TORONTO – Bell Canada isn’t content to let Telus and Rogers and Freedom dominate the discount segment of the wireless market.
During a conference call with financial analysts today discussing its third quarter results, BCE CEO George Cope said to watch for something from Bell to compete along side of Rogers’ chatr and Telus’ Public Mobile – what are sometimes called “value brands” in the industry as they tend to serve those in the low income segment of the population.
Bell, whose Virgin Mobile brand competes with Rogers’ Fido and Telus’ Koodo, doesn’t have such a third brand since it killed…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has pushed back its deadline for comments pertaining to TV channels wishing to renew their places in the basic programming package.
After recently announcing that it would kick off its 9(1)(h) hearing on April 30, the Commission said Wednesday that the deadline to submit interventions, comments and answers is now December 8, 2017, and not November 16 as first announced. The deadline for the applicants to submit their replies is December 18.
The new deadlines comes as a result of a joint procedural request from BCE, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, Cogeco, Quebecor, Rogers, Shaw and…
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TORONTO – Newcomers to Canada use their mobile phone more than the general Canadian population, stream more content, and enjoy watching basketball, according to a new report released Tuesday.
Solution Research Group’s Newcomers to Canada research study explores consumer behaviours, social attitudes and demographics of newcomers in the last 10 years. The study polled 1,149 newcomers from China, South Asia, The Philippines, North Africa and the Middle East, as well as Latin and Central America.
According to the report, the newcomer market is increasing in importance socially and economically because of their record numbers (2.6 million since 2007) and habits that…
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Will aid 2018 mobile wireless rollout in the province
WOODSTOCK, N.B. and BRANDON, Man. – There were a fair number of eyebrows raised across the Canadian telecom industry when Xplornet Communications was announced as the third player brought in to satisfy Competition Bureau worries over the Bell Canada purchase of MTS.
The company has long been a successful satellite and fixed wireless broadband supplier, but has never offered mobile wireless – or even indicated publicly a desire to move into that market.
In its initial deal announced in 2016, Bell only announced a spin-off of customers and retail locations to Telus to…
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GATINEAU – It looks as though a portion of a CRTC decision that flew under the radar for many people has wrecked what was an excellent promotional outlet for Canadian specialty services and charities.
In decision CRTC 2015-86, part of the Let’s Talk TV process, the Commission surprised the industry by tightening the rules surrounding how the two minutes of local advertising time made available each hour by U.S. channels such as CNN, A&E, Golf Channel and TLC could be used.
Dubbed “local avail” time, American cablecos and other pay TV carriers have turned the sales of…
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TORONTO – Freedom Mobile today announced the launch of what it’s calling “Big Gig”, a brand new plan giving customers 10GB of data for $50/month.
The new plan gives both new and existing Freedom Mobile customers access to more data for less with no penalties for data overages, “and is unlike anything currently being offered to Canadians,” says the company’s release. The Big Gig plans are available beginning Thursday, October 19. As Rogers Communications, Bell Canada and Telus are all about to report their third quarter results over the next two weeks, we bet there will be questions on how…
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GATINEAU – CRTC commisioner Christopher MacDonald’s persistent questioning on day one of the hearing into license renewals for several BDUs roughly translated to: “What’s taking so long with the set top box viewership data?”
Quebecor, Rogers, Shaw and Eastlink, all members of the Set Top box working group (check), each had very similar answers to MacDonald’s line of questions. Essentially the answers boiled down to: “What we’re doing is hard, pioneering, and with an uncertain business model, so yes, it’s a slow process.”
The group first met more than two years ago.
During the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV process,…
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OTTAWA – Bell Canada and Rogers Communications showed off some different philosophies when it came to the federal government’s NAFTA negotiations when they appeared recently in front of a recent meeting of the Standing Committee on International Trade.
Rogers Cable vice-president, regulatory, Pam Dinsmore said in her opening remarks on September 20th that her company is concerned the trade talks will wander too far from its prior mandate and into copyright, which includes such issues as retransmitting U.S. over-the-air TV signals, Canada’s notice-and-notice regime for pirated online content, and our Copyright Modernization Act’s provisions for personal use and its…
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MTS integration proceeding well, no 600 MHz set asides required
TORONTO – Bell Canada Enterprises CEO George Cope, like any wireless executive in Canada these days, is feeling pretty good.
All companies are posting strong recent subscriber additions and see growth continuing. Speaking to the BMO Capital Markets Media and Telecom Conference in Toronto on Tuesday, Cope pointed to the fact Canada has grown by 350,000 immigrants – and the phones and plans they buy – during the past 12 months or so as a leading reason why the business is so buoyant.
Add all those new Canadians to the growth of…
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Plus, spectrum set asides are a bad idea
TORONTO – Customer service at Rogers had better improve because on Tuesday, CEO Joe Natale put a target in front of himself and his company at which to aim.
While speaking at the BMO Capital Markets Media and Telecom Conference, Natale revealed how removing customer service friction points which he has noted during his five months at Rogers makes him believe “we can get anywhere from 100 to 200 basis points of margin improvement in the next 12 to 18 months,” by tackling various issues, he said.
“To date Rogers has done a good…
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