By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — VMedia, the independent internet and television service provider that pioneered delivering television services over IPTV systems in Canada, was quietly acquired by Quebecor last week – but that does not mean it intends to fade away.
Instead, Quebecor is financing its expansion, giving it the resources it needs to grow its subscriber base across the country and offer a bundling option that Quebecor’s Videotron can combine with its expansion of mobile services outside Quebec.
The purchase price of the deal was not disclosed. According to documents filed with the CRTC, Quebecor acquired all shares of VMedia from…
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TORONTO and CALGARY — Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications and the Shaw Family Living Trust today announced they have extended the outside date of the proposed $26-billion merger of Rogers and Shaw to Dec. 31, 2022.
The outside date for closing the merger has already been extended twice before by the companies from the original date of March 15, 2022. The closing extension comes as the most recently announced outside date of July 31, 2022 was fast approaching.
The new outside date “may be further extended to January 31, 2023 at the option of Rogers or Shaw, provided Rogers has committed financing…
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TORONTO — Rogers Communications today reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2022, while also announcing the outside date for its proposed merger with Shaw Communications has been extended to Dec. 31, 2022.
In addition, when releasing its results for the second quarter, the company announced the estimated cost of compensating its customers for its recent nationwide network outage is $150 million. These customer credits will be included in Rogers’ third quarter 2022 operating results, according to a press release announcing the company’s Q2 2022 results.
Rogers also plans “to spend more on our wireless and wireline networks…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has denied Bell Mobility’s request for it to review and vary a decision directing the company, along with Rogers and Telus, to make changes to the proposed terms and conditions outlined in their GSM-based wholesale mobile roaming tariffs incorporating seamless hand-off and 5G roaming.
“Bell has not presented any compelling arguments or evidence to support its review and vary application,” reads a CRTC letter to Bell, dated July 21, 2022.
Bell’s application, submitted to the CRTC earlier this month, argued the decision (TD 2022-102) reaches beyond the scope of the proceedings that led to it and…
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IT HAS NOW BEEN over two weeks since the start of Rogers Communications’ nationwide network outage, which impacted the company’s phone, Internet and cable subscribers – some, for days.
Rogers’ president and CEO Tony Staffieri has issued an apology and attributed the outage to “a network system failure following a maintenance update in our core network”, the company submitted a detailed report to the CRTC about what happened, and a House of Commons standing committee spent the day yesterday hearing from witnesses about the outage – what went wrong, why and what needs to be done…
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BELL CANADA’S PRESIDENT and CEO Mirko Bibic (above) posted an explanation of how Bell configures its networks on LinkedIn late Monday night.
The post followed the appearance of Rogers Communications executives at the House of Commons standing committee on industry and technology earlier in the day, during which they explained the cause of Rogers’ nationwide network outage on July 8.
“As more details emerge regarding the root cause of Rogers’ network outage, it’s important for us to outline to Canadians how Bell’s networks are configured differently,” Bibic wrote in his post.
“Bell’s wireless and wireline networks use different network infrastructures so…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – The House of Commons INDU committee heard from a series of witnesses today about the July 8 Rogers Communications outage that impacted Canadians across the country, including those trying to access emergency services.
Both meetings the committee decided to hold before the end of July were held today back-to-back.
First among the witnesses there were older white men in suits including François-Philippe Champagne, minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. While the soon fired Rogers CTO, Jorge Fernandes was in Portugal, the minister was in Japan when he heard in the middle of the night…
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Includes physically separating wireless and Internet services
TORONTO — In a letter to customers published Sunday on Rogers Communications’ website, company president and CEO Tony Staffieri outlined the steps the telecom is taking “to learn from” its nationwide network outage earlier this month “and deliver the reliable network you should expect from Rogers.”
Calling it the company’s “Enhanced Reliability Plan”, Staffieri said Rogers is making changes and investments to ensure a network outage like this doesn’t happen again, as part of a personal commitment he pledged in a previous letter posted to the Rogers website shortly after the…
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Bell, Telus offered to help, but Rogers determined it was not possible
OTTAWA – There were no other measures Rogers Communications could have taken to restore 911 services any quicker than it did during the July 8th network outage, the company has told the CRTC in a response to a demand for a detailed report on what happened that day and why.
In a heavily redacted document made public by the CRTC last Friday, Rogers explained it explored the possibility of shutting down its RAN (radio access network), because if customers were unable to connect to it, they would…
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OTTAWA – The Competition Bureau is seeking to have the Competition Tribunal add more time to the pre-hearing process and hearing on the merger of Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications due to Quebecor subsidiary Videotron’s request to participate in it.
The Commissioner of Competition filed a motion today seeking the changes, which would see oral examinations for discovery start on Sept. 19, 2022, instead of Aug. 15, 2022, as currently scheduled.
The commissioner, Matthew Boswell, is further requesting the tribunal include an additional week for oral examinations and another additional week for the hearing. He is requesting the tribunal modify other…
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