Eastlink says claims are ‘inaccurate’
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Third-party competitors using Eastlink’s network are asking the CRTC to find the cable company guilty of negligence when a network outage this summer that affected tens of thousands of Canadians allegedly caused “significant economic and reputational harm” to them.
Competitors City Wide, Frontier Networks, and Purple Cow Internet allege in the Part 1 application dated November 9 that Eastlink disconnected their customers’ service for 24 hours starting July 3 due to an error caused by a new software update to the company’s billing system that they said incorrectly flagged all of the…
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CALGARY – Rogers Communications and the City of Calgary announced Tuesday clients of the city’s Fair Entry subsidy program are now eligible for low-cost internet, wireless and TV services through the Rogers Connected for Success program.
“This pilot program with Rogers will increase Calgarians’ access to affordable wireless and internet services, which will open more doors for employment, education, healthcare and more,” Jyoti Gondek, Calgary’s mayor, said Tuesday in a press release.
“Our hope is to partner with other telecommunications companies in the future to give Calgarians a wider choice of service…
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TORONTO – The Community Radio Fund of Canada (CRFC), with support and funding from SiriusXM Canada, announced Tuesday morning the launch of Words and Culture, a radio project designed to help revitalize and preserve Indigenous languages across Canada.
“Scheduled to debut in early 2024, this groundbreaking project will amplify the voices of Indigenous language speakers, artists, and culture keepers through the power of radio,” a press release says.
Led by Kim Wheeler, an Anishinaabe and Mohawk award-winning producer and SiriusXM host, the Words and Culture project “will include the production of five series of six episodes each and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri said Thursday that the CRTC’s decision to force the large telephone companies to open access to their last mile fibre networks “levels the playing field” with cable carriers who service the bulk of wholesale-based subscribers.
“We’ve been required to wholesale under the regulatory regime high-speed internet for quite some time,” Staffieri said during a third quarter conference call. “So it’s good to see a level playing field.”
The majority of wholesale-based competitors were using the large cable companies’ hybrid fibre-coax networks, which accounts for 75 per cent of all wholesale-based subscriptions, the CRTC said.
The decision…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications announced Tuesday the launch of its new Connected for Success 5G Mobile Plan, available to eligible low-income Canadians for $25 per month.
The new plan offers 3 GB of 5G data with no overage charges and a no-cost Samsung Galaxy A14 or Motorola G 5G smartphone with financing when eligible subscribers keep their phone for a 24-month term.
Canadians eligible for the plan include people receiving provincial income support or disability benefits, seniors receiving the federal Guaranteed Income Supplement, rent-geared-to-income tenants of a non-profit housing partner organization, recipients of…
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By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – The CRTC approved Monday a limited and temporary regime in which competitors can force negotiations for access the last mile fibre services under the current aggregated regime.
The regime will be narrowed to the incumbent telephone companies, who will be required within six months to provide wholesale access to their fibre-to-the-premises networks in Ontario and Quebec, noting there is increasing demand there for faster speeds that are provided by a direct fibre line to homes and businesses.
The CRTC reasoned that the fibre builds of the cable companies, which have largely relied on hybrid fibre-coax builds, are…
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By Doug Barrett, adjunct professor in the Arts, Media & Entertainment MBA Program at the Schulich School of Business. From 2004 to 2008 he was the chair of the Canadian Television Fund
Phil Lind was an unlikely hero, but a genuine one. Since his passing, much has been written about his decades’ – long service to Rogers Communications, his role as consiglieri to Ted Rogers, his determined recovery from a major stroke in his mid-fifties, his art collection, and his love of the Yukon.
However, scant attention has been paid to what I think is his greatest accomplishment: he was the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Rogers is arguing that the practice of bulk internet billing deals with residential buildings, which it says has been promoted by the CRTC, does not hamper competition, and in fact provides benefits that push forward the policies promoted by the commission.
Fibre service provider Beanfield filed a Part 1 application in late September asking the CRTC to prohibit Rogers from signing those bulk service agreements because it allegedly limits competition. Beanfield’s reasoning is that the multi-year contracts Rogers and others sign with building developers to provide default internet service disincentivizes switching service providers…
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MONTREAL – Telus, Montreal-based TerreStar Solutions (operating as Strigo) and U.S.-based Skylo announced Wednesday they have successfully used satellite connectivity to conduct voice calls and send text messages between smartphones as well as connect to IoT devices.
The trial in October combined non-terrestrial network (NTN) service provider Skylo’s software-defined network connectivity platform, TerreStar’s mobile satellite spectrum and service platform that covers most of Canada, and Telus’s network-building expertise, according to a press release. The trial was successful in making direct connections using TerreStar’s existing Echostar T1 geostationary satellite, the release says.
“This…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A coalition of public interest groups has asked the CRTC on Friday to consider a financial plan for a fund that bankrolls their involvement in broadcasting hearings.
Public interest participation in those hearings is funded through a not-for-profit organization known as the Broadcasting Participation Fund (BPF), which spawned out of Bell’s purchase of CTV network assets in 2011. The problem for the fund, according to its proponents, is that it relies on money, called tangible benefits, that only comes as a condition of approving broadcasting acquisitions that are now uncommon.
Interest groups have said the fund is…
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