TORONTO – While a wide range of hopeful competitors have backed a mandated MVNO, or some sort of variant on it, regime from the CRTC, CFOs from two of Canada’s Big Three Telecoms – Glen LeBlanc (Bell) and Telus’ Doug French – insisted last week such a move would be irresponsible of the Commission to implement.
Speaking at TD Securities Telecom and Media Forum in Toronto last week, the executives, in separate presentations, touted their respective company investments in having built the infrastructure that now serves Canadians from coast to coast. (MVNO =…
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GATINEAU – In its submission to the CRTC’s review of mobile services, Cogeco – which already offers cable, Internet and local phone in various markets in Quebec and Ontario – has proposed another way to get into wireless without losing its shirt.
With less than 800,000 wired subscribers, the company can hardly afford the cost of entry in the wireless club but definitely wants to add mobile so it can provide the entire bundle of services to customers. For years, Cogeco has been advocating a mandated Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) regime to piggyback on larger wireless operators at cost…
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GATINEAU – Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?
That was the unusual, if creative, way SaskTel chose to demonstrate how, if the CRTC is going to mandate third party wireless resellers, we can expect a much worse competitive market that causes serious damage to regional independent mobile wireless operators.
“Mandated MVNOs will harm 4th carriers more than the National Wireless Carriers. In any market, there is a portion of the customer base which is most likely to move to a new competitor, a portion which is quite unlikely to change, and a portion somewhere between these…
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Independent broadcasters want their HD added to satellite services
MONTREAL — The licence renewal applications of Bell and Shaw’s satellite TV distribution services prompted 156 replies, the vast majority of which were comments from individuals upset Shaw Communications plans to discontinue a free basic TV service it set up for people who lost access to over-the-air stations during the digital transition.
The Local Television Satellite Solution was promised and provided by Shaw in 2010 as a tangible benefit during its acquisition of CanWest’s television assets, including Global TV. The company proposed spending $15 million to send free…
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A NATIONAL RATINGS service which includes set top box data from all major TV carriers looks like it may not happen.
On April 4, 2019, Quebecor’s cableco Vidéotron withdrew from the CRTC mandated Set-Top Box Working Group and stated it does not intend to provide STB viewer data to ratings agency Numeris for the proposed audience measurement system. The STB Working Group and Numeris now say they must evaluate the full impact of Vidéotron’s decision before proposing next steps, according to a letter from Shaw’s Dean Shaikh, on behalf of the STB Working Group, to the…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications is selling off its stake in Corus Entertainment in a deal valued at approximately $548 million.
The transaction sees Shaw divest its 80.63 million class B non-voting participating Corus shares for $6.80 per share through a secondary offering. That’s about 16% lower than Tuesday’s close on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Shaw said that it will use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include the repayment of outstanding debt, and that Corus will not receive any money from the sale.
Following the closing of the deal, which is expected on May 31st, Shaw will no longer hold…
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We're "well positioned" to do it
OTTAWA – During this time of major upheaval in broadcasting, which has seen the ascension of Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, and The Walt Disney Company’s acquisition of FOX in March, Canadian content producers and distributors need to accelerate a move outside the box rather than feel overwhelmed by the rapid and consequential changes to programming, according to the head of Canada’s national LGBTQ television network, which is doing just that.
Brad Danks, CEO of OUTtv told the Policy 3.0 communications law conference at the University of Ottawa on May 10, about the network’s…
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OTTAWA–GATINEAU – The CRTC is once again seeking volunteers to help it measure the performance of home wireline broadband Internet services provided by the country’s major Internet service providers.
Under the Measuring Broadband Canada program, the Commission will work in collaboration with ISPs and broadband testing firm SamKnows to measure broadband performance and test parameters associated with the broadband Internet connection, including download and upload speeds.
While some providers offer advertised speeds of 1Gbps or faster, services above 940Mbps cannot be measured with a conventional speed test, meaning that speed tiers of 1Gbps or faster are excluded from the 2019 Measuring…
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CALGARY – The data of about 15,000 Freedom Mobile customers was exposed by a security breach from late March to late April, the Shaw-owned carrier confirmed Wednesday.
A CBC report says that Freedom Mobile was apparently warned of the breach by an outside research firm on April 17, 18 and 23, but did not respond to that firm until April 24.
Freedom said its investigation determined that the breach began on March 25 and affected data processed by a new external third-party vendor that had been hired to streamline its retail customer support. The problem was fixed by April 23, continued the carrier, adding that…
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GATINEAU – After hearing from a range of Canadians via Facebook in February and March (some who had cogent complaints and arguments, some who, um, did not…), the CRTC this week gathered up final written submissions on its new proposed Internet code of conduct for providers of retail fixed internet services.
Canadian carriers generally support such a code, or at least the idea of one, which would “enhance the transparency of Internet contracts, help consumers, regardless of who their Internet provider is, to better understand their rights and responsibilities under these contracts and enable them to…
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