Telco phasing out prepaid plans on Bell brand by year-end
By Ahmad Hathout
Bell executives said Thursday that approximately 106,000 subscribers are affected by a ruling by the CRTC this summer that prohibits Bell customers from using the wholesale internet regime in its operating territory.
The regulator said in the August decision that large players and their affiliates cannot lease internet capacity from others in areas where they have their own networks. To avoid service disruptions, existing customers on the third-party internet access (TPIA) regime will be able to continue to receive service but they cannot change speed plans…
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By Ahmad Hathout
On federal cabinet urging, the CRTC is “working quickly” to launch a public consultation on whether Rogers, Bell and Telus should be banned from using the aggregated last-mile fibre regime in Ontario and Quebec, the regulator said in a statement to Cartt, a move that is being welcomed by competitors.
The minister of Industry, Francois Philippe-Champagne, made the recommendation to the CRTC on Wednesday. It was a partial win for Bell, which requested in its February petition for the cabinet to rescind or vary the regulator’s decision last year that mandated competitor access to its bundled middle- and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC is asking Canada’s major telecommunications service providers to explain how their employees are informing customers about the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS), after the regulatory said it found an unsatisfactory number of survey participants even knew it existed.
The regulator commissioned a survey by Nanos Research, which found only 2 per cent of participants who had an unresolved complaint were made aware of the organization by their service provider. The research was delivered in March.
“This finding is supported by consumer feedback data in the CCTS’s annual reports from 2015 to 2023, which shows…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Friday set the interim rates competitors will pay large telephone companies to use their last-mile fibre network outside of Ontario and Quebec, while adjusting the existing rates for that access in those two provinces. The rates are being received with reception ranging from lukewarm to outright disappointment.
For all provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, the CRTC set Bell’s last-mile interim access rate – which competitors can lease with its middle-mile facilities – at $68.94 per month for between 3 Mbps to 1.5 Gbps and $78.03 for 1.5 Gbps to 3 Gbps. To bulk buy the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
A television network that focuses on Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ communities wants the CRTC to broaden its distribution on basic television, or at least set a base wholesale fee for negotiations with distributors.
When the CRTC came to renew the licence for OUTtv in 2022, it granted the service in the English-language market must-offer status – requiring broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) to carry the channel but leaving it to the subscriber to pay for the service – instead of must-carry status with a guaranteed wholesale fee that is available to all subscribers of the BDU. That status will remain until…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) regime, once confined to individual consumers and small businesses, has been expanded to include internet of things (IoT) and enterprise customers now that the CRTC on Wednesday ordered the large telecoms to modify their tariffs to enable competitors to wholesale network space to serve those particlar clients.
The regulator affirmed Wednesday its preliminary view that the IoT segment, which includes the machine-to-machine market, and the enterprise market, defined as companies with 100 or more paid employees, see similar market dynamics as the rest of the segments under regulation –…
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The CRTC is asking the big three telecoms to outline the “concrete steps” they are taking to address what it found to be unacceptably high international roaming charges and less choice than their peers in other countries.
Over a year ago, the regulator confirmed that it was studying international roaming prices after a letter from the innovation minister asked the CRTC to look into the matter. The letter and the CRTC’s confirmation came in the same month that Bell and Telus raised their U.S. and international roaming rates.
On Monday, the CRTC found both that “Canadians lack choice…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Carriers will have to come to an agreement over the wholesale rate charged for domestic roaming, with the CRTC only acting as the decider of last resort, the regulator announced Monday.
The announcement means the CRTC is moving away from what is called “Phase II” costing methodology, which involves the national carriers submitting cost studies, typically for a five-year forward-looking period, so all regional competitors are paying the same rate.
This time, the commission is choosing to go the commercial negotiation route guided by rate benchmarks it will publish on an annual basis, which it said will include weighted…
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The CRTC is asking the country’s largest telecoms to answer questions as to how the decommissioning of their 3G networks will impact those still on the legacy wireless technology.
In a letter Tuesday, the commission is asking Rogers, Bell, Telus, Quebecor, SaskTel, Iristel, and TBayTel to answer a few questions by November 1.
Those questions include whether the telecoms and their flankers still operate a 3G network and whether they have 3G-only plans available in the market; whether they plan to decommission the 3G network in the next three years and, if so, when that will happen, what will happen to…
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By Connie Thiessen
Anthem Sports & Entertainment has reached an agreement to acquire Hollywood Suite, the owner and operator of four linear TV channels and accompanying digital on-demand service, pending CRTC approval.
Launched in 2011, Hollywood Suite is the largest pure-play movie service in Canada, with its film-focused 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s channels available in over 10 million homes via Rogers, Bell, Telus, Amazon Prime Video, Cogeco, Eastlink, and Freedom Mobile, among other cable providers.
Anthem – which has offices and studios in Toronto, Los Angeles, Denver, Nashville, New York, and Cleveland – says Hollywood Suite’s ability to satisfy both traditional linear viewers and on-demand focused digital…
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