WINNIPEG IS ONE OF THE HOTTER bundling battlegrounds in Canada.
While Shaw is the incumbent video provider and a nascent voice company in the Manitoba capital, MTS Allstream, the provincial telco (which is also a national wholesale and enterprise player) has claimed about 55,000 video customers with MTS TV in Winnipeg – the only city in the province in which it has a cable license.
Customers like the simple bill, the fact they can re-jig their channel lineups on screen or even see e-mails and caller ID on their TVs. Finally, last month, MTS TV added a key piece…
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OTTAWA – The VOIP decision will stand, with a "but".
Today the CRTC re-affirmed its May 2005 decision on voice over Internet protocol. Federal cabinet told the Commission in May of this year to reconsider that decision after all but one of Canada’s ILEC’s filed an appeal.
However, because of the sheer speed in which Canada’s incumbent local exchange carriers are losing customers, the Commission did signal it’s prepared to alter course when it deems necessary and will already re-examine its March 2006 decision on local forbearance.
Specifically, it "declared that competition in local telephone service is…
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WINNIPEG – So much for the DSL disadvantage.
Cable – and to a lesser extent, satellite – companies have long said one of the advantages they have over DSL-pushed digital television delivered over the telephone companies’ legacy systems was that the thickness of their pipe to the home could deliver HD while DSL could not.
Yesterday, however, MTS TV launched seven high definition channels for its customers in Winnipeg.
"Our HD service provides the range to enjoy all of today’s hit shows and live sports with a crystal clear picture and amazing digital sound,” said Kelvin Shepherd, president, consumer markets…
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WITH THE SALE OF DELTA Cable to Persona Communications, a cable era continues to draw to a close.
The era, of course, is that of the independent, local cable operator. Delta is one of several to be sold (pending CRTC approval) in the past 12 months. Besides Delta, Persona recently purchased Northern Cablevision of Grande Prairie, Alta., and Shaw Cable has been on a bit of a buying spree lately, gobbling up small cablers like Pemberton Cable, Saltspring Cable, Whistler Cable and Norcom Telecommunications.
So, the shock of the Delta announcement (first reported by…
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TORONTO – Keying off an internal CableLabs research paper, a Wall Street Journal report said yesterday that cable operators may need to spend billions on more rounds of network upgrades.
The newspaper story (subscription required) quoted the leaked document from Cable Television Laboratories – the cable industry’s R&D and specifications arm – saying that broadband video growth at places such as Google and YouTube, coupled with the multibillion-dollar spend by Verizon to get fibre to the premises and roll out digital television, will require CableLabs members to dig into their wallets for yet another rebuild.
The story also…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications’ Big Pipe division announced today the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) has chosen it to provide them with high-speed data services.
After a formal bid process, Big Pipe was contracted to provide Transparent LAN Service (TLS) between the CBE’s data centres, to facilitate high-availability bandwidth for business continuity.
"The CBE has growing data needs," said Cindy Seibel, director, information and technology services, at the CBE. "We needed a bandwidth provider to supply an innovative, custom solution for our particular network challenges, and Big Pipe delivered."
The CBE currently supports close to 100,000 students and has…
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SIGNIFICANT. MARKET. POWER.
Those three words appear all through the Telecom Policy Review Report, which Cartt.ca has covered at length. According to my search of that document, the three words appear together 62 times, and a further 65 as its SMP acronym.
When reading that huge report, it’s easy to see how SMP was and is a very big deal to its authors. The Telecom Policy Review Panel was very conscious of the concept and how the companies with SMP might still have to be watched. It’s a key concept of the report.
But you wouldn’t know it from…
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THE FOOD INDUSTRY WAS never this exciting, says Videotron president and CEO Robert Dépatie.
In the 1990s, he was in charge of the Planters brand in Quebec and prior to that, held positions with Heinz. The sheer volume of food processing technology was nothing then as compared to what his cable company faces today. The acronyms are endless: VOIP, VOD, HDTV, iTV, IPTV, DOCSIS and so on.
Last week, the MSO launched its own branded wireless service, riding on the Rogers Wireless backbone, giving it a fourth valuable service option and allowing a family’s entire telecom bill, beginning to…
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REGINA – SaskTel’s digital TV service, Max TV, will launch Turner Classic Movies Tuesday.
TBS and the Saskatchewan telco made the announcement Monday. TCM will launch as part of the Variety Theme Pack on Channel 132.
The two main cable competitors in the province, Shaw in Saskatoon and other areas, and Access Communications in Regina and surrounding communities, both carry TCM already.
TCM offers 24 hours of uncut and commercial-free movies – made anywhere from the 1920s to the 1990s – every day of the week.
www.tcm.com www.sasktel.com
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VANCOUVER – Thanks to continuing strong wireless and high speed Internet subscriber growth, Telus reported a 6% increase in revenues to $2.1 billion in the second quarter, as compared to the same period a year ago.
EBITDA increased 4% to $897.1 million and operating income jumped 10.5% to $515 million.
"Our national wireless and data growth strategy continues to generate strong consolidated top and bottom line growth for Telus despite the challenging wireline environment," said company CEO Darren Entwistle.
"Wireless revenue, which is now 44% of consolidated revenue, was up 18% in the second quarter. However, Telus’ wireless operations…
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