“THE WORST ENEMY of a regulatory lawyer is the marketing guy,” said Willie Grieve to me during a break at a hearing once. Perplexed, as a new CRTC communications person at the time, I said, “How so?”
“At the beginning, marketing guys come to you asking: Can I do this promotion? And we always say no. So, they stop coming and I get in trouble,” he added, and he walked away.
Those were the days when incumbents telephone companies were not allowed to lower their rates, in order to give a chance to competitors, even for promotions (the bread and butter…
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Just part of negotiations, though
TORONTO – Within its most recent bills to some of its cable TV customers, Rogers Communications noted that as of January 1, 2019, their roster of channels will be a little lighter.
“From time to time, we adjust our channel lineups to reflect the changing viewership trends of our customers. As of January 1, 2019, Stingray Juicebox, Stingray Retro, Stingray Loud and Stingray Vibe, will no longer be in your TV package,” reads the note at the bottom of the bills.
All four music video channels are ones which Stingray purchased from Bell…
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OTTAWA – The Connecting Families program which was announced in June by Navdeep Bains, Minister of Industry, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) at the Telecom Summit, in Toronto was unveiled this week.
The government is not subsidizing ISPs to provide the low-cost Internet service but is investing $13.2 million over five years to refurbish and deliver up to 50,000 computers to eligible families through the Computers for Success Canada program, as well as to develop a secure online portal through which eligible families can sign up for the initiative and access the low-cost Internet service and/or a refurbished computer.
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TORONTO – Length matters.
That's one of the findings of a poll of Canadian TV viewers and the video content they consume which was conducted by Charlton Strategic Research, and unveiled Tuesday at the CTAM Broadcaster’s Forum in Toronto on Tuesday.
Charlton's Gord Hendren told conference attendees that an online survey of 3,168 Canadians over 18 years of age revealed the total time spent watching long-form video content, or over five minutes in length, is up among total Canadian TV viewers.
Millennials, though, are bucking the trend.
Hendren said his poll revealed younger Canadian TV viewers from 18-34 years of age spend less…
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VANCOUVER – Cybersecurity experts are warning Canada not to work with Huawei in light of new Australian report that claims the Chinese telecom firm hacked a foreign network and shared the information with Beijing.
A Toronto Star report quotes Christopher Parsons, a cybersecurity expert with Citizen Lab in the Munk School at the University of Toronto, as saying that Canada should heed the concerns expressed by allied countries like the U.S. and Australia about the company being a high-risk security threat.
“Taking their counsel very seriously is an appropriate decision,” said Parsons, in the report.
Noting that Huawei is able to…
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TORONTO – Together, Tim Denton, Peter Menzies and Candice Molnar have overseen some of the biggest decisions the CRTC has made over the past decade as former CRTC commissioners. Wouldn’t it be something to get them all together for a candid conversation about what they thought they got right and wrong and what they really think of the Regulator’s role?
Even more so now given we are in the midst of a legislative review of the Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Radiocommunication Acts. Dream no longer, that’s exactly what transpired on the last day of the 2018 Canadian ISP Summit in Toronto…
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My friend Mark took his own life this past summer.
There should be a stronger word than shocked to describe how it felt when I found out. I was at work, got up from my desk and just left to walk for a long while. My brain couldn’t and still can’t process it.
Mark Freedman was always so bright and cheery with me. He was smart, incisive, fun to talk to and knew this industry inside and out. He knew why things are the way they are better than most others I know. I counted Mark as a friend but he…
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TORONTO – The explosion of connected devices and streaming services in the home that rely on Wi-Fi connectivity has resulted in the need for smarter Wi-Fi networks that can provide extended, uniform coverage and can serve as the foundation for Internet of Things in the home.
Wi-Fi mesh will not only “blanket a home with a strong Wi-Fi signal,” says Peter Vandenengel, president of Wi-Fi equipment tester Netperian, but such systems can also be set to automatically fix connectivity issues as they arise, centralize the control of data, media, and smart devices, as well as provide network analytics. Vandenengel provided…
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Leftover data, that is
WINNIPEG – In advance of November, 14th, the official day it will begin accepting new customers, Xplore Mobile unveiled today the Rollover, its new wireless plan which will allow customers to roll over their last month's unused data.
"Manitobans have been asking for a wireless company that treats them fairly and offers plans that are simple, affordable and transparent. We want to be that company," said Allison Lenehan, president of Xplore Mobile in the press release.
Xplore Mobile recently launched its service by welcoming approximately 20,000 mobile customers transferred from Bell Mobility (all of whom had recently been…
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OTTAWA – After recently challenging the aggressive sales practices of telecom companies at a CRTC hearing in Gatineau the prior week, John Lawford was across the river in Ottawa taking another swipe at telcos at the annual conference of the International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter.
Lawford, executive director and general counsel of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, was given 15 minutes on Thursday to make his case in a presentation called “Lust, Lies and Stupidity: Thirty Years of Canadian Telecom Policy.” This time his message was specifically aimed for members of the federal government’s Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review…
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