OTTAWA – Mobilicity is ratcheting up its marketing as it prepares to launch in three more major urban centres: Ottawa, Edmonton and Vancouver. Service in Ottawa will be available in the next few weeks with Edmonton and Vancouver later in the month. As well Calgary will go online early in 2011.
The upstart mobile carrier, currently only available in the Greater Toronto Area, recently unveiled a new marketing campaign dubbed FMyBill (it stands for Fix My Bill and can be viewed at www.facebook.com/mobilicity) to push its “unlimited everything” pricing plan in preparation for the new city launches….
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GATINEAU – Since all of the country’s biggest broadcasters (save CBC) will soon all be owned by Canada’s biggest carriers, the CRTC has announced a new proceeding to examine safeguards to prevent anti-competitive behaviour.
The proceeding will include a public hearing starting on May 9, 2011, in Gatineau, Que.
“The broadcasting industry is being significantly reshaped by a series of major transactions,” said Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the CRTC, in the press release. “As a regulator, it’s only prudent that we study the implications to ensure we have the right tools to deal with competitive concerns as they arise….
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CALGARY – As has been expected, Brad Shaw, the younger brother of CEO Jim, has been appointed chief executive officer of Shaw Communications, effective January 13, 2011. After 12 years as CEO, Jim has decided to step down and recommended Brad as his successor, the company reported this morning.
The younger Shaw fils has been taking on more of a public profile for the last 12 months or so, appearing at a number of industry events, even leading the Shaw team through much of the Shaw-Canwest purchase hearing in front of the CRTC in September.
(We even speculated, correctly as it…
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NEW ORLEANS – The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers kicked off the 2010 Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans in style by presenting its annual awards.
Bob Legg Jr., vice president, technical operations, Atlantic Region for Suddenlink Communications, was presented with the SCTE Member of the Year Award. Legg set and achieved the goal of having his entire team become certified in at least one of SCTE’s Certification Programs and this “keen interest in his team’s professional development involved every technical and engineering employee from each new hire to the 30-year veterans,” says the press release.
Legg is beginning his second term…
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NEW ORLEANS – Traditional cable television services won’t be swept away by an Internet storm anytime soon. Rather, Internet-connected TV services can be supplemental to, and not a replacement for, cable TV.
That was the consensus of a panel discussion Tuesday at the CTAM Summit in New Orleans called ‘IP video and the realm of possibility’. After a look at rumoured cable killers such as Apple TV, Roku, Google TV and Boxee, panelists agreed that the new gadgets could actually serve to enhance their traditional linear offering.
“Linear content in the package that cable operators bring to subscribers today is still very compelling”, said…
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OTTAWA – Telus is telling Industry Canada that it stands to lose as much as $200 million in an auction of the 2500 MHz bandwidth if the current spectrum swap proposal remains unchanged.
The company’s comments come as verbal sparring over the specific rules for transitioning wireless broadband spectrum in the band continued this month with interested parties arguing over transition deadlines and the amount of spectrum to be given back to Industry Canada for auction.
Telus says that adopting the department’s plan would result in incumbents retaining 21% more spectrum than they currently have. This “would be…
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GATINEAU – Atop Broadband received a Class 1 Broadcast Distribution Undertaking license from the CRTC today to serve the Greater Toronto Area.
Under its license the company can serve Ajax, Aurora, Bolton, Brampton, Caledon, East Gwillimbury, Etobicoke, Georgetown, King City, Markham, Milton, Mississauga, Newmarket, Nobleton, Oakville, Orangeville, Oshawa, Pickering, Richmond Hill, Scarborough, Toronto, and Vaughan (Kleinberg, Maple and Woodbridge).
The company is owned by Robert Socci, president of Atop Communications, and according to the proceeding’s documents, it appears it will be an over-the-top video provider that will provide its own set-top box using its customers’ existing cable DOCSIS or telco…
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OTTAWA – Wind Mobile has asked the CRTC to step in to try and make sure its customers’ calls aren’t repeatedly fumbled with so-called “hard handoffs” from its roaming provider Rogers Communications.
Wind wants the Commission to toss a flag on Rogers and grant it seamless, or soft, handoffs. A hard handoff, for example, means a Wind customer call is cut off as he moves out of out of a Wind network zone into a Rogers area. A soft handoff would mean the call isn’t dropped as the subscriber moved from network to network while chatting.
In a Part VII filed…
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ROBERT RABINOVITCH guided the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for seven years, seeing it through a period of unprecedented change in the media business while enduring the apathy, if not utter disdain from the body which holds its purse strings: the federal government.
Running the CBC hasn’t gotten any easier since he left in early 2008. The CBC still faces disdain, if not now open hostility from the government in power and critical funding shortfalls amid global, ongoing media transformations that make even the most flexible organization dizzy and its employees fearful.
We wanted to know what the former CBC CEO thinks of…
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TORONTO – While many entrepreneurs understand marketing tools and the impact that they can have when building a successful business, many do not have the in-house expertise, time or budget to launch national campaigns to advertise their brands.
In celebration of Small Business Month, Rogers Communications has partnered with MasterCard and The UPS Store to provide entrepreneurs and small business owners with free access to promotional tools, insight into best practices, and the chance to win $35,000 in free advertising.
Throughout October, small business owners across the country are encouraged to visit www.celebratesmallbusiness.ca to access numerous resources, and to…
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