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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VANCOUVER — Telus announced today it is bringing wireless connectivity to a 20-kilometre stretch of Highway 16 between Prince Rupert and Terrace, B.C., as the result of investing more than $1 million in building a new cell site.
Construction on the new cell tower was completed in December and connects users to Telus’s 4G LTE network. The new cell site is located approximately 60 kilometres west of Terrace, and brings coverage to an area that was previously one of the longest stretches of Highway 16 without any cellular service, the news release says. Telus now provides coverage to more…
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CCSA says mandated access to 5G nets is a must for rural
GATINEAU – In advising the CRTC to mandate just one national MVNO to boost mobile wireless competition here, three former wireless and telecom executives said threats from the big national players about reduced investments and job cuts are not to be taken seriously.
“The market is so clearly dominated by the Big Three ,” Alek Krstajic, the former Freedom CEO and past executive at Bell and Rogers, told CRTC commissioners at the beginning of the second week of the Regulator’s review of the wireless industry.
“In fact,…
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GATINEAU – Canada’s largest third party internet access provider, TekSavvy, wants to add wireless to its mix as a mobile virtual network operator and its executives warned the CRTC on Friday not to fall for the pretend competition it says the Big Three provide in the Canadian wireless market.
The flanker brands of the Big Three (think Koodo, chatr and Lucky, for example) were created as a way to make it look like there are loads of wireless companies in the market when Rogers, Bell and Telus own 90% of the wireless subscribers in Canada, just under various brand names,…
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