MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable announced Tuesday the launch of its Ultimate 30 and Ultimate 50 High Speed Internet (HSI) packages for consumers in Shawinigan, Québec, as well as its new Business Ultimate 50 package for businesses.
Cogeco says the three packages, powered by DOCSIS 3.0, offer advantages in speed and pricing compared to competitors. The Ultimate 30 package offers speeds of up to 30 Mbps for downloads and up to 1.5 Mbps for uploads with a monthly download cap of 100 GB. For the Ultimate 50 package, speeds can reach 50 Mbps for downloads and 1.5 Mbps for uploads…
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OTTAWA – Saying he’s defending consumer choice and competition, Industry Minister Tony Clement announced Tuesday that the Conservative government will appeal a Federal Court of Canada ruling that quashed a cabinet order allowing Egyptian-backed Globalive Wireless (whose retail brand is Wind) to operate in Canada.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), ACTRA, and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting were intervenors in the case.
"Overturning the Cabinet decision is a victory for Canadian ownership rules and a victory for Canadian culture," said Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director. "Globalive was potentially the beginning of the end of our…
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TORONTO – BMO Capital Markets has downgraded its investment rating on Shaw Communications from outperform to market perform, based on the growing competitive threat from Telus, which could eventually capture one third of the B.C.-Alberta TV subscription market, says the bank.
“We are growing increasingly concerned with Shaw’s ability to withstand competitive pressures from Telus, specifically its Optik TV service,” writes Tim Casey, cable and media analyst at BMO Capital Markets, in his note to clients.
He cautions that Telus has the financial scale and strategic incentive to remain aggressive with marketing promotions this year and next, particularly since Shaw is…
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TORONTO – "I’m from the cable company and I’m here to help you," Shaw Communications Brad Shaw joked with attendees at Tuesday’s Broadcast Executives Society luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel.
In his first address to the Canadian broadcast community, Shaw sang the praises of television as a platform and of the people at what is now Shaw Media.
While noting the media business is “fraught with challenges,” he said his visit to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month confirmed the strength of television as the top dog. “The big screen TV was the centre point of every…
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CALGARY – On Monday, Shaw Communications released the dates and locations for customer consultation sessions to share thoughts on Internet usage allowances and billing.
"Last week, we said that we wanted to hear directly from our own customers before we introduce any kind of program on usage-based charges. Today we’re announcing the dates and locations for these meetings," said Peter Bissonnette, President of Shaw Communications. "We’ve been very pleased by some of the reaction we’ve seen to last week’s announcement. We want to explore all of the alternatives and we’re already seeing some constructive and interesting suggestions from customers…
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OTTAWA – National media folks have written this morning that “big telco” rose up to defend itself yesterday in front of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology which met again Thursday to discuss wholesale usage-based billing.
We listened in – and to be honest took few notes. There was nothing said by the likes of MTS Allstream, CAIP, OpenMedia, Bell and Shaw that we have not heard many, many times already – be it over the past number of days, or dating back months to prior CRTC hearings.
(And we still believe UBB has now become a poisonous…
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NOT LONG AGO I ASKED A CRTC senior policy advisor I know how work was going. It was one of those just-making-conversation questions we all ask, but I was a little surprised at his response:
“Livin’ the dream,” he excitedly told me. Now, I’m not sure my facial expression betrayed my wonder at that statement and I don’t remember what I said next, but he continued to add that he found it exciting, interesting and fun to debate and then help craft what would become the “law of the land.”
Upon reflection, it shouldn’t have come as such a shock –…
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GATINEAU – The winds of criticism were blowing Pelmorex Communications’ way during the first day of its licence renewal hearing in Gatineau on Tuesday as CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein and Pelmorex senior VP of regulatory and strategic affairs Paul Temple sparred over aspects of the company’s licence renewal application.
In addition to asking for a seven-year licence renewal, Pelmorex is requesting an extension to the 2009 mandatory order on 9(1)(h) that would keep the Weather Network and MétéoMédia on basic carriage until 2018. The company says that it needs the extension to help offset the costs of operating…
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GATINEAU – After a week of vitriol, legitimate consumer anger and utter political silliness, the CRTC today officially opened up a new review into wholesale broadband usage based billing
“The great concern expressed by Canadians over this issue is telling of how much the Internet has become an integral part of their lives,” said Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the CRTC, in a press release.
“Our approach is based on two fundamental principles: as a general rule, ordinary consumers served by Small ISPs should not have to fund the bandwidth used by the heaviest residential Internet consumers; and it is in…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications said today that thanks to the national backlash over the concept of usage-based billing, it is asking customers to participate in consultation sessions to share their thoughts on how the big ISP should handle Internet usage allowances and billing.
That’s despite the fact the whole UBB furor has little to do with Shaw as it has just a single third party ISPs riding on its network and hadn’t yet begun charging retail customers for exceeding the gigabit download thresholds the company had set (“High Speed” has a 60 GB file transfer limit, “Extreme” has a 100…
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