CALGARY – Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette said Thursday that the cable division is looking at launching network digital video recording service.
The service would make personal video recording (PVR) capabilities available to any customer with a regular digital set top box as any recording would be done within the cable infrastructure and not on the consumer premises.
"We are very interested in the network PVR concept," said Bissonnette during a conference call Thursday.
While there are "switching and network congestion" issues that have to be worked out, he added, network DVR is something Shaw is testing.
Bissonnette gave…
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LOS ANGELES – Full length episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Alias and Commander In Chief will be available on www.abc.go.com for free during a two-month trial, parent company Disney announced today.
Participating advertisers Include AT&T, Cingular, Ford, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever’s Suave, Universal Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures
Current episodes of the four programs – which are also available for purchase on iTunes, will be available for streaming during May and June, marking the first time a broadcast network has made multiple series available for viewing online, free of charge to consumers.
It’s not said in the…
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REGINA – Beginning next Saturday, Access Communications will show the second round of the Western Hockey League playoffs exclusively to its cable customers.
“We know our viewers across the province are passionate about hockey”, said Gursh Madhur, manager of community programming for the cable co-operative, in a release, “and we are excited to be offering this exclusive coverage.”
Round two of WHL playoff action features the series between Moose Jaw and Calgary.
This season’s WHL coverage is a result of a three-year agreement with the WHL and a partnership between Access Communications and Shaw Communications to bring WHL action…
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I FIND CARTT.CA AN EXCELLENT source of timely information about the exciting communications industry in Canada and occasionally we subscribers are treated to one of your humorous diversions, or at least that is what Thursday’s Commentary seems to be. It focuses on what can only be described as the old saying “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” Global style.
Last November I learned through your service that the CEO of Global, Mr. Leonard Asper announced, among other things, that “There is a battle coming.” He was also quoted as saying “We know the Commission has some sympathy…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications launched its digital phone service in St. Albert and Sherwood Park this week.
Shaw’s first cable signal was broadcast in Sherwood Park in 1971 when JR Shaw launched the company in Alberta, after moving there from London, Ont.
As a primary home line, Shaw Digital Phone offers unlimited local and long distance calling within Canada and the U.S. and a bundle of six popular calling features.
"Launching Digital Phone service in the community where our history as a company began is a great milestone," said Jim Shaw, CEO, in a release. "Since our first cable…
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CALGARY – Shaw Cable announced today that it has signed a video on demand agreement with Warner Bros.
The new deal increases Shaw’s VOD library to over 2,000 titles, including recent movies like: Must Love Dogs, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, North Country, Oscar nominated foreign film Paradise Now and Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire.
www.shaw.ca
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GATINEAU – The CRTC wants to know more about account stacking before it renders a ruling in a dispute between cable, broadcasters and satellite companies and has called for comments on the issue.
Account stacking is where a BDU treats two (or more, as the complaint mentioned below contends) residences as a single subscription. So, for example, if a Star Choice customer has a dish at his home and cottage, he pays just one monthly fee.
In a complaint filed with the Commission in December and reported on only by cartt.ca here. Videotron has asked the CRTC to…
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TORONTO – By the end of 2006 Canadian cable companies will have 12% (1.57 million) of residential telephone subscribers in Canada and 27% by year-end 2009 (3.35 million), says a new report released today.
This is up from 6% at the end of ’05 (835,000), says the latest installment of The Convergence Consulting Group’s "Battle for the North American Couch Potato: Bundling, Internet, TV, Telephone."
While the inroads traditional cable companies are making in voice are strong, the report doesn’t have a similar forecast when it comes to the traditional ILEC’s push into video. Telcos will have 2% (220,000)…
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CALGARY – Cybersurf, an independent Canadian ISP, announced Monday it would offer free high speed Internet access to customers choosing its voice product.
The company is near completion of its national VOIP and cable high speed service and will use the Shaw, Rogers and Videotron backbones to provide its service.
To BR: branded CIA Local Phone in the Toronto market, Cybersurf’s service is offered as a competitive alternative to Bell and Rogers’ local phone service, and includes E911, 411, free unlimited local calling in the 416 area code, free call features and low domestic and international long distance rates….
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By Greg O’Brien
I REMEMBER WHEN THEN-CRTC broadcasting vice-chair Andrée Wylie told the 1999 CCTA convention in Vancouver that the Commission had no intention of trying to regulate the Internet.
Because of it’s very nature, it’s impossible to regulate the Internet itself (unless you’re China or some other repressive government that deploys some painful cyber-clamps and doesn’t mind tossing people in jail for reading the New York Times or somesuch online), which the CRTC recognized early on. Plus, 1999 was pre tech-bubble and the opportunities of the ‘net seemed endless. Why toss up regulations in front of such potential?
That Commission…
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