TORONTO – Rogers wants the CRTC to dismiss Bell’s allegations that its new GamePlus online hockey viewing app provides Rogers with an “anticompetitive advantage.”
In a submission Thursday to the Commission, filed in response to Bell’s complaint last month, Rogers described Bell’s application as “nothing more than Bell’s attempt to use the Commission’s regulatory processes to inhibit or hinder our ability to provide Canadian consumers with new and innovative content offerings”.
GameCentre Live is Rogers’ new online platform that allows fans to stream over 1,000 regular season and playoff games online and to whatever device they like for $200 a…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Here we go again.
Several years after the CRTC set the rules for mandated access to essential broadband facilities, the big telecommunications service providers (TSPs) and their smaller competitors who rent space on those TSP networks, will once again take their turns before the Commission beginning Monday to argue about mandated access to incumbent networks, specifically the deep fibre networks built by the large cable and telco incumbents.
As can be expected, the incumbents are going to argue that the retail broadband market is already highly competitive, the result of vigorous battles among facilities-based competitors. Any unwarranted…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Telus is introducing two new solutions aimed at helping Canadian businesses leverage cloud-based technology to improve how they communicate with their customers, employees and partners.
Telus Cloud Collaboration enables businesses to deploy a range of unified communication and collaboration tools like voicemail, integrated messaging, and voice and video conferencing to help their employees work more efficiently and effectively, no matter where they are. Businesses also benefit from lower upfront costs and a predictable monthly fee that scales up or down as needs change.
Telus Cloud Contact Centre is a feature-rich and scalable solution that allows businesses of…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Quebecor Media chief financial officer Jean-Francois Pruneau said Wednesday morning his company would love to be part of a national wireless play, has talked to investors and others about it, but is still awaiting the right conditions.
The big attraction at this point, he told Scotiabank’s telecom and cable investors conference in Toronto, is that the initial network builds have been done. “We don’t have to invest from the ground up, like the new entrants had to do,” he said, meaning any new national wireless company Videotron may be part of, would be “buying this at…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Members of the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) voted 73.7% in favour of joining the United Steelworkers (USW) in a referendum vote counted Friday.
The TWU represents 12,000 members across Canada who work for telecommunications companies including Telus and Shaw Communications, as well as employers in related telecommunications sectors. The USW is a diverse private-sector union with 225,000 members working in every region and sector in Canada.
The merger agreement takes formal effect on January 1, 2015, but both unions said that they will kick off joint activities immediately. The agreement includes strong, mutual commitments around collective bargaining, education, organizing…
Continue Reading
VANCOUVER – Despite growth in operating revenue, Telus posted flat profits in the third quarter ended September 30, 2104.
Consolidated operating revenue increased 5.4% to $3.02 billion, while net income of $355 million was flat year-over-year. Adjusted net income increased by 6.0% to $387 million. Earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased by 2.9% to $1.07 billion, though EBITDA excluding restructuring and other like costs increased by 4.3% to $1.1 billion.
Telus said that consolidated revenue growth was generated by strength in both its wireless and wireline operations, with network wireless revenue up 6.6% to $1.54 billion and wireline…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Any time members of the Canadian telecom industry gather together for a conference, the age-old debate about just how competitive the market actually is here inevitably emerges. The Canadian ISP Summit held this week in Toronto was no exception.
And in fact, opposing views on the subject, firmly expressed, provided most of the sparks during the conference’s final session on Wednesday, a panel discussion that tackled many of the regulatory issues currently faced by the telecom industry.
Moderated by telecom industry consultant Mark Goldberg (co-founder and organizer of the annual Canadian Telecom Summit), the regulatory panel featured: Dr. Michael…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Telus is the first non-Bell TV service provider to offer that company’s new video streaming service currently code-named “Project Latte”.
In a release on Wednesday, Bell Media said that it has reached distribution deals to deliver its new SVOD service to Telus Optik TV, Bell Fibe TV, and Bell Aliant FibreOp TV set-top boxes, as well as via mobile apps, the web, game consoles, and smart TVs. Designed to complement traditional television, the service is available to every TV provider in the country.
As Cartt.ca reported last week, Project Latte pledges to deliver more than 10,000 hours of non-kids TV…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Canadians’ complaints over their telecom and Internet services fell for the first time in the seven year history of the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS), but Commissioner Howard Maker stopped short of calling it a trend.
“From our examination of other statistics… we are cautiously optimistic that the industry as a whole is becoming more focused on customer issues and on how it addresses customer problems”, Maker wrote in the 2013-2014 annual report, called ‘Driving Positive Change’, released Tuesday.
The CCTS received 11,340 customer complaints in 2013-14, down 17% from 13,692 in 2012-13, and successfully resolved…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Canada needs an autonomous Internet infrastructure that keeps local web traffic routed within the country’s borders as much as possible, said Jacques Latour, chief technology officer for the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), during a presentation at the Canadian ISP Summit in Toronto on Monday afternoon.
Latour said too much of Canadian Internet traffic flows south of the border through major U.S. cities, such as New York, Chicago and Seattle.
“If for some reason there’s an attack against the U.S., like a cyber-attack, and they decide to shut down the borders, in Canada we’re screwed,” Latour said….
Continue Reading
