes on a line of questioning from new Commission vice-chair Tom Pentefountas. Rogers Communications EVP regulatory, Phil Lind had mentioned in the company’s opening statement how the CRTC should use this hearing to…
Continue Reading
THE ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC Co-operation and Development (OECD) biennial study on comparing wireless markets should be viewed for what it is: a limited analysis comparing four wireless plans in Canada with other OECD nations, says a new report from Nordicity.
The report, International Wireless Market Comparison, prepared for Telus, argues that OECD analyses are suspect because they only compare advertised prices. Instead, it says, a full understanding requires a look not only at price but other important factors.
“Cost should only be considered as part of an international wireless comparison – rather than the definitive factor,” states Nordicity,…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – If the Canadian TV industry is to fend off the growing power of unregulated sources of video (yes, especially Netflix), exclusive deals on content must be allowed, Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau told the CRTC Monday afternoon.
He was appearing in front of the Commission on day one of its hearing into the regulatory framework on vertically integrated corporations (those big four companies which own big broadcast assets and big distribution companies: Bell, Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor).
While noting “vertical integration is the only viable tool to allow us to protect the Canadian broadcast system,” Péladeau also…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Rogers has signed a six year contract with Hydro-Quebec to connect its smart meter collectors across the province.
Rogers will connect Hydro Quebec’s central system with up to 600 smart meter collectors, which aggregate data relayed from some 3.8 million smart meters. As part of the deal, Rogers will partner with Xplorenet Communications to ensure satellite connectivity in remote parts of Quebec.
"We are proud to work with Hydro-Quebec to deliver this innovative, seamless turnkey business solution which will allow for real time connections across Quebec," said Philippe Sicotte, vice-president of business solutions, in the announcement. "Rogers deploys innovative business…
Continue Reading
FOR THOSE AMONG you who use Twitter, you’ll recognize the hashtags in the headline. For those who don’t, the hashtags are those # signs attached to words or acronyms that help those of us who use and like Twitter to keep track of topics and conversations on the micro-blogging site.
There are a number of conversations I follow when I “tune in” to Twitter, like #CRTC and #UBB for example, or #cts11 during the recent Canadian Telecom Summit (although this week, that hashtag means California Travel Summit). This week, we have a new one, #ivi, which is…
Continue Reading
IN OUR EVER-MORE connected world, there are fewer secrets. People talk, they e-mail, they SMS, Facebook, tweet and YouTube.
They often use those outlets to speculate, pontificate, fustigate, postulate and guesstimate. Which means those “secrets” are sometimes true. Sometimes not. Sometimes educated guesses. Sometimes hopeful. Sometimes fuelled by less than good intentions.
So, it’s a good idea once in a while to take a few of those secrets and rumours floating around and ask someone in charge about them – and also to put the issues of the day facing our industry in front of someone at the top.
For this Cartt.ca…
Continue Reading
CHICAGO—Bid adieu to the dueling cable next-generation access networks from Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The two giant U.S. MSOs have decided to bury the hatchet and merge their two proposed industry standards into one.
At the Cable Show here earlier this week, CableLabs announced that it has settled the budding technical and operational differences between the two next-gen architectures – Comcast’s Converged Multiservice Access Platform (CMAP) and Time Warner Cable’s Converged Edge Services Access Router (CESAR). Called the Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP), the new compromise standard will basically incorporate features from both networks.
CableLabs also released an updated technical…
Continue Reading
BANFF – The independent production community got a close look at the new terms of trade agreement on Tuesday during a standing room only breakfast session with the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) and representatives from Corus and Bell Media here at the Banff World Media Festival.
The deal, which was struck in April, applies to all independent productions produced by English-language Canadian independent television producers and private broadcasters Astral, Bell Media, Rogers Broadcasting, Shaw Media and Corus. Its terms, which came into effect on June 1st, apply to the entire life cycle of a show – from first…
Continue Reading
