OTTAWA – After a two month investigation, the Competition Bureau announced today it has begun legal proceedings against Rogers Communications to stop what the Bureau says is misleading advertising of Rogers’ Chatr discount wireless brand.
The company’s national campaign for new discount brand Chatr promises "fewer dropped calls than new wireless carriers" and have "no worries about dropped calls".
The new wireless carriers didn’t care for the brand, or the campaign – and they have launched various legal proceedings on their own. Wind Mobile actually filed the complaint that led to this investigation and outcome.
The Bureau’s investigation, which…
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GATINEAU – Canada’s DTH carriers must do a far better job of carrying French-language programming in all regions of Quebec, said the Bloc Québécois, the syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada (SCRC) and the CBC, who spoke in near unison at the CRTC’s Direct-to-Home policy hearing on Wednesday.
The three groups each took their turn on November 17, calling on the Commission to force the DTH companies to carry more French-language programming than they currently do. They noted that while the various regional TVA affiliates are carried by both DTH companies, the lack of Radio-Canada carriage is disconcerting.
Bloc MP Carole…
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OTTAWA – The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage begins its study of “the impacts of private television ownership changes and the move towards new viewing platforms,” today in Ottawa and will hear first from CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein and a group of independent Canadian broadcasters this afternoon.
Watch for the CRTC chairman (who will be joined by acting vice-chair, broadcasting, Rita Cugini and executive director, broadcasting, Scott Hutton) to speak to the recent merger announcements as well as the proceeding just called into the very same topic about which MPs will be grilling the Regulator’s representatives this afternoon.
As for…
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THUNDER BAY, ON – Tbaytel launched its new 3G HSPA mobility service in Thunder Bay on Wednesday.
The regional telco said that the network will expand to the communities of Sioux Lookout, Dryden, Red Lake and Kenora by the end of the year, and beginning in January 2011, services are scheduled for deployment in Atikokan, Fort Frances, Rainy River and Nipigon. Full deployment of the new 3G HSPA technology is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2011.
“Our customers will benefit from improved access to high speed wireless voice and data services, a broad base of handset technology…
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TORONTO – Wind Mobile’s complaint to the CRTC over its customers’ dropped calls due to so-called “hard handoffs” is not something the Commission needs to deal with, says Rogers Communications.
As reported by Cartt.ca, Wind wants the Commission to grant it soft handoffs so that its customers aren’t hung up on as they move beyond a Wind network zone as they talk. A hard handoff, for example, means a Wind customer call is cut off as she moves out of out of a Wind network zone into a Rogers area, which is Wind’s roaming partner. A soft, or seamless,…
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TORONTO – Bell Canada CEO George Cope couldn’t have been more blunt or matter of fact when asked about what the auction of 700 MHz wireless spectrum, which is expected in 2012. “It has to be a wide open auction,” he said. “There can be no discussion on this.”
Cope was speaking Tuesday afternoon at the Scotia Capital 2010 Telecom and Technology conference in downtown Toronto.
Cope spoke just after both Globalive (Wind Mobile) chairman Anthony Lacavera and Public Mobile CFO Jim Hardy had addressed the very same issue – albeit with different opinions than Cope, or earlier in the…
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OTTAWA – Developments in the mobile payments space have been slow and ongoing for a number of years but those efforts are beginning to bear some fruit, said vice-president of emerging business at Rogers Communications Inc. David Robinson.
However, he cautioned, there is still work to do.
Speaking at the 2010 Mobile Money Forum in Ottawa last week, the Rogers’ executive talked about the Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative and how efforts among a large number of international mobile operators, handset makers and the Global Mobile System Association (GSMA) are making headway. In a nutshell, the initiative is trying to combine the…
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TORONTO – Rogers has opened up several of its application programming interfaces (APIs) to developers for the first time.
According to a post on RedBoard, the company’s blog, Rogers Catalyst Beta is now live and will allow developers and businesses to bring new, custom mobile applications or services to market more quickly than before.
“Rogers is making a commitment to work closely with third-party developers to make it easier to bring exciting new apps and services to market faster than ever before”, reads a separate post on the Rogers Catalyst Beta site. “We have reduced the barriers to a minor…
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TORONTO – Rogers will purchase for cancellation 2,000,000 of its outstanding class B non-voting shares for an aggregate purchase price of $67,662,200.
This represents approximately 0.44% of the class B shares outstanding at October 31, 2010. Rogers said that the private purchase, made under an issuer bid exemption order issued by the Ontario Securities Commission, is priced at a discount to the current market price of the class B shares.
www.rogers.com
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MONTREAL – Stingray Digital is adding music video content from Sony Music Entertainment Canada to its Galaxie Music videos on demand service.
The first service of its kind in Canada, Galaxie Music Videos on Demand (MVOD) allows viewers to select their choice of music videos, or select and watch professionally-programmed music video playlists. The service is currently available free to all Rogers digital cable customers and will soon be available with other television service providers.
"The Galaxie Music Videos On Demand service is one of the most popular VOD services on Rogers On Demand”, said Stingray Digital president, Eric Boyko, in…
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