44% increase in complaints
OTTAWA – The mid-year report from the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) once again doesn’t look good for Canada’s telecom and TV providers.
The report released this morning shows a 44% increase in the number of complaints it received from Canadian telecom and TV customers between August 1, 2018 and January 31, 2019. This follows a 73% increase for that same period last year, so there has at least been improvement in the rate of growth in complaints at least.
Canadians complained most often about their wireless service, followed in order by…
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OTTAWA – Telus played host to a vital workshop last week called Tomorrow Is Now: A Workshop on 5G Technology, Operations, and Regulation.
Organized by the International Telecommunications Society (ITS) and featuring a strong roster of international speakers providing the perspectives from all angles including operators, regulators, technologists and academics, the workshop set out the current global 5G marketplace.
The race
Michael Murphy, Nokia’s head of technology for North America, provided a local 5G outlook. He reviewed operator launch plans, noting that soft launches began in the U.S. in 2018. He anticipates that all of the U.S. operators will offer 5G mobile…
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OTTAWA – The NDP has kicked off a new policy platform vowing to push the Feds to lower cellular fees and boost broadband coverage “for all Canadians”.
On Friday, the party launched a new site asking Canadians to share their “nightmare stories” of high cell phone and internet bills. Reiterating the “Canadians pay some of the highest prices in the world” lament, the site says that “Canadians deserve leaders who will use every tool available to make life more affordable”.
“For decades, Liberal and Conservative governments have left cell phone and internet companies with very little regulation,” continues the site. “The…
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Our specialty channels are in danger
TVA GROUP’S SPECIALTY CHANNELS, which include amongst others TVA Sports, LCN, addikTV and CASA, are enormously popular with Québec television viewers. We are proud to carry content made by Quebecers for Quebecers, shows that reflect their tastes and expectations. However, as everywhere in the world, the digital revolution and globalization have disrupted an already precarious business model that also suffers from patently unequal treatment of industry players under increasingly obsolete regulations. Today, the survival of our channels is at risk.
All specialty channels depend on subscription revenues from the cable and satellite carriers (such as…
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VICTORIA – Bell and Telus are tied for their ability to offer a consistent quality across their national networks, edging out Rogers by 10%, says a new report from Canadian independent mobile network data company Tutela.
The report, Canada: State of Mobile Networks, March 2019, used over 1.8 billion measurements taken between August 1, 2018 and January 31, 2019, including 13.4 million speed tests and 153 million latency tests collected from more than 1 million mobile devices. Tutela said that while fast top speeds are indicative of a strong network, it believes that reliable network quality is equally, if…
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CANOE VENTURES IS hoping 2019 is the year where it begins to help build video on demand advertising together with BDUs and broadcasters into a $200 million marketplace.
The U.S. company (which is co-owned by MSOs Comcast, Cox Communications and Charter Communications) has been the driver behind huge success Stateside, where the VOD ad business is already a US$1 billion market. Canoe alone delivered 26 billion ad impressions in 2018 on 7,476 ad campaigns. It delivers VOD ads to 36 million American households for broadcast clients such as ABC, A+E, AMC, CBS, Discovery, MTV, NBC, Showtime, Univision and others.
Now,…
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BIDDING IS SET TO GET underway in Canada’s much anticipated 600 MHz spectrum auction. The 12 qualified bidders are Bell Mobility, Bragg Communications, Freedom Mobile, Iris Technologies, Novus Entertainment, Rogers Communications, Saskatchewan Telecommunications, SSi Micro – Consortium, TBayTel, TELUS Communications, Vidéotron and Xplornet Communications.
The 600 MHz band is designated for flexible use for mobile, fixed and broadcasting services. Canada has adopted the same band plan as the U.S., which began to auction off that band more than two years ago. The low-band spectrum is ideally suited for offering mobile services and it is one of…
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THE 2006 POLICY DIRECTIVE to the CRTC (which came under then-PM Stephen Harper and then-Industry Minister Maxime Bernier) said the Commission must regulate based on market forces to the maximum extent feasible and reinforced that facilities-based competition (Canadian-owned, built, networks) was to be the backbone of the Canadian telecom marketplace.
It said a bunch of other things, too, but didn’t mention consumers at all. However, the Conservative government of the day insisted as long as the CRTC followed its directive, that should spur competition and lower retail prices.
Last week’s Liberal government proposed…
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OTTAWA – TNW Wireless Inc. is eligible to operate as a wireless carrier in Canada and may begin offering mobile wireless services after it proves that it has complied with all applicable 9-1-1 service obligations, said the CRTC in a decision late Thursday.
The decision also means that TNW now has access to tariffed services for wholesale mobile roaming on Bell’s and Telus’ networks, something that it had asked the CRTC to help it obtain back in July 2017.
However, the decision also found that the company’s proposed iPCS (Internet personal communications system) service does not comply with the…
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OTTAWA – In something of a surprising move, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Navdeep Bains announced Tuesday during Question Period he planned to issue a Policy direction to the CRTC requiring it to improve the affordability of Internet and cellphone services for Canadians.
If this is truly a shift away from market forces and facilities based competition (hard to tell for sure with the legalese), then this could be the most significant shift in the federal government's thinking on telecom in decades.
Even though the CRTC is independent, the government can, according to the Telecommunications Act “issue directions…
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