OTTAWA – Wireless carriers will have to provide more granular data to the CRTC, after all.
As part of its submission to the CRTC’s review of mobile wireless services, the Competition Bureau wants to, among other things, do a detailed study on what happened locally (not just in provinces and nationally) when new wireless competitors to the Big Three (Rogers, Bell and Telus) were introduced. To do that, the Bureau needs far more detailed data than the CRTC has asked for in its original requests for information upon the proceeding’s call.
The wireless carriers and…
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Bell also asks for return of long-term contracts
GATINEAU – Competition in the Canadian wireless market is already heated and getting hotter, resulting in an overall and ongoing decline in wireless prices while new competitors continue build out new facilities and take customers from them, so why upset that momentum now, and just at the dawn of 5G, Rogers, Bell and Telus have asked in their submissions to the CRTC’s review of mobile wireless services.
It will surprise no one that the submissions largely hit many of the same themes, especially in their stance against mandating mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs),…
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GATINEAU – When the CRTC launched its review of mobile wireless services earlier this year it stated: “This proceeding will focus on three key areas: Competition in the retail market; The current wholesale mobile wireless service regulatory framework, with a focus on wholesale MVNO access and the future of mobile wireless services in Canada, with a focus on reducing barriers to infrastructure deployment.”
This focus on Mobile Virtual Network Operators sure did not fall in deaf ears – and some players jumped right in with strong support since the high cost of entry into the wireless business means many players…
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GATINEAU – In its submission to the CRTC’s review of mobile services, Cogeco – which already offers cable, Internet and local phone in various markets in Quebec and Ontario – has proposed another way to get into wireless without losing its shirt.
With less than 800,000 wired subscribers, the company can hardly afford the cost of entry in the wireless club but definitely wants to add mobile so it can provide the entire bundle of services to customers. For years, Cogeco has been advocating a mandated Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) regime to piggyback on larger wireless operators at cost…
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OTTAWA – Canadians who live in areas without a strong regional wireless competitor pay more for their mobile plans, according to the Competition Bureau.
In its comments for the CRTC’s mobile wireless services review, the Bureau said that 10GB plans, for example, can be priced as low as $60-$75 per month in Quebec, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan (i.e where Bell, Rogers and Telus compete with regional players Videotron, Bell MTS and SaskTel). By comparison, the same 10GB plans in other provinces and territories can be as much as 80% higher, priced at $105-$110 per month.
Factors such as network quality, coverage,…
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GATINEAU – Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?
That was the unusual, if creative, way SaskTel chose to demonstrate how, if the CRTC is going to mandate third party wireless resellers, we can expect a much worse competitive market that causes serious damage to regional independent mobile wireless operators.
“Mandated MVNOs will harm 4th carriers more than the National Wireless Carriers. In any market, there is a portion of the customer base which is most likely to move to a new competitor, a portion which is quite unlikely to change, and a portion somewhere between these…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC needs to be “split up in terms of the kinds of people making broadcasting decisions and the kinds of personnel making telecom decisions,” said Tim Denton, chairman of the Internet Society Canada Chapter (ISCC) at the two-day Policy 3.0 Communications Law conference organized by the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications last week.
Denton, a former CRTC commissioner who now works as a consultant on Internet and telecom policy, also called for the creation of a chief technology officer within the Commission to provide advice on current technology-related issues. He said the CRTC needs to…
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TORONTO – Friday was Maria Hale’s last day at Corus Entertainment.
The long-time senior TV executive had been named senior vice-president of strategic partnerships in February after a corporate leadership shuffle which saw her moved out of direct oversight of the company’s television properties (she had been VP, television and head of digital, content distribution and pay TV).
Prior to Corus, Hale (pictured) spent two years with GameTV as managing director and before that, two with Telus as VP television. She also spent more than eight years with CHUM Television
Hale told Cartt.ca in a short email when…
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Telus Mobility tops for network quality across Canada
TORONTO – While Canadian wireless carriers’ investments in their infrastructure have largely translated into improved customer satisfaction with network quality, carriers’ data-hungry younger customers report experiencing a significantly higher rate of connectivity problems, according to a new J.D. Power report.
The 2019 Canada Wireless Network Quality Study measured satisfaction based on recent customer usage activities in three areas that impact network performance: calling, messaging, and data connections. The study, which measured problems per 100 connections (PP100), includes seven wireless carriers in the East region; seven wireless carriers in Ontario; and nine wireless…
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OTTAWA–GATINEAU – The CRTC is once again seeking volunteers to help it measure the performance of home wireline broadband Internet services provided by the country’s major Internet service providers.
Under the Measuring Broadband Canada program, the Commission will work in collaboration with ISPs and broadband testing firm SamKnows to measure broadband performance and test parameters associated with the broadband Internet connection, including download and upload speeds.
While some providers offer advertised speeds of 1Gbps or faster, services above 940Mbps cannot be measured with a conventional speed test, meaning that speed tiers of 1Gbps or faster are excluded from the 2019 Measuring…
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