HALIFAX – Rogers will sink $80 million into its wireless voice and data network in the Maritimes in an effort to outpace rivals like EastLink and Bell Aliant.
The two year project, which will begin this month, will provide Rogers’ 4G HSPA+ coverage to almost one million more people across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, to cover 94% of the Maritime population. Customers will also benefit from faster data speeds, stronger signal strength, and use the devices such as Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and tablets, the company said Thursday.
"Maritimers told us they wanted better coverage, faster speeds and a greater…
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I SHOULD BE FIRED as moderator. It’s as simple as that.
As referee of the lively Canadian Telecom Summit “Regulatory Blockbuster” panel in Toronto Wednesday, I accepted questions from the floor, via text and on Twitter while Ed Antecol (Globalive), Mirko Bibic (Bell), Ken Engelhart (Rogers), John Lawford (PIAC), Chris Peirce (MTS Allstream) and Michael Hennessy (Telus) lobbed verbal brickbats at each other.
How great would it have been if, while these regulatory lawyers were hurling oral grenades, the chairman of the CRTC, Konrad von Finckenstein, were to ask them a question? Turns out he did, on Twitter. And I missed it as…
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TORONTO – With the broadband market still growing briskly and shifting drastically in the direction of data and video applications, telecom service providers and equipment suppliers are scrambling desperately to keep up with the changes and find more spectrum to use.
That was the consensus that emerged from a panel discussion at the Canadian Telecom Summit earlier this week. Panelists addressed how the broadband market is changing and how they are aiming to meet its swiftly changing needs, particularly on the wireless side.
“We’re all in a race to catch up with consumer demand,” said Dean Brenner, vice-president of government affairs…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s television services are back in business. CRTC figures released Thursday in a press release, (based largely on data from individual companies which we actually broke down here and here way back in January), show that the return of the advertising market translated into some, albeit modest, profits at conventional broadcasters, though the country’s specialty and pay broadcasters fared better.
According to the Commission’s count, revenue at the country’s private conventional television climbed 9% to approximately $2.15 billion in 2010 broadcast year, while expenses increased 1.7%. This resulted in profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) rebounding from a deficit of $116.6 million in…
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Perry Hoffman
OTTAWA – Bell Canada says it’s patently wrong for Rogers Communications to suggest that the CRTC can adopt a competitive bidding process for the rights to roll out broadband networks in Bell’s deferral account communities and not experience any further delays.
In its April 18 comments, Bell highlights where the delays would come from. First, if the CRTC opted for an auction now, it would have to conduct another public consultation to determine the auction framework. “Based on prior experience, this, in and of itself, would be a very lengthy exercise which would involve many parties and competing…
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THE LITANY OF REGULATORY issues facing the Canadian telecom business is long and the stakes are huge. It’s why this year’s Regulatory Blockbuster session held Wednesday at the Canadian Telecom Summit yet again delivered a lively, sometimes heated, discourse among the industry’s key regulatory players.
Moderated by Cartt.ca’s editor and publisher Greg O’Brien, the panel featured senior regulatory experts from Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, Telus, MTS Allstream, Globalive Communications and PIAC (the Public Interest Advocacy Centre) and the issues ranged vertical integration, foreign ownership, usage-based billing, wireless spectrum auction rules, rural broadband initiatives, and so on.
With the CRTC’s public hearing…
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TORONTO – Astral Media’s new kids network Disney XD launched across the country on Wednesday with a mix of high definition live action and animated programming.
An advertiser-supported TV network and multi-platform brand, Disney XD’s programming targets children aged 6-14, with a focus on boys and their quest for discovery, accomplishment, adventure and humour, while still being inclusive of girl audiences.
The network is currently available through Rogers Communications, Bell Satellite TV, Bell Fibe TV, EastLink and Delta Cable, and will join Telus’ Optik TV lineup on June 20. In addition to the on-air launch, Disney XD also debuted dedicated on-demand channels with…
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TORONTO – Robert Dépatie doesn’t exactly see eye-to-eye with Rob Bruce.
A day after Bruce, the president of the cable and wireless arm of Rogers Communications, called for no restrictions on the Canadian government’s upcoming auction of 700 MHz spectrum, Dépatie, the president and CEO of Videotron, called for definitive restrictions on the auction. Specifically, Dépatie made the case for an in-band spectrum cap for 700 MHz bidders while speaking at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Wednesday morning.
As the company has spelled out for Industry Canada as it prepares to write the rules of the 700 MHz spectrum auction,…
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TORONTO – Rob Bruce, the president of the cable and wireless arm of Rogers Communications, won’t be alone this week calling (as he did Tuesday opening the 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit) for a “fair and open auction” of the 700 MHz wireless spectrum.
We know enough of what the likes of Telus’ CFO Robert MacFarlane plans to say at lunch Wednesday and can hazard a guess that Bell CEO George Cope will follow up with a similar call on Thursday when he speaks to CTS delegates at the Toronto Congress Centre. The auction isn’t expected until 2012, but the…
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TORONTO – An equal and fair spectrum auction that allows established wireless providers and newcomers to play by the same rules is critical to Rogers’ roll out of its new Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, said the company’s president of communications, Rob Bruce.
"Those who have suggested that companies like Rogers shouldn’t have fair and equal access to this spectrum are misguided," Bruce said during his the opening keynote Tuesday morning at the 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit. "Restrictions on the 700 MHz band auction would be unfair to our nine million wireless customers who have every right to access a…
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