By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear a big telecom appeal about the alleged incorrectness of the CRTC’s decision to reduce the rate for internet capacity purchased by smaller service providers.
The decision, announced Thursday morning, exhausts the legal route for a challenge of the August 2019 rates that dramatically reduced the amount that smaller providers would need to spend to purchase network capacity from the larger players. The rates were never implemented because it almost instantly was appealed to the CRTC, the federal government, and the courts.
The SCC does not give reasons for why…
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Working group includes members from Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw, Cogeco, Eastlink and CWTA
TORONTO — Investment in the telecommunications sector is key to Canada’s future prosperity and governments must focus on regulatory clarity, timeliness and stability to help drive greater investments in critically needed infrastructure, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute.
The think tank today issued the first communiqué from its telecommunications policy working group which includes among its 19 members the chief regulatory experts from Bell, Rogers and Telus, as well as executives from Cogeco, Eastlink and Shaw Communications, and CWTA president and CEO Robert Ghiz. The…
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IGLOOLIK, Nunavut — To celebrate the launch of Canada’s first all-Inuit TV channel, Uvagut TV will air a two-hour live special on Wednesday, February 24 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET.
Uvagut TV launched on January 18 (as we reported here) and brings Inuktut programming to more than 600,000 homes across all four Inuit regions and the rest of Canada, via the Shaw Direct satellite service. Cable operator Arctic Co-operatives Limited also carries the channel in Nunavut and Northwest Territories and the channel owners are seeking wider Canadian carriage, too.
Co-hosted by Inuit producer and director Zacharias Kunuk (above,…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Bill C-10 passed second reading unanimously last Tuesday and was officially referred to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for study, which of course, has already begun.
The prior two meetings on the bill to amend the Broadcasting Act were, for all intents and purposes, labelled a pre-study of the legislation, in order to get a heard start hearing witnesses before the bill was approved in second reading.
So, officially, the meeting last Friday was the first meeting to officially look at the legislation.
However, the committee chair informed members and witnesses at the start of the meeting…
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Third in a three-part series
By Len St-Aubin
FOR DECADES, CANADIAN broadcasting policy, grounded in the limitations of over-the-air radio and TV, has restricted consumer choice in the name of Canadian culture.
Quietly, Canadians have resisted: with set-top “rabbit ears”, roof-top antennas, pre-regulation cable-TV, and satellite dishes big and small, we asserted our freedom of choice, pulling in foreign signals. We took to online streaming like fish to water.
If passed, Bill C-10 would apply those increasingly out of touch (OOT) policies to online streaming. Virtual private networks (VPNs) are about to flourish.
It’s not that Canadians don’t like Canadian content. Our maple-leaf hearts…
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By Len St-Aubin
DEBATE ABOUT BILL C-10 thus far has focused on Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s goal to make big foreign online audio and video streamers, like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, YouTube and Spotify, contribute to the creation of Canadian content.
But Bill C-10’s scope is vast. It will impact broadcasting and the internet in Canada, and all Canadians
It’s a valid public policy goal to expect big foreign streamers which have significant market share and revenues in Canada to engage with Canadian creators in the production of Canadian stories for Canadian and global audiences. It’s a valid question whether amending the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
GATINEAU – The CRTC has announced a second round of funding commitment from its $750-million Broadband Fund and it’s going to what the industry has often identified as a serious cost barrier to rural broadband: transport facilities.
On Thursday, the regulator announced five recipients for funds worth a total of $26.7 million, focusing on British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario. Those companies are Rogers, Shaw, BH Telecom Corp., Columbia Basin Broadband Corporation, and Tough Country Communications Ltd., which are expected to connect 41 communities with 550 km of fibre transport.
The first announcement pledged $72 million for satellite and fibre…
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INUVIK, NWT — Northwestel said today it has officially launched its unlimited fibre internet service in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, with residential and business customers now able to order the service which offers speeds up to 250 Mbps.
Northwestel announced its intention last year to extend its fibre-to-the-home service to Inuvik (pop. 3,300), which is the company’s second FTTH community in the Northwest Territories, following Hay River. Both projects were funded entirely by Northwestel, the company says in a press release.
The company’s new residential fibre internet plans will deliver up to 16x faster Internet than previously offered by Northwestel, at…
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SSi Micro says northern broadband won’t grow if everything is given to incumbents
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Last week, outgoing Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said a chunk of the United States’ historic C-band spectrum proceeds should go toward a fund intended to help bring basic telecommunications services to all Americans.
North of the border, NDP Member of Parliament Brian Masse (and many others) has long been calling for spectrum proceeds to fund rural broadband investments — even creating a proposal to connect the entirety of the country to universal objective speeds (50 Mbps download/10 Mbps upload) much sooner than…
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TORONTO — Corus Entertainment today announced the new YTV Original family mystery series, The Hardy Boys, will premiere on YTV on Friday, March 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Based on the books by Franklin W. Dixon, the series (13 episodes x 60 minutes) is produced by Lambur Productions and Nelvana, Corus’ kids content producer, in association with Corus Entertainment.
Filmed in Toronto and Southern Ontario, the much-anticipated Canadian premiere of The Hardy Boys on YTV follows the series’ U.S. debut in December 2020 on Hulu. Canadians can also stream The Hardy Boys live and on demand on StackTV with Amazon Prime…
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