WINNIPEG – While his announcement that Shaw Communications’ VOIP launch in Winnipeg is imminent got some headlines after a speech last week, company CEO Jim Shaw used the forum to pound away at one of his favorite topics: transforming government policy.
After saying in the prepared text of his speech to the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce that he expected Shaw to launch voice over Internet protocol telephony in Winnipeg, “in the next few weeks,” he went on to outline his vision of a lighter regulatory regime for the telecom and TV industry.
Broadcast, telecom, it doesn’t matter, all areas…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications announced today that its Shaw Digital Phone customers can now call Alaska and Hawaii as part of their unlimited, anytime long distance calling plan.
This is in addition to the current offering of anytime, unlimited long distance calling anywhere in Canada and the Continental U.S. at no extra charge.
"The addition of Alaska and Hawaii to our unlimited long distance calling plan means customers of Shaw Digital Phone can now call anywhere in Canada and the U.S. anytime they want to at no additional charge," said Peter Bissonnette, president of Shaw Communications Inc., in a…
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TORONTO – Last evening, the Shaw Rocket Fund announced that Degrassi: The Next Generation, produced by Toronto’s Epitome Pictures, is the first ever recipient of the $50,000 Shaw Rocket Prize.
The prize was established by Shaw Communications to recognize and celebrate excellence in Canadian children’s television. This year marks the first of three years that the prize will be awarded.
Four finalists for the Shaw Rocket Prize were selected by an independent, international jury of leaders in children’s TV from the U.K., U.S., Australia, Germany and Canada from submissions made by Canadian producers.
A jury of close to 400…
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WE ALL HAVE A WISH-list, don’t we? Things we think and sometimes say about what we’d change if a genie popped from a bottle.
While a genie grants but three wishes, I have many, many more than that. Greedy, I guess, but here goes. I wish:
* I had telephone call display on my TV screen. That’s a nifty option Sasktel and MTS offer on their DSL TV service. It’s something I’d certainly pay for.
* Telcos and cablecos would quit going after each other at the Commission so often and concentrate on their marketing and engineering. Each side…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications told the CRTC on Thursday that it will take the necessary steps to become a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC).
Having entered the local telephony market in Calgary on Valentine’s Day this year with a voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) service, Shaw has put a scare into Telus, which complained in a submission to the Commission in March that Shaw should be forced to cease and desist selling the service due to the cableco’s “non-compliance with local entry rules.”
Telus is of the opinion that Shaw needed to comply with the CRTC’s Telecom Decision 97-8…
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TORONTO – While technically, they lost, the Canadian Recording Industry Association says it welcomes Thursday’s decision by the Federal Court of Appeal.
The appeal was denied, but the ruling clarified the steps necessary to obtain disclosure of the identities of alleged large-scale uploaders from Internet service providers and rejected the findings of the motions court with respect to copyright law.
"We welcome the court’s confirmation that Canada isn’t a piracy haven," says CRIA President Graham Henderson. "This was the key issue on which we appealed, and we’re delighted that the court agreed with us."
The court decision hinged on…
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WHILE THE SATELLITE SIGNAL theft issue seems to have receded into the background recently, the Canadian TV industry must keep the pressure on government in order to force change.
A number of things have happened of late to limit the damage caused by illegal U.S. dishes, such as DirecTV’s as-yet-unhacked new access card – and the fact that Bell ExpressVu is nearly done with its card-swap, moving to a far more secure algorithm. The quick Quebec Superior Court decision in April to strike down a lower court ruling which said the Radiocommunication Act was contrary to our Charter of…
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OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed a challenge from the Canadian music industry over gaining access to the names of a number of high-volume music file-swappers, but has left the door wide open for further court action.
Reading the decision, though, makes it seem like the judges thought that such file-swapping needs some deeper exploration but were bound by the rules of law to dismiss this particular lawsuit.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association had wanted Canadian Internet service providers Shaw Communications, Rogers Cable, Telus, Bell Canada and Videotron to give it the names of 29 music…
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OTTAWA – The everyday consumer probably doesn’t understand – or care to understand – what the VOIP decision was all about. They just want better stuff cheaper.
In the end, the decision was more than a little anti-climactic. Each side had it figured out already because the CRTC had left more than enough clues about the way it was leaning.
The decision was made official at 4 p.m., www.cartt.ca posted its story at about 4:01 (as soon as the CRTC web-heads turned back on the WiFi) and the wave of pre-written press releases soon began to wash into the…
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OTTAWA – Rogers Communications vice-president, regulatory, Ken Englehart told www.cartt.ca that the CRTC’s demand that cable open up its third party Internet access (TPIA) tariff agreements to explicitly include provisions for voice service, should not pose much of a problem.
While the Commission did adjust its position somewhat, calling for cable to make provisions for access-dependent” third party voice, “things change” shrugged Englehart.
“We had said that access independent voice (where the consumer and their new VOIP provider installs his or her own telephone service on top of their Rogers High Speed service) is okay. We think that…
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