By Matt Stein
THERE’S NO LONGER ANY question that telecommunications is an essential service. Turn off the Wi-Fi in your house and you’ll see what happens!
The pandemic, as we all know from personal experience and from our daily lives, our interactions with our customers and our employees, really underscore just how vital affordable, high-quality communications is.
Everybody says this. But think about whether or not the Canadian communications sector as a whole is delivering on that. Are Canadians getting what they need? The services, the speeds, the packages, the pricing, they demand? Are they being treated fairly?
Fair pricing, fair service, and…
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TORONTO — Corus Entertainment’s YTV today announced a new series called Kid Food Nation, produced in partnership with PC Children’s Charity, will premiere later this month on YTV and StackTV.
Hosted by YTV’s Spencer Litzinger and Tyra Sweet (pictured left to right), Kid Food Nation (4 episodes x 11 minutes) will air Monday, November 23 to Thursday, November 26 at 6 p.m. ET on YTV.
The series features “KFN Heroes” — young cooks with local know-how — and well-known Canadian chefs who will take viewers on a food tour to explore the science, ingredients and cultures of Canadian cuisine. Each episode…
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Will Canada’s big media companies even show up for the streaming wars?
By Brad Danks
LIKE MANY PEOPLE IN THE INDUSTRY, I wasn’t surprised to see Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi shut down last week after rapidly blowing through $1.8 billion in start-up financing. The business model had so many flaws it was just a matter of when it would implode, rather than if.
A staff member reminded me I predicted at Quibi’s launch that they wouldn’t last six months; they made it to seven so I was off by a month. However, predictions aren’t important. What is important is looking at the reasons…
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Must pay nearly $18 million to production funds
By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — Bell Canada “misallocated” millions of dollars of funding for Canadian programming and failed to meet its obligations to community television programming by using much of its required funding for community TV on shows that clearly furthered Bell Media’s commercial interests, the CRTC announced in a lengthy (26,632-word) decision rendered on Thursday.
The performance of Bell’s community television was reviewed as part of its Fibe TV licence renewal, the company’s IPTV network in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, and as a result of the violations, Bell has been directed…
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Feds say attachment costs “often prohibitively expensive”
By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – The newly-appointed board of directors of the Ontario Energy Board will oversee a review of pole attachment rates in the province, according to a mandate letter sent earlier this month, a priority assignment that is aligned with the province’s efforts to reduce equipment install costs to drive its broadband expansion goals.
Captured in just one line underneath a section on reducing regulatory burdens, the letter requires the “modernized” board to “consider pole attachment policy in the context of opportunities to better serve areas that are currently underserved.”
Ontario has the highest…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – In 2013, the CRTC licenced the Seasonal Channel, a category B television channel owned by Stingray that would “feature still pictures and moving video of nature scenes with appropriate music that will change based upon the season to create a soothing video environment.”
In its 2019 licence renewal, questions were raised as to whether the channel, called Ambiance at that point, should be exempted under the Still Image Exemption Order. As Stingray said, in a letter to the Commission, on February 7th 2019: “It is also important to note that Stingray Ambiance is currently the only…
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OTTAWA — Nokia announced today a new agreement with Ontario-based Greener Acres Canada to turn electronic waste into smart city green poles that will replace traditional utility poles.
Using the almost 50,000 tons of recycled e-waste collected annually in Ontario, Greener Acres plans to use special manufacturing techniques to produce up to 1,000 smart city green poles per day, says Nokia’s press release.
Under the agreement, Nokia and Greener Acres will work together to develop and upgrade Canada’s utility pole infrastructure to smart, green poles that can power smart cities and broadband communications. According to the release, each year Canada…
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OTTAWA — The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) issued a reminder today there’s only 10 days left to register for the two-day virtual 2020 Canadian ISP Summit, happening November 3 to 4.
With the theme “Navigating the New Normal”, the virtual conference will feature keynote speakers, general session presentations and panels, as well as a virtual trade show.
Already confirmed to speak are CRTC chair and CEO Ian Scott, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains, innovation strategist Shawn Kanungo, and CNOC president and chairman Matt Stein.
Panels include a regulatory panel moderated by Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien,…
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2.8 million minutes of online activity, 153,000 platform interactions
EXTON, Pa. — SCTE-ISBE announced today its Cable-Tec Expo Virtual Experience held last week had record-breaking attendance with participants from more than 100 countries.
The virtual format of the event allowed people to participate remotely and registration was free for the first time in the show’s nearly 40-year history, thanks to sponsorships from Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, Midco, Liberty Global, Millicom, RCN, Rogers, Shaw, the National Cable Television Cooperative, and the SCTE Foundation.
SCTE-ISBE says the free registration drove a substantial increase in first-time attendees, who accounted for more than half of…
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Rogers was the fastest fixed broadband provider in Canada in Q3, says Ookla
SEATTLE — In its latest Speedtest Global Index measurement of network speeds in Canada, Seattle-based Ookla reports Rogers Communications was the fastest fixed broadband provider among top providers in Canada in the third quarter of 2020.
According to Ookla’s Speedtest Intelligence data from July to September, Rogers achieved a speed score of 151.51 in Q3 2020. (Ookla’s speed score incorporates measurements of each provider’s download and upload speeds to rank network speed performance, with 90% of the final speed score being attributed to download speed.)
The next highest…
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