GATINEAU – In the continuing saga of the skinny (a.k.a. lower-cost data only) wireless, the CRTC must be wondering if it would not have just been easier to mandate MVNO.
In the latest request for information, Cartt.ca had noted the tone of the letter and the volume of information requested. The three incumbent national wireless players seem to heed the message and proposed to double the amount of data originally offered.
But what we had missed was the questions asked to the three incumbent national wireless players were also asked of the Competition Bureau.
The Questions
Indicate whether lower-cost data only…
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STOCKHOLM – Ericsson’s sale of the majority stake of its Media Solutions business to private equity firm One Equity Partners is proving to be “more complex” than first thought and will likely not close until year end, the Swedish tech maker said Tuesday.
As part of the ongoing work to close the transaction, an independent brand known as MediaKind has been formed and is developing the business in line with a new business plan. Ericsson announced the sale in January.
“The carve-out of MediaKind from Ericsson’s global structure to create a new company, jointly owned with One Equity Partners,…
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TORONTO – More than CAD$162.7 million has been pledged collectively so far in connection with Friday’s star-studded Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) "roadblock" fundraising telecast in Canada and the United States, organizers said Monday.
The live show was SU2C's sixth biennial fundraising telecast since the organization was launched in 2008 and marks ten years of impact in the fight against cancer. The telecast, which also streamed live in Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square on Bell Media's Astral large-format digital screens and the Citytv Big Screen, featured a cast of celebrated figures from the worlds of entertainment, music, sports, and science, as…
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THE NINE CREE AND FOUR francophone communities that ring James Bay in Quebec’s far north may be nearly 1,000 kilometres from major cities, but the rest of the world is only fractions of a second away in most of them thanks to a recent partnership between the Eeyou Communications Network (ECN), the locally run nonprofit which oversees telecommunications in the vast, sparsely populated territory, Toronto-based independent carrier Distributel and several other public and private partners.
Alfred Loon is president and founder of ECN. He says the project was first conceived a decade ago as an economic development project with…
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Les communautés cries et francophones parsemées autour de la Baie-James, au nord du Québec, sont à des centaines de kilomètres des grands centres, mais le reste du monde se trouve à quelques clics dans la plupart d’entre elles, grâce à un partenariat public-privé novateur entre le Réseau des communications Eeyou (RCE) , l’organisme qui gère les télécommunications dans les neuf communautés de la nation crie, le distributeur torontois Distributel, et plusieurs autres partenaires publics et privés.
Alfred Loon est président-fondateur du RCE. il raconte que le projet a été conçu il y a une décennie dans le cadre d’un…
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TORONTO – All four of Canada's English-language network broadcasters will once again simultaneously air a Canadian-inclusive Stand Up To Cancer special next month.
For the third time, Stand Up To Cancer Canada will simultaneously broadcast a Canada-inclusive telecast across CBC, Citytv, CTV, and Global, as well as Canadian services AMI, A.Side, BBC Earth, CHCH, CHEK, Cottage Life, Fight Network, Game TV, HIFI, Hollywood Suite, Love Nature, Makeful, NTV, OUTtv, Smithsonian Channel Canada, T+E, YES TV, in addition to streaming live on the CBC TV App, cbc.ca/watch, CBS All Access, CTV GO and CTV.ca, Global GO and GlobalTV.com, and available on-demand on Telus…
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Customers can keep TiVo though
MONTREAL – Cogeco Connexion will roll out the MediaFirst IPTV platform from MediaKind (previously Ericsson Media Solutions) to its Canadian cable customers starting next year.
The company said Tuesday that the MediaFirst platform will offer customizable video content, wireless receivers, voice activated controls, and access to Android Google Mobile Services “for a complete video offering”. MediaFirst is the same video platform deployed by Bell Fibe, Telus Optik, and SaskTel's MaxTV, and this decision from Cogeco diverges from the path set by Shaw, Rogers and Videotron, who chose Comcast's X1 platform for their next generation TV offering.
It…
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LONDON, UK – While all three of Canada's national mobile operators have cranked up their 4G speeds over the last six months, Telus still holds a commanding lead, says OpenSignal in its new semi-annual report Mobile Networks Update: Canada.
The wireless mapping coverage company examined close to 678 million measurements collected from 31,762 mobile test devices between April 1 and June 29, 2018 in its update on Canada scheduled to be officially released this week.
According to the report, average 4G download speeds in Canada rose by at least 5 Mbps for Bell, Rogers and Telus. Bell posted the biggest gains, with its 4G…
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OTTAWA — Canada’s largest, vertically integrated BDUs have a little over a year to start providing set-top box data to a national STB-based audience measurement system — a new condition of licence imposed by the CRTC when it announced August 2 the collective renewal of soon-to-expire licences for various terrestrial BDUs.
As it renews their respective licences for a new term starting September 1, 2018, the CRTC is imposing a condition of licence on Bell, Rogers, Shaw and Videotron that will require them to provide the set-top box (STB) data they collect regarding programming services they distribute to a national…
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GATINEAU – On December 1st 2017, the CRTC’s new and improved Wireless Code came into effect, removing all restrictions on the unlocking of cellular phones, notably no more 90 days waiting period to do so and no more charging a fee to perform that service.
On December 6th 2017, the Public Interest Advocacy Center (PIAC) requested from the CRTC a clarification on the Unlocking Policy of the new code. There had been confusion as to whether the cell phone companies had the obligation to unlock the phones of people who were not their customers.
If my contract with the…
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