TORONTO – Organizers were expecting a crowd, but not quite THAT big of a crowd for the Toronto Raptors victory parade.
For most of mid-day Monday, the NBA Champions s l o w l y rolled through the streets of Toronto (it took more than five hours for the team and various dignitaries to cover the approximate six kilometres from the CNE grounds to Nathan Phillips Square), while the estimated two million-strong crowd texted, called, took selfies and videos, and posted those to various social media platforms.
This put serious stress on downtown Toronto’s wireless networks and while they strained under…
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MONTREAL – Videotron’s nascent wireless brand Fizz has tapped Sylvie Charette as its vice-president of marketing and customer experience.
Charette, who was most recently marketing VP at Nespresso Canada, led Videotron’s branding and digital media teams from 2013 to 2014. She has also held senior roles at Rogers, Telus and Bell Mobility.
With Fizz, Charette will head up the digital go-to-market strategy for Fizz mobile and Internet services plus be responsible for customer experience and the development and management of digital operations.
“Her recognized leadership skills and unique expertise make Sylvie the right person to spearhead our teams’ efforts to develop and differentiate…
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Tosses “incoherent” barb back at the industry
TORONTO – ISED Minister Navdeep Bains was the closer at the 2019 Canadian Telecom Summit on Wednesday and his comments made on stage – as well as after – should leave wireless industry leaders and observers more certain than ever that a major regulatory shift, especially when it comes to the long held policy bedrock known as “facilities-based competition,” is going to happen.
For three days, the major carriers did their level best to lay out a case against mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs, or wireless resellers) as well as the reasons why it’s…
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TORONTO – There may have been over a dozen topics on the hit list for this year's regulatory blockbuster session at this year’s Canadian Telecom Summit, but the six panelists kept coming back to one: MVNOs, yea or nay.
Moderator Greg O'Brien, editor and publisher of Cartt.ca, set the tone, commenting, "This panel is often fun, always a little prickly, which is part of the fun
“The industry is being transformed from all sides," he went on. "It's being changed from within, from without, and, crucially, from Ottawa."
Key among the events include the broadcast and telecom legislative review panel, a proposed…
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MVNOs won't work in Canada
TORONTO – Shaw Communications’ Paul McAleese co-founded and ran a successful MVNO in the United States for a dozen years before coming back to Canada to head up Freedom Mobile.
While he’s still a satisfied investor in i-wireless, which runs the mobile offering of the Kroger chain of grocery stores, he said comparing that company and the U.S. wireless market in general to Canada’s is a mug’s game. First, the American market is just so much bigger, where MVNOs can carve out a living with low margins there thanks to American market scale in a way…
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TORONTO – Canadian government and telecommunications carriers have nothing to fear from Huawei's 5G network products, the chief security officer of the company's Canadian division told telecom industry leaders, and it is free from interference from Beijing.
"Huawei operates in over 107 countries around the world, and in each they comply with local rules and regulations," Olivera Zatezalo (pictured) told the Canadian Telecom Summit on Monday during a panel session on cyber security. "All I can tell you is in Canada we are 100% compliant" with whatever the government asks.
Asked specifically about the company's independence, she said Huawei Canada is…
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TORONTO – Telecommunications companies had better drop their deceptive and bullying consumer sales practices before they gets smacked by Ottawa, the head of a consumer group warned industry leaders.
"This will continue to be a political issue for you and it may trip up your other businesses because it resonates with the public," John Lawford, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), said Monday during a panel discussion on improving customer experience at the annual Canadian Telecom Summit.
"You guys are too big and too important now to think that what you do for business is your only consideration."
His…
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TORONTO – While there are no Canadian carrier CEOs on the speakers’ schedule this year, those executives not in attendance will certainly be paying attention to next week’s Canadian Telecom Summit when it opens Monday morning.
(Ed note: For long-time CTS attendees, this year it is being held at the International Centre, which is just up Airport Road a ways from its former Congress Centre home.)
The event kicks off with an interview on stage with Rola Dagher, president of Cisco Canada (the questions, however, are coming from another Cisco-ite, Ian Campbell, the company’s CTO, service provider mobility and automation, so…
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Premium Shaw Wireless brand is coming
TORONTO – Speaking at TD Securities Media and Telecom Forum in Toronto last week, Shaw Communications’ wireless president Paul McAleese, echoing similar statements made by Bell and Telus earlier, had strong words concerning the potential government-mandated introduction of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) into the Canadian wireless marketplace.
(Ed note: McAleese knows the MVNO space very well, having spent 12 years in the United States running i-Wireless, an MVNO owned and operated by the Kroger grocery store chain running on the Sprint network.)
“I feel it’s an area that’s badly misunderstood by most,” McAleese said. “…
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TORONTO – While a wide range of hopeful competitors have backed a mandated MVNO, or some sort of variant on it, regime from the CRTC, CFOs from two of Canada’s Big Three Telecoms – Glen LeBlanc (Bell) and Telus’ Doug French – insisted last week such a move would be irresponsible of the Commission to implement.
Speaking at TD Securities Telecom and Media Forum in Toronto last week, the executives, in separate presentations, touted their respective company investments in having built the infrastructure that now serves Canadians from coast to coast. (MVNO =…
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