TORONTO – Telecom companies are eager to leverage the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to process big data, improve operations and increase revenue, and it isn’t as new as we think it is.
AI is already used in various ways such as automating customer service inquiries, routing customers to the proper agent and routing prospects with buying intent directly to salespeople. However, the massive growth of Internet of Things (IoT) and the exabytes of big data being produced thanks to connected everything has renewed interest in how AI can provide real value to that data.
AI has the ability to fix…
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TORONTO—As might be expected, Canadian telecom executives are already choosing up sides for the forthcoming battle over the CTRC's proposals for reshaping how the feds regulate and tax traditional and new media across the country.
That much was evident at the Canadian Telecom Summit here late Tuesday. Speaking during the annual "Regulatory Blockbuster" panel moderated by Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O'Brien, execs representing industry incumbents and upstarts battled it out over the Commission's new recommendations to "develop better regulatory approaches that engage all audio and video services and for each to participate," producing plenty of verbal fireworks.
Generally backing the…
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TORONTO – Rogers, Telus and SaskTel were quick to endorse Connecting Families, the new initiative designed to help make the Internet affordable to low income Canadians, announced Wednesday by Innovation, Science and Economic Development minister Navdeep Bains at the Canadian Telecom Summit.
Connecting Families will invest $13.2 million over five years, starting in 2017-2018. For $10 per month, up to 220,000 qualifying households will receive an Internet package of no less than 10 Mbps download speeds (or the fastest available) and a minimum of 100 GB of data usage each month, with no equipment or installation fees. Families must…
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TORONTO – We’ve oft been in audiences covering dreary, news-free ministerial speeches. The Navdeep Bains keynote to the 2018 Canadian Telecom Summit today in Toronto was not that.
The Innovation, Science and Economic Development minister came with a crisp, fully loaded speech which satisfied some important needs for which many of the Canadian telecom gathering’s delegates have been clamoring (and he didn’t say “middle class families” once).
An issue which Summit co-founder Mark Goldberg and others have long been hounding various governments about has been the lack of a national, co-ordinated program to help connect low income families to the Internet….
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TORONTO – Once fully deployed, the move to 5G wireless will fundamentally change how we live in Canada, but when and how that will happen is still open to much debate. That’s the message from a panel of telecom executives who gathered on Tuesday at the 2018 Telecom Summit in Toronto to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the next wireless revolution.
In time, 5G will power self-driving cars, but for now it’s the federal government that is driving the 5G show in Canada and it’s taking the slow lane when it comes to releasing spectrum. While Rogers, Telus, Shaw…
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TORONTO—Network innovation is not only a tough thing for service providers to carry out, it also means very different things to different people.
That certainly seemed to be the case here Monday during the first day of the Canadian Telecom Summit at the Toronto Congress Centre. In a late afternoon panel focusing on how service providers can transform their delivery networks, four leading telecom executives described network innovation in distinctly different ways and often spelled out distinctly different ways for making it happen.
Take James Buchanan, SVP and GM of Ensemble at ADVA Optical Networking. For Buchanan, network innovation calls for…
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OTTAWA – The federal government today officially launched its promised review of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Acts with a seven member panel of thinkers and experts who will also look at updating the Radiocommunications Act.
(So, it's not just Joly's panel, as we had surmised earlier...)
“New technology, like streaming services, has changed the way that Canadians connect with each other, do business and discover, access and consume content. Now more than ever, Canadians go online. To keep up with these changes we must modernize our legislative framework so that Canadian artists, artisans, businesses, consumers and broadcasters…
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TORONTO – While Canadians opt for online shopping for many purchases, nearly two-thirds (63%) of customers who have purchased a wireless device over the past six months did it in a physical store, according to a new J.D. Power report.
The 2018 Canada Wireless Purchase Experience Study examines wireless carriers’ performance across sales-related activities in stores, over the phone, and online. Satisfaction is measured in six factors: store representative; online purchase; phone purchase; facility; offerings and promotions; and cost of service. Fielded in February-March 2018, the study is based on responses from 3,605 wireless customers with a postpaid plan from…
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OTTAWA – On Friday afternoon the federal government announced six companies won spectrum in the most recent wireless auction held to sell off residual blocks not claimed in prior auctions.
Blocks in the 700 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz and PCS G-bands were auctioned for a total of $43.4 million.
Click here for the licenses won and regions they are located.
“Approximately 94 percent of the allocated spectrum licences went to regional providers and small companies,” said the press release from Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada. Ecotel, Cogeco, Xplornet, Iris, Freedom and Telus…
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Videotron, Telus Mobility, SaskTel rank highest in respective segments
TORONTO – As Canadians hold on to their wireless devices longer, their growing appetite for heavy data-based websites and apps is impairing the performance of wireless networks, which in turn fosters a negative brand image of their wireless carrier, according to a new J.D. Power report.
The 2018 Canada Wireless Network Quality Study measures Canada’s wireless carrier networks performance in metro and rural Canada, and provides an overview of Canadians’ wireless usage patterns, data plan preferences, and more. Fielded in February-March 2018, the study was conducted online in English and French…
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