TORONTO – When Corus purchased Shaw Media last year, along with the company came 15 union members who belonged to the Canadian Media Guild.
Shortly after joining Corus, the group of former Shaw operations employees organized with their new colleagues and in March, the group voted to join CMG together. According to the union, that’s when things started to go wrong between management and the now 45 unionized employees. Unions are not generally a large presence at Corus, which has close to 5,000 employees, however over 200 Global TV staffers belong to Unifor.
The vote by the group to join CMG…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Brendan Carr, recently appointed commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has some advice for Canadian spectrum regulators: avoid using spectrum set asides in the 600 MHz auction.
In an interview style session with Cartt.ca publisher and editor Greg O’Brien at the International Institute of Canada’s annual conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, Carr, one of three Republicans on the five-member commission, characterized the FCC’s 600 MHz auction as generally successful, but noted it didn’t need to be as complicated as it was. The complexity resulted from the FCC’s decision to set aside spectrum as a way to…
Continue Reading
BROADBAND IN CANADA’S FAR NORTH got a boost earlier this fall when the federal government gave Northwestel $50 million for the deployment of a satellite backhaul network for Nunavut. The much needed investment comes from the Liberals’ Budget 2016 Connect to Innovate program, which promises $500 million over five years to address lack of high speed Internet services in rural and remote regions of the country.
Curtis Shaw, COO at Northwestel, noted at the time of the funding announcement that this new backhaul network will provide additional choices to consumers and businesses. The company will also invest $73 million…
Continue Reading
FORT FRANCES, Ont. – Tbaytel Fibre is now available to homes and businesses in Fort Frances, a town of about 7,800 right near the border with Minnesota, about 350 kms from Thunder Bay. The move brings it in direct competition with regional incumbents Shaw and Bell.
Tbaytel announced 11 months ago it would be embarking on a project to add wireline fibre services to its existing mobility offering in the Fort Frances area and since that time, the city of Thunder Bay-owned company has completed a regional network centre along with the new fibre runs.
Customers in Fort Frances now…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Hollywood Suite is gearing up for a five-week national free preview promising a slew of films including 28 premieres.
From December 1 through January 5, viewers can stoke their holiday spirit with perennial festive favourites such as Die Hard, Gremlins, Scrooged and White Christmas; celebrate John Lennon on December 8 with A Hard Day’s Night, Imagine: John Lennon, and Across the Universe; remember Carrie Fisher on December 27 with When Harry Met Sally and Postcards from the Edge; plus ring in the new year with a Star Trek marathon.
Hollywood Suite owns and operates four exclusive HDTV channels featuring…
Continue Reading
Shaw says it’s a must if the government truly wants competition
OTTAWA – The large incumbent wireless operators and their smaller rivals continue to spar over proposed 600 MHz spectrum licensing rules in reply comments to Innovation, Science and Economic Development’s (ISED) consultation. There are several sticking points over ISED’s pro-competitive ideas but the most contentious revolve around the provision to set aside spectrum for companies which aren’t Bell, Rogers or Telus.
Rogers and Telus remain convinced that setting aside spectrum for the regional wireless players isn’t the right approach. (Bell Canada’s reply comments weren’t made available at the time…
Continue Reading
DENVER – With cable operators under mounting pressure to boost the capacity of their beleaguered networks and offer faster broadband speeds without overloading their headends and hubs with more costly equipment, the industry is now adopting a distributed access architecture (DAA) approach that will spread out the gear throughout their networks.
In particular, cable technologists are embracing a promising DAA option known as Remote PHY. Under this scheme, the physical layer (or PHY) of a traditional, dense cable headend CMTS or CCAP chassis is shifted to the fiber-optic nodes in the access network, allowing the data processing functions to occur…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – The CRTC has pushed back its deadline for comments pertaining to TV channels wishing to renew their places in the basic programming package.
After recently announcing that it would kick off its 9(1)(h) hearing on April 30, the Commission said Wednesday that the deadline to submit interventions, comments and answers is now December 8, 2017, and not November 16 as first announced. The deadline for the applicants to submit their replies is December 18.
The new deadlines comes as a result of a joint procedural request from BCE, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, Cogeco, Quebecor, Rogers, Shaw and…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Newcomers to Canada use their mobile phone more than the general Canadian population, stream more content, and enjoy watching basketball, according to a new report released Tuesday.
Solution Research Group’s Newcomers to Canada research study explores consumer behaviours, social attitudes and demographics of newcomers in the last 10 years. The study polled 1,149 newcomers from China, South Asia, The Philippines, North Africa and the Middle East, as well as Latin and Central America.
According to the report, the newcomer market is increasing in importance socially and economically because of their record numbers (2.6 million since 2007) and habits that…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw Communications saw fourth quarter profits more than triple, helped by a lift in wireless and internet subscribers, the company reported Thursday.
For the three month period ended August 31, 2017, Shaw saw net income jump to $481 million from $154 million in the same period last year, which it said reflects a $330 million gain on the sale of U.S. data centre business ViaWest Inc.
Net income for fiscal 2017 was $851 million, down from the $1.2 billion reported in fiscal 2016, due to higher net income from discontinued operations in fiscal 2016, including the gain on the…
Continue Reading
