3500 MHz auction rules to be part of the release
TORONTO – Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains will deliver a “speech on the Government of Canada’s commitment to make life more affordable for Canadians,” at the Scarborough Civic Centre Library at 4 p.m. Thursday, it was announced today.
Sources tell Cartt.ca the announcement will define more of the parameters around the Liberal government’s commitment to a 25% reduction in Canadian mobile wireless prices going forward and also mark the release of the rules for the 3500 MHz spectrum auction which will happen later this year.
Spectrum costs have long…
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OTTAWA — On Tuesday, the same day it denied an application by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the National Pensioners Federation (NPF) to require Koodo Mobile and other wireless service providers to provide paper bills upon request, the CRTC announced a new proceeding looking into the issue of paper billing.
In its decision against PIAC and NPF, the Commission says it found “there was no existing legislature or regulatory obligation that mandated the provision of paper bills and, since the rationale and evidence on the record of this proceeding related largely to Koodo alone, it would not…
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HALIFAX — Telus continues to expand its Health for Good program, today launching in Halifax the new North End Community Health Centre (NECHC) Mobile Health Clinic, powered by Telus Health.
The new NECHC Mobile Health Clinic will expand upon the health centre’s Mobile Outreach Street Health (MOSH) program, which since 2009 has been bringing primary healthcare directly to people in need throughout Halifax. The Mobile Clinic is a specially equipped clinic on wheels that will provide essential primary medical and mental healthcare, including electronic medical records, directly to underserved citizens, wherever they are in the city, says the Telus…
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OTTAWA — In a study commissioned by U.S. industry association CTIA and conducted by New York-based NERA Economic Consulting, Canada’s wireless industry ranks highest in value proposition among G7 nations and Australia.
Canada’s wireless industry association, CWTA, highlighted the findings of the CTIA-commissioned study in a news release Monday afternoon. One of the study’s authors, Christian Dippon, is one of the experts employed by Telus for the CRTC’s wireless policy review process.
The study, titled A Comparison of the Mobile Wireless Value Proposition, was designed to show how the U.S. wireless industry compares to international peers when it comes…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Until now the CRTC regime in place to compensate owners of conventional TV signals distributed by cable companies outside of their markets seem to work fairly well.
Terrestrial BDUs offer distant signals for ‘time shifting’ purposes. It allows subscribers to watch popular shows at a different time by watching a station in a different time zone. Since local stations are losing advertising money (advertisers only pay for local viewership) a compensation regime was put in place.
To distribute such signal, the cable company needs consent from and provide compensation to the owners of conventional television stations. Before…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Lawmakers envisaged the Broadcasting Act giving the CRTC broad powers to temporarily regulate disputes between broadcasters and program providers in the public interest, including when they involve economic relationships, the federal government is arguing in court documents.
The argument hits at the heart of an appeal by Quebecor which last April pulled its TVA Sports signal from Bell TV subscribers because the company believed its channel was undervalued compared to the Bell Media’s RDS channel. The move caused the CRTC to convene an emergency hearing and forced Quebecor to redistribute the signal based on the…
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And, MVNOs won’t help
By Ahmad Hathout
GATINEAU – The CRTC’s last mandate for the wireless industry – low-cost data-only plans which originally stood in lieu of a regulatory regime for mobile virtual network operators – have not been popular with customers, Rogers executives told the CRTC today.
“A substantially bigger package of data without voice and text is not as appealing” as less data with talk and text, David Watt, Rogers’ senior vice-president of regulatory affairs, said Wednesday in front of CRTC commissioners reviewing the wireless industry.
“I think we had thought low-cost data-only appeal to people who use a fair…
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VANCOUVER — Telus announced Wednesday the launch of wireless service to the underground Dunsmuir SkyTrain tunnel between Stadium-Chinatown and Waterfront stations, allowing its customers to stay connected on the entirety of TransLink’s Expo SkyTrain line in downtown Vancouver.
TransLink says it provides more than one million journeys across its integrated transit network each day, and the 1.4-kilometre route through the underground Dunsmuir Tunnel is one of the busiest stretches along the SkyTrain network. The extension of wireless service to the route includes the Granville and Burrard station platforms.
Eros Spadotto, Telus executive vice-president of technology strategy and business transformation added: “Any…
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Consumer groups say it’s worth risking network quality for MVNO access
GATINEAU – The only two telecoms which appeared in front of the CRTC on Tuesday during day six of the Commission’s wireless policy review took some time to urge the commissioners to look at the limitations of Cogeco’s hybrid mobile network operator model.
That model would allow MVNOs which already own and operate wired or wireless networks to lease network space from the big three national players – Bell, Rogers and Telus – in exchange for continuing to invest in their own infrastructure in their own operating territories.
Quebecor said it…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Chinese telecom tech manufacturer Huawei has hired an unsuccessful 2019 Liberal Party candidate to lobby the federal government on its behalf – the latest move in a strategy to hire former political party operatives to carry the message that it’s not a security threat to Canada.
Antoine Bujold, a government affairs advisor at Consilium in Boischatel, Quebec since 2014, was registered as a Huawei lobbyist on February 21 to “assist the client in its effort to meet with the Government to discuss Huawei Canada’s current and long-term investments and business objectives in Canada,” including issues from…
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