By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers president and CEO Tony Staffieri told members of the House of Commons industry committee Monday that the wireless price increases it announced in January affect only a small percentage of legacy customers and that millions of customers switched providers and plans last year against a backdrop of increasingly lower prices.
Members of the committee called a meeting with the heads of the country’s three largest telecoms to address concerns about wireless prices after Rogers announced that month that it would hike prices for certain off-contract customers by an average of $5 and by as much as $9.
Staffieri…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Concerned about further delay in the process, the CRTC on Tuesday denied Bell’s application asking it to defer to the courts the question of whether it has jurisdiction over small cell attachment on telco structures or hold a separate proceeding on just that question.
The regulator launched a proceeding on the wireless attachment issue last month, holding the preliminary view that it has simultaneous jurisdiction over those structures with spectrum auction authority Innovation Canada (ISED). It also laid out some other related issues to be determined during the consultation period.
Bell has argued that these attachments on poles it…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Telecommunications carriers will face significant delays and barriers in deploying 5G technology if the CRTC is determined not to have jurisdiction over municipal structures on which small cells are attached, Rogers told the Supreme Court of Canada this month.
The nation’s highest court granted an application by Telus in December to hear its arguments challenging the Federal Court of Appeal’s determination that Parliament did not intend for “transmission line” to include wireless technology under the Telecommunications Act. The appeal stemmed from an April 2021 CRTC decision neglecting to regulate that space because the regulator said it…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Bell CEO Mirko Bibic said Tuesday that the telco is anticipating that the CRTC will mandate access to incumbents’ fibre facilities, and the outstanding questions about that access will determine what types of difficult business decisions it will have to make.
Bibic was speaking at Scotiabank’s TMT conference when he was asked about regulatory assumptions the telco makes that affect how it approaches business decisions.
In response, Bibic targeted the regulator’s November decision to temporarily provide competitors access to the bundled middle and last mile fibre facilities of Bell and Telus in Ontario and Quebec until it concludes its…
Continue Reading
The governments of Canada and British Columbia announced Monday more than $37 million in combined funding for 14 projects to bring high-speed internet access to more than 50 communities across B.C.
As a result of the projects, more than 7,500 households will have access to high-speed internet, including 1,320 Indigenous homes, according to a press release. One project will also provide mobile service to an underserved roadway through Nisga’a Nation lands.
The recipients of the funding are the Nisga’a Lisims Government, Telus, Ktunaxa Nation (FlexiNET), CityWest, and Kaslo infoNet Society.
The communities that…
Continue Reading
Bell says it ‘competes in fair manner and follows all regulations’
By Ahmad Hathout
Videotron has filed two complaints to the Competition Bureau Tuesday alleging Bell is using anticompetitive pricing tactics to push competitors out of markets in which it is the dominant provider, according to the applications seen by Cartt.
In the first complaint already raised to the CRTC in March last year, the regional competitor alleges Bell is forcing Videotron’s Fibrenoire subsidiary, which provides fibre services to businesses, to take up long-term contracts to use its traffic transport fibre network or face higher monthly costs in areas…
Continue Reading
The Canadian telecommunications sector experienced a 3.5-per-cent increase in total revenues in 2022, similar to the 3.4-per-cent growth achieved in 2021 and a clear progression from the sector’s revenue decline in the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic year, according to the CRTC’s Communications Market Report (CMR) for calendar year 2022, released Tuesday.
Telecom revenues totalled $57.2 billion in 2022, primarily driven by the almost $1.7-billion increase in mobile revenues, which represents a 5.7-per-cent increase over 2021, according to the report. Mobile service revenues grew to $30.9 billion in 2022 from $29.2 billion in 2021. This was mostly due…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Bell wants the CRTC to defer to the Federal Court of Appeal to determine whether the regulator has jurisdiction over small cell attachments on telco-owned or controlled structures – or, in the alternative, separate that question from the rest of its proceeding on the matter.
The telco filed a Part 1 application Tuesday challenging the CRTC’s preliminary view on which it launched a proceeding earlier this month that it has concurrent jurisdiction with Innovation Canada (ISED) over the wireless attachments crucial for 5G technology. Bell has always argued that ISED, which manages spectrum auctions required…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
A senior official from the Competition Bureau told members of Parliament on Monday that the watchdog is pleased with a proposed amendment to the Competition Tribunal Act that would shield it from cost awards except in limited circumstances, after it was forced to pay $12.9 million after challenging Rogers’s proposed acquisition of Shaw.
A proposed amendment in Bill C-59, which is one of two pieces of legislation to overhaul Canada’s competition rules, would limit the scope by which the Competition Tribunal can force the law enforcement agency to compensate private parties in the event it…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Quebecor executives said Thursday that they’ve been okay with forgoing revenue in a strategy to capture customers, which includes lower prices and competitive international roaming packages on the road toward bundled home internet with its newly acquired Freedom brand.
Freedom last year introduced a $50 “unlimited” talk and text plan with 40 GB of LTE data that can be used across Canada and the United States. It later launched a $65 global roaming plan that covers 73 destinations.
Hugues Simard, Quebecor chief financial officer, acknowledged the loss of revenue there but said the…
Continue Reading
