WELL, THAT WAS predictable.
We awoke Wednesday morning to a new report on wireless – this time on data roaming charges – from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The press release bellowed: “More effective competition and better regulation needed to cut high mobile data roaming costs, says OECD”.
When an international body with an unwieldy membership and fuzzy, broad mandate such as the OECD says we need more regulation of this or that, my automatic bullshit antenna engages. I also wondered aloud right away where Canada would rank in the report and in the press release (the only bit…
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TORONTO – Rogers Media is launching the country’s first national bi-weekly sports magazine in an effort to further leverage its Rogers Sportsnet brand.
Starting this Fall, the magazine will focus on the major professional leagues and the “premier” amateur events from a Canadian regional and national point-of-view. It will be produced by a soon-to-be-announced team of Canadian writers, editors and photojournalists who will no doubt plumb the depths of the company’s formidable sports television and radio assets.
“Sportsnet magazine will be Canada’s leading source for in-depth perspective and inside reports on hockey, baseball, football, soccer and MMA to name just a few,"…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is asking for comments on a proposed code of best practices for access programming on cable community channels.
The code, available here, was submitted by the Cable Industry Working Group which was assembled last August and includes representative from Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, EastLink, Quebecor and the CCSA.
The deadline for submitting comments is September 6, and replies are due by September 16, 2011.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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TORONTO – Rogers will roll out its new Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in the nation’s capital this summer, the company confirmed Wednesday.
It also said that it is readying the first LTE-enabled mobile device in Canada, known as the LTE Rocket, which will deliver speeds "significantly faster" than HSPA+. The company said in April that it would launch LTE in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa this year, with more markets to come in 2012. It conducted a technical trial of LTE in the Ottawa-area last fall.
"We’re thrilled to be first in bringing this world class technology…
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WE DON’T WANT TO SUGGEST that over-the-top programming services aren’t a potential threat to the Canadian broadcasting system or that the matter shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Pelmorex is a passionate proponent of a strong Canadian system. We believe it is appropriate for the Commission to look into the matter and it is doing exactly that with its Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2011-344 (with a deadline extension now).
But, (and there always is a “but’, isn’t there), as OTT becomes the “issue du jour”, caution must be taken to ensure that the OTT threat is not to be used…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has dismissed complaints from Wind Mobile regarding its roaming arrangements with Rogers.
The wireless newcomer accused Rogers of undue preference over its handling of call transitions, known as handoffs, in a complaint last October. As Cartt.ca reported, Wind alleged that Rogers provided seamless (soft) handoffs for its own discount Chatr brand, while not doing the same for Wind, meaning that its customers experienced dropped calls when moving out of a Wind network zone and into a Rogers area.
The Commission said Friday that the roaming agreement negotiated between Wind and Rogers does not include seamless…
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TORONTO – Making a passionate case for greater government support of wireless competition, Globalive Group Chairman Anthony Lacavera lambasted the nation’s three incumbent mobile providers, called for a full set-aside of 700 MHz spectrum for newer entrants and urged that the government ease its current restrictions on foreign investment in Canadian telecom providers.
In a wide-ranging keynote at the Canadian Telecom Summit here Thursday morning, Lacavera lit into Rogers Communications, Bell Canada and Telus for raising legal and regulatory challenges to Globalive’s entry into the Canadian market because of its international investors (wireless giant Orascom). Further, he knocked Rogers,…
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TORONTO – It was no surprise when the last member of the Canadian wireless triumvirate to address this week’s Canadian Telecom Summit made his pitch for an open auction the next time wireless spectrum goes on the block.
As George Cope, president and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada, put it during his luncheon keynote address on the final day of the Telecom Summit: why would the Canadian government put a spectrum auction process in place that would prevent one of the big three incumbent wireless carriers from participating fully in the 700MHz spectrum auction (expected in late 2012)?…
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TORONTO – It’s a message the entrenched telecom incumbents have been hammering home all three days of the 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit: Don’t hate us because we’re beautiful.
Okay, maybe “beautiful” is kind of a stretch, but executives from Bell Canada, Rogers and Telus are dying to make it clear to anyone who’ll listen that while they do have millions of subscribers and excellent profits, they have also been the ones who have taken most of the risks on wireless and other telecom investment in Canada – so how can that mean rules have to be built (like those to…
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TORONTO – Canadians are changing the way they consume Internet TV services now that they are connecting the Internet to their television sets, according to a new study from the Media Technology Monitor.
The report, The Rise of Netflix and How the Internet TV Market Has Changed, examines the shifts in the consumption of Internet TV plus the company that best symbolizes this change: Netflix. It predicts that with the underlying technologies to watch the Internet on a TV set already in many Canadian homes (e.g. broadband and a game console), the conditions are ripe for this consumer trend to spread rapidly.
Among…
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