BRAMPTON, Ont. — Peel Region in Ontario is the latest community to receive a mobile health clinic powered by Telus Health, it was announced this week, as the company continues to expand its Health for Good program across the country.
In partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Peel Dufferin Branch, Telus announced Tuesday at a local community event the new CMHA Peel Dufferin Mobile Health Clinic will be providing essential primary medical care, mental healthcare and addiction supports directly to underserved citizens in Peel Region, including Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon.
Already active in Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa,…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – Shaw Communications plans to push Ontario to make mandatory the municipalities’ co-operation with telecommunications service providers to allow access to their infrastructure quickly for network builds, as urgency to lay the groundwork for 5G picks up.
The Alberta-based company registered lobby files with the province last week that reflect the telecom’s intention to bring the case to ministers that there is an urgent need for telecoms to obtain easy access to city infrastructure “to ensure connectivity can be built in a timely manner,” the registration says. It’s unclear how Shaw would like that co-operation to be…
Continue Reading
By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – In Toronto on Thursday, Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains gave Canada’s Big Three wireless carriers an ultimatum to lower their prices within two years while increasing competition by giving smaller and regional telecom companies a chance to bid on 50MHz of a 3500 MHz spectrum auction to be held later this year.
Bains spoke to Parliament Hill correspondent Christopher Guly prior to making his major announcement.
Christopher Guly: So you’re forcing the big guys to lower their prices and giving smaller, regional guys a break to help do that.
Navdeep Bains: You’re right. The spectrum set-aside is…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
