HAIDA GWAII — Telus will become the sole provider of TV and Internet services on Haida Gwaii after the recent acquisition of a local service provider, according to a report in the Haida Gwaii Observer on Monday.
Gwaii Communications announced on January 16 in an email to its customers that a deal with Telus was reached on December 31, 2019, and would see the Mascon brand of Telus, which oversees its cable operations, take over the local Internet and television service provider, the report says. Telus purchased Mascon three years ago.
In 2017, Gwaii Communications bought QCIslands Net and…
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Interveners will have to sign NDA
MONTREAL and OTTAWA — Bell is ready to test an artificial intelligence-based system it has developed for blocking fraudulent phone calls, and says last week’s decision by the CRTC regarding its application brings it a step closer to launching its technology trial.
According to a Bell news release Friday, its AI-based network technology could potentially block an estimated 120 million more scam calls per month than Bell is able to stop using call-blocking methods currently mandated by the CRTC.
“Our industry has made solid progress in combatting these scam calls, and Bell’s innovative new AI…
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By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – When the Competition Bureau filed in November its intervention to the CRTC’s wireless policy review, it was expected that the reactions would be spirited, and they are.
First, some objected because the Bureau (and its specially commissioned Matrix Report) reached conclusions based on confidential information and asked that some information be shared. In that regard, Bell and Rogers got what they wanted while CNOC and Telus are still waiting for word from the Commission when it comes to that data. Telus has warned the Bureau’s intervention should be deleted from the record for…
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By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — Quebecor is demanding the CRTC order CBC/Radio-Canada’s Tou.tv Extra paid streaming service to “cease its activities” because it goes outside the mandate of the public broadcaster and is an unfair competitor against Videotron and other regulated television service providers.
The CRTC isn’t about to go that far, but it has decided to look into whether there is an undue preference case to be made, in particular with a deal Radio-Canada has with Telus that provides Telus’s Quebec customers “exclusive” free access to the service.
Tou.tv Extra is the $7/month paid version of Tou.tv, which offers premium video…
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OTTAWA – NBCUniversal will head to Parliament Hill to lobby on favourable tax measures for the company that has created content in the country, as it prepares to push new products in the new year.
It’s the first time the mega media company out of New York (and of course owned by Comcast Corp.) has registered to lobby the feds after having done so with Alberta and Ontario this past fall. The federal registration, effective January 6, targets Canadian Heritage and seeks to “monitor” and “assist” in the “development of policies that encourage and not hamper the development of film…
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TORONTO — Telus is adding a dedicated hayu app to its Optik TV service interface to enable its Western Canada customers to easily access NBCUniversal International’s all-reality subscription video-on-demand service.
Telus customers in B.C. and Alberta can now access NBCUniversal’s hayu service directly within Telus Optik TV, via either channel 336 or from the app home page. Telus is the only carrier in Canada to offer customers a dedicated hayu app directly within the TV interface, the company said in its news release.
“Since launching in Canada over one year ago, hayu has grown to become the premiere destination for must-have reality…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – On any given day last month, about 180 drug users dropped by a supervised injection site operated by Ottawa Inner City Health in the parking lot of a homeless shelter in the city’s Byward Market neighbourhood. Most were men, with an average age of 45, struggling with mental-health issues and addicted to opioids.
“Many of them don’t have access to healthcare and mental-health care, which will drive opioid use,” Wendy Muckle, CEO of Ottawa Inner City Health, told Cartt.ca.
That will now change following Telus’s announcement on Tuesday that it has expanded its Health for Good program…
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MONTREAL — Connected vehicle device manufacturer Siyata Mobile has hired Jamie Kitson as its new vice-president of sales for Canada, the company announced Tuesday.
Kitson most recently was vice-president of sales for Bell business dealer Preston Mobility, according to Siyata Mobile’s news release.
Kitson’s 15 years of previous sales experience includes positions at Telus Client Solutions, Bell Mobility as Push-to-Talk and IoT Solutions team lead, Rogers Communications as a sales manager and an IoT Solutions sales executive, and Shaw Communications as an enterprise account executive.
Siyata Mobile is a global developer and provider of cellular communications systems for enterprise customers, specializing…
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OTTAWA — The CRTC has agreed to direct the Competition Bureau to disclose certain confidential information that was redacted in the economic report submitted by the Commissioner of Competition in November to the CRTC’s wireless policy review proceeding. That is, the CRTC is agreeing to disclosure requests from Bell and Rogers; but it’s still considering similar requests from Telus and CNOC.
In a letter posted to the CRTC website on January 10, the CRTC says it is of the view that, generally speaking, the public disclosure of the redacted information, as requested by Bell and Rogers, would pose minimal…
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QUEBECOR’S GROUPE TVA FORMALLY filed in December its appeal in Federal Court against a CRTC decision that forced it to continue to provide a sports channel signal to Bell customers.
But the submission to the court came before the Supreme Court of Canada determined in a set of cases late last month how it would exercise its ability to review decisions made by administrative bodies such as the CRTC – otherwise known as the standard of review. Bell was successful in having the highest court in the land reverse a 2016 decision by the CRTC that said it could…
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