TORONTO – While one wireless company is warming up its lawyers in response to the launch of chatr by Rogers Communications, another was welcoming it to the Canadian wireless scene (once such a placid, “rational” playground with three big player, which has become one still with those three biggies, but with many more little guys kicking them in the knees).
To Mobilicity’s COO Stewart Lyons, however, chatr is illegal: A low-price brand formed by Rogers whose only goal is to put his company out of business. Company founder John Bitove threatened legal action when news of chatr leaked out,…
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TORONTO – The official press release didn’t mention the big red machine, but Rogers Communications today officially unveiled its new brand, chatr wireless.
Offering Canadians unlimited talk and text “on a trusted network,” is the closest the release got to mentioning Rogers, “chatr will offer cost certainty with zone-based plans including unlimited talk for just $35 per month and unlimited talk and text for just $45 per month, without term contracts,” reads the release.
The service will be available in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa and soon in Montreal with future plans for other Canadian markets.
The brand is an offensive by…
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TORONTO – In a little over two weeks, Canadians (assuming carriage agreements are in place…) will have another TV sports option to pick from.
Rogers Communications today announced Rogers Sportsnet One, a new sports specialty that will feature over 800 hours of live events, all in high definition, will launch August 14th.
The national live-event line-up features the Toronto Raptors, National Basketball Association, the Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, Major League Baseball and Barclay’s Premier League.
This also marks the return of pro basketball to Sportsnet. Rogers Sportsnet and Sportsnet One and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment have signed a deal to…
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BURNABY, B.C. – Revenue, operating income and net income all rose in the second quarter for wireless retailer Glentel.
Consolidated sales for the three months ended June 30, 2010 grew 16% compared to the second quarter of 2009, to $79 million while income before interest, taxes and amortization for the three months was $7.7 million, a 43% increase. compared to $5,408,000 in 2009. Operating income and net income also rose significantly.
"We are delighted with the significant growth in our net income for the quarter," stated Thomas Skidmore, Glentel’s president and CEO. We continue to grow in sales and profitability in…
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TORONTO – Cost efficiencies and revenue growth helped to drive margin expansion at each of Rogers Communications’ three divisions during the second quarter of fiscal 2010, ended June 30.
Adjusted operating profit rose 11% to $1.2 billion as overall revenue grew 5% to $3 billion, compared to Q2 2009. Net income came in 21% higher at $451 million.
Wireless data revenue growth came in at 39%, while cable total service units (cable + Internet + home phone) grew 25,000 more than the second quarter of 2009.
The company’s media’s portfolio (radio, TV, magazines) posted an 8% revenue increase which, combined with cost…
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BALTIMORE – The Mobile Devices and Home business of Motorola announced today its switched digital video (SDV) portfolio will now be available to independent video operators as a hosted solution operated from Motorola’s Secure Operations Center in San Diego.
The hosted SDV solution will enable independent operators to achieve the same bandwidth efficiencies from SDV as their larger MSO counterparts who have onsite SDV operations, according to the company.
Hosted SDV enables operators to make niche channel content available to their subscribers without committing dedicated bandwidth to those channels. It utilizes the same core components as a traditional SDV architecture to…
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GATINEAU – Barring a last-minute agreement, Torstar and Rogers Communications will ask the CRTC to finally settle the dispute between the two companies over the carriage of Torstar shopping channel ShopTV.
Earlier this year, Torstar applied for dispute resolution under Section 12 of the BDU Regulations, claiming Rogers was refusing to come to a fair agreement over the carriage of ShopTV by Rogers Cable.
Because Rogers owns The Shopping Channel (TSC) and offers it system-wide, Torstar says it has to be carried across all Rogers Cable systems due to the Commission’s 1:1 regulation which says for each BDU-owned channel carried,…
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TORONTO – While Rogers Communications’ Q2 2010 financial results are expected to be pretty good when they are released on Tuesday, at least one industry analyst is expecting to see some competitive impact on the wireless side.
Canaccord Genuity analyst Dvai Ghose told investors last week he expects RCI will report consolidated revenue of $3.026 billion or 4.7% year-over-year growth. He pins his adjusted EBITDA estimate at $1.172 billion, “slightly above consensus of $1.163 billion,” meaning a solid YOY increase of 8.2%.
However, strong wireless margins are due to weak subscriber growth. “We only expect 90,000 Q2/10 wireless net additions, compared…
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TORONTO – While its primary channel was a very popular destination for those wanting to watch some of the World Cup soccer games in Italian, for example, another arm of Telelatino was busily launching a pair of new specialties.
Released with little fanfare last month on Rogers Cable, the channels are EuroWorld Sport and Mediaset Italia (watch for the fanfare to come soon, however). Rogers also added TLN en Espanol to its line-up last month (which was already carried by Bell TV and Shaw).
“They are truly amazing channels,” said TLN president Aldo Di Felice.
EuroWorld Sport is a predominantly English language…
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GATINEAU – The squeaky wheel gets the, well, the expanded regulatory proceeding.
Today the CRTC said it would restart its look at regulatory symmetry in the telecom world when it comes to the handling of customer cancellations and transfers (BTNC 2010-406) so that it will include wireless as well.
As reported by Cartt.ca here and here, Rogers Communications repeatedly asked for the Commission to expand the scope of the proceeding, arguing it didn’t make any sense to examine how the transfer of TV, land-line telephony and internet customers from one company to another is handled, but to exclude…
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