OTTAWA – We choked a little on our coffee when we read the co-signers, but a letter to Industry Minister Tony Clement – to be printed Monday in an ad in the Hill Times newspaper – urges him to respect the Telecom Act as he reviews the CRTC’s decision on Globalive’s lack of Canadian ownership.
Signed by western competitors Telus and Shaw Communications, along with the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association (which often doesn’t see eye-to-eye with carriers) and wireless newbie Public Mobile, the letter reinforces to the Minister that the CRTC was and is right to tell Globalive…
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DENVER–Striving to chop energy costs, protect the environment, and placate increasingly demanding regulators, major North American cable operators are starting to take steps to cut power consumption and carbon emissions.
In a “green” general session staged here at last week’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2009, executives from four large MSOs and two prominent cable trade groups spelled out ways that cable providers are beginning to reduce their carbon footprints. They also discussed promising measures that cable operators can adopt to cut pollution further in the future.
D’Arcy Brown, director of optical transport and facilities, network planning group, for Rogers Cable Communications,…
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TORONTO – Canada’s self proclaimed “Latino superstation” TLN Telelatino turns 25 this month, and will debut new programming and grassroots community initiatives to celebrate the milestone.
The trilingual Spanish, Italian and English network will air late night talk show Lopez Tonight starting Monday, featuring Mexican comedian, actor, writer, and producer George Lopez. TLN also announced that it is the new exclusive Canadian rightsholder of the Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup) with games from 48 European soccer clubs.
“November will be a special month for us," said president Aldo Di Felice, in the announcement. "It will embody and celebrate TLN’s quarter century as a leader in delivering…
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TORONTO – While data will account for 19% of wireless service revenue – and all of 2009 service revenue growth in Canada – a 2% decline in Canadian wireless service ARPU is predicted by Convergence Consulting Group.
Growing adoption of smartphones/data devices, “which we estimate will reach 23% by year-end 2009 (and break 50% in 2014), is helping to drive data revenue growth,” says the report, as voice revenue has moved into negative territory.
As for the new entrants (and taking into account that Globalive likely won’t be in the market in the short term), “based on what we project new…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications and Bragg Communications are in discussions on potential system swaps, Cartt.ca has learned.
A source with direct knowledge of the talks said late Wednesday on condition of anonymity that the two companies are negotiating a deal in which the primary assets exchanged would be Bragg’s Delta Cable and Coast Cable systems in southern B.C. (and potentially some of EastLink’s other operations in Western Canada, too) in exchange for Rogers’ systems in St. John’s, Corner Brook and Gander, Nfld.
The deal would certainly make sense for Bragg’s EastLink cableco since it owns many small systems throughout Newfoundland &…
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TORONTO – The Ontario Association of Broadcasters annual general meeting and awards luncheon honoured former Global Television and Rogers Radio, president and CEO, Jim Sward.
The Ontario Association of Broadcasters’ Community Service Awards are presented annually to member stations for their outstanding contributions of airtime and staffing to worthwhile organizations in their respective communities, says the OAB release.
The gathering Wednesday at Toronto’s Boulevard Club featured a longer networking reception and a new feature, a panel discussion, where industry leaders discussed the impact of new technology on radio revenue, according to the OAB press release.
Laura Gaggi, president of Gaggi Media moderated…
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BRAMPTON, ON – Registration is now open for the one-day technical training seminar ‘Cable TV Boot Camp’, hosted by the Ontario chapter of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE).
Ideal as introduction for new employees or as a refresher for others, the event will be hosted by Glenn Shield on November 19 at the Tosca Banquet Hall in Oshawa, ON.
Visit www.scte-ontario.com for more information or to register.
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TORONTO –
Whether it’s true IPTV or a version of DSL doesn’t really matter and in a Canadian context anyway, that’s a significant number (right around the total number of people living in Windsor, Ont.). And they are building, experimenting and taking customers away from their primary competitors, cable.
This week in Toronto, a number of the traditional telecom companies which are now offering TV are meeting with the various programmers in Canada and from the States to talk about their expansion plans (more regions, more customers, more channels).
Most are adding channels and capabilities. Some are newer and serve a…
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WHITEHORSE, YT – Northwestel digital television customers in Whitehorse have access to more high definition channels, the company announced this week.
The sports line-up has been improved with the introduction of a new HD pay per view hockey channel and the addition of three new HD channels to the Sports package: The Score HD, The Golf Channel HD and Big Ten Network HD. (Big Ten is also available in SD.)
The Digital Essentials package has been expanded to include six new HD channels, too. Those include: CBC West HD , CTV West HD, Global West HD, Global Toronto HD, Citytv HD…
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TORONTO – Is Canada’s broadband infrastructure lagging or leading that of other countries?
According to a recent report by Canadian telecom consultant Mark Goldberg and Giganomics’ Suzanne Blackwell, that question can be difficult to answer. International comparative statistics have been conflicted on Canada’s broadband performance, in large part due to methodological errors in some of the research that in turn biased the resulting rankings.
The authors are particularly critical of the OECD rankings which they describes as “highly dependent on per country sampling data used”, while its penetration metrics are biased in favour of countries with smaller household sizes. Also, the OECD…
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