OTTAWA — On Tuesday, the same day it denied an application by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the National Pensioners Federation (NPF) to require Koodo Mobile and other wireless service providers to provide paper bills upon request, the CRTC announced a new proceeding looking into the issue of paper billing.
In its decision against PIAC and NPF, the Commission says it found “there was no existing legislature or regulatory obligation that mandated the provision of paper bills and, since the rationale and evidence on the record of this proceeding related largely to Koodo alone, it would not…
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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 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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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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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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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A hearing that culminated in an unprecedented federal court order forcing internet service providers to block certain websites was unbalanced and will likely fall by the wayside as more intervenors weigh in at the appeal level, according to emails from a CRTC lawyer.
“What I would like to see is a re-do of the Federal Court motion,” William Abbott said in an email to an address that is redacted in newly unveiled communications obtained through access to information law. Abbott is a former Bell lawyer who took a legal counsel role at the CRTC in…
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MONTREAL — The ENCQOR 5G testbed initiative Thursday announced it has signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with six telecom service providers in Canada — Bell, Cogeco, Ecotel (Ambra Solutions), Rogers, Telus and Vidéotron.
ENCQOR stands for Evolution of Networked Services through a Corridor in Quebec and Ontario for Research and Innovation. The Canada-Quebec-Ontario partnership has a mandate to bring together small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and academia to contribute to the advancement of research, innovation and demonstration of applications through a pre-commercial 5G testbed. ENCQOR 5G has five Digital Innovation Hubs, located in both Quebec and Ontario, providing a 5G…
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