THE PRINCIPAL THEMES FOR TODAY were around the migration to an all digital IP distribution (IPTV like) and enabling the convergence of wireless with fixed service delivery.
Morning sessions moderated by Ken Wright CTO C-COR presented different approaches for reclaiming the cable systems distribution bandwidth and preparing it for a more unicast (enabling the distribution of a unique service to a single customer on the customer’s request) configuration. The various speakers went through alternate scenarios the cable system operators might take to evolve the current HFC analog and MPEG2 QAM digital service distribution architecture to a fully IP centric…
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THE SEMINARS KICKED OFF with the very articulate futurist Jim Carroll, an international expert on trends and innovation and an "informed" Rogers customer.
His view is convergence was talked about during the 1990s but is now for real. He likened "convergence" to "teenage sex" — "not sure what it is but everyone says they are doing it". Today he says service providers are facing a completely different customer. Today’s younger user of communications and media is tomorrows savvy customer who will be less loyal, far more demanding and expects choice.
Rate of change of services and technology today and moving…
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TORONTO – The traffic dogfight begins Monday in the skies over Toronto.
AM 640 Toronto (Corus) will challenge 680News’ (Rogers) “traffic on the ones” for the title as the go-to place on the dial for constant traffic updates.
640’s will instead be “traffic on the nines” every ten minutes – either two minutes sooner, or eight minutes later, depending on your point of view. 640 is using a brand new Robinson R44 News Copter (pictured) during morning and afternoon drive (680 uses a plane). The new Corus whirlybird flies at speeds in excess of 120 mph, “enabling…
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DISCUSSION WAS RIFE TUESDAY NIGHT at Opening Reception about Comcast reorganization and departure of their video guru Kip Compton to a position at Cisco.
Big loss for Comcast. The re-org direction is much like the recent Rogers Communications re-org in that its focused on bring voice, data, video and emerging wireless into one converged operation.
Also it seems the corporation’s direction for 2006 is to be more inward-focused in improving operations and hence margins etc. rather than acquisitions. Also, the engineers have been given aggressive targets for VOIP rollout during 2006 and it appears that will be…
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VANCOUVER – Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw said today that no matter what the rumor mill might say, the company is not for sale.
When asked specifically if the company is for sale and if Bell Canada is asking to buy, Shaw (left) said: “Lots of people have rumored that. The family has no interest in selling it, so we don’t really have any comment because it’s not for sale.”
Okay, but what about Star Choice. Its marketing was very low-key heading into Christmas compared to its competitors, especially satellite compatriot Bell ExpressVu?
Shaw: “(Star…
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TORONTO – Registrations for the 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit are tracking well ahead of last year’s sell-out crowd.
Delegates will be able to join 500 of their colleagues to listen to executive presentations from around the world from those who have the greatest influence on the direction of Canadian telecom.
For three full days, June 12 to 14, to the Canadian Telecom Summit will deliver thought-provoking insight from the prime movers of the industry such as Telus CEO Darren Entwistle, Vonage chairman Jeffrey Citron, IBM Canada president Dan Fortin, Allstream president John MacDonald, Ericsson CEO Mark Henderson, Mitel chairman…
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TORONTO – Preliminary subscriber data shows that Rogers Wireless added fewer customers in the fourth quarter of 2005 as compared to ’04, but according to a senior executive, that’s just how they wanted it.
The country’s largest wireless carrier added 216,300 net customers in the last three months of 2005, a drop from Q4 ’04 when it added 262,900 subscribers. Rogers Wireless now has 6.2 million customers
However, a dampening on growth was more or less the company’s strategy, said John Gossling, vice-president, financial operations, at Monday’s Citigroup 16th Annual Media and Telecom Conference in Phoenix, Ariz. “Not to…
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TORONTO – Rogers Digital will be the first carrier to offer MHD, a dedicated high-definition classics movie channel from Astral Media. MHD will offer select HD simulcasts of programming from The Movie Network’s classics movie channels Mpix and Mescape.
Programming on MHD consists of films five years or older ranging from Mpix’s suspense, thriller and action-packed movies to the quality drama and light-hearted entertainment found on Mescape. MHD is currently available at no additional cost in an uncut and commercial-free environment to Rogers Digital Cable subscribers in eastern Canada.
“As the first high-definition classics movie channel…
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CHUM WILL BE SOLD. Shaw, too. Telus will buy Bell. Foreign ownership rules will be abolished. CRTC regs, too.
Now those are some seriously fearless predictions for the new year. They’re all poppycock, too. Made ’em up (although a couple could happen).
The slowdown time during the 14 days or so around Christmas and New Years (and Hanukkah, too), coupled with the fact that a new year is beginning, spawns all sorts of lists and predictions and reviews in the media. I didn’t want to be left out, but I didn’t want to try to add to the M&A…
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WINNIPEG – Rogers Media Television will launch its recently acquired broadcast license, a faith-based service to be named, of course, OMNI TV Manitoba – on Monday, February 6th.
OMNI TV Manitoba is the newly branded, newly licensed television station resulting from Rogers’ 2005 purchase of NOW TV from the Thiessen family and the subsequent approval by the CRTC (Decision Public Notion 2005-207).
It had been scheduled to launch in November but was put off until the new year.
"This is an exciting time for the Rogers OMNI Television family as well as the Canadian broadcasting industry," said Leslie Sole,…
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