TORONTO and VANCOUVER – Rogers and Telus were quick to respond to Friday’s devastating earthquake in Japan.
Rogers launched a text-to-donate campaign on Friday afternoon whereby Rogers and Fido wireless customers can text ASIA to 30333 to donate $5 to earthquake relief efforts. There are no additional charges for these texts, and 100% of all donations will go to the Canadian Red Cross Japan Earthquake/Asia-Pacific Tsunami fund.
To help customers stay up-to-date on news and information from Japan, Rogers is making TV Japan available in free preview on Channel 829 to all of its digital cable customers in Ontario.
Telus pledged to…
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TORONTO – Money worries and digital strategies seem to be the key business issues keeping radio industry honchos awake at night, judging by their comments during a special radio exec panel session at the annual Canadian Music Week convention held in Toronto last week.
“Our company is in a tremendous growth pattern right now, but I worry about 2008 happening again,” said Christopher Grossman, owner and president of Haliburton Broadcasting Group. Haliburton owns radio stations in 18 small markets in central and northern Ontario, with expansion into two more communities expected soon. “I worry about what would happen if…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications said Friday that it is launching Canada’s first Wi-Fi voice service for smart phones.
Based on Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA), ‘Wi-Fi Calling for Business’ will allow customers to place mobile calls from their smart phones over Wi-Fi networks registered on their devices. Starting at $10 per month as an add-on to existing business voice plans, Rogers said that calls made over the Wi-Fi network won’t count towards monthly voice plan minutes, and are automatically transferred to the Rogers 3G wireless network when the caller leaves the Wi-Fi coverage area.
"Our business customers are telling us they need flexible…
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EXTON, PA – This year’s SCTE Canadian Summit attracted approximately 700 attendees, including an increased number of representatives from countries beyond North America, plus 10 first-time vendor exhibitors, organizers said Friday.
Kicking off with a keynote address by Comcast EVP and CTO Tony Werner, the two-day event featured a sweeping look at what is on the horizon for the industry. Next-generation panels addressed video architectures, access platforms, and provisioning and management, while other presentations targeted topics like business services, fibre-to-the-home, home networking and gateways, optimizing upstream capacity, and the coming transition to IPv6.
“SCTE Canadian Summit continues to evolve as a focal…
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TORONTO – Despite attempts to smooth over their differences, Comcast and Time Warner Cable appear at least somewhat at odds over a proposed next-generation architecture for the cable industry.
Hints about potentially key technical differences between Time Warner’s new convergence edge project and a similar project pioneered by Comcast kept cropping up at the SCTE Canadian Summit here the past two days. Although cable executives tried to downplay any differences between the two initiatives, it appears the two biggest U.S. MSOs may be charting somewhat divergent paths on the new architecture, frustrating the original goals of cable technologists, aggravating…
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TORONTO – Peeking through the network clouds, Comcast CTO and executive vice-president Tony Werner has seen the future and it is digital rights management.
In a keynote address at the SCTE Canadian Summit Tuesday morning, Werner predicted that “physical media will disappear” by 2020 as “digital assets move to the cloud.” As a result, he said, consumers will largely acquire the rights to use digital media content in certain ways, instead of buying huge computer hard drives, Blu-ray players, and other devices, or building collections of DVDs, CDs, tapes, books, newspapers, and other physical assets.
“Life is not about having big…
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TORONTO – The fact that Industry Minister Tony Clement doesn’t see or believe in network congestion should be taken as a point of pride by Rogers, according to its SVP Access Networks, Dermot O’Carroll.
During the opening panel session Wednesday morning at the third annual SCTE Canadian Summit, moderator Leslie Ellis, asked O’Carroll asked what he thought of the usage-based billing fracas and about how the Industry Minister (the primary politician who oversees the telecom business in Canada) recently took to Twitter to say he doesn’t believe there is network congestion.
MONTREAL – Philippe Jette has been named vice president and chief technology officer of Cogeco Cable. In this capacity, he will be responsible for the company’s technological direction and strategic development, as well as the use and management of technologies for new and existing products.
Over the past two decades, Jette (pictured) has managed and lead business units and engineering organizations, telecommunications networks, and product and technology in Canada – through stints with Rogers, Bell Mobility and Bell Canada – and abroad.
"I am proud to have Philippe…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications rolled out a $1.85 billion debt securities offering on Tuesday consisting of $1.45 billion of 5.34% notes due 2021 and $400 million of 6.56% notes due 2041.
The 5.34% senior notes due 2021 are priced at $999.54 per $1,000 principal amount, for an effective yield of 5.346% per annum if held to maturity. They will mature on March 22, 2021. The 6.56% senior notes due 2041 are priced at par for an effective yield of 6.56% per annum if held to maturity. They will mature on March 22, 2041.
Rogers said that the net proceeds from the offering…
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TORONTO – A keynote address from Comcast Cable’s chief technology officer Tony Werner will highlight day one of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers 2011 Canadian Summit.
Werner has worked for a number of large cable operations over the years, including a stint at Rogers Cable. His breakfast speech is on the theme “Broadband Video: Challenge or Opportunity” and if anyone would know, it’s the guy who oversees one of the world’s largest, most diverse fibre and coaxial plants in the world.
He is sticking around until Wednesday, too, when he will be on a panel of well-known and respected industry…
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