TORONTO – It might be a sign of the ingrained competitive spirit of the telecom industry in Canada that even when wireless carriers manage to agree on a vital issue – the need for a national code to protect wireless consumers’ interests – they still manage to bicker with one another.
During the Canadian Telecom Summit’s “regulatory blockbuster” panel discussion on Tuesday morning, moderated by Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien, regulatory experts from the big three incumbents – Rogers, Bell and Telus – along with MTS Allstream, Wind Mobile Canada and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), appeared to…
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OTTAWA – Add law professor Michael Geist to the list of stakeholders who support relaxing foreign ownership restrictions in the Canadian telecom market.
In his appearance Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications as part of its pre-study on the changes to the Telecommunications Act contained in Bill C-38, Geist, who is also Canada Research Chair in Internet law and e-commerce, called Canadian rules on telecom foreign ownership “the most restrictive in the developed economy world”.
Citing a recent OECD study that ranked Canada the second most restrictive market for both communications and mobile telecom behind only China, Geist…
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TORONTO – Incumbent telcos Bell and Telus have proven that cable's "big pipe advantage”, is in fact, overrated, according to Canaccord Genuity telecom analyst Dvai Ghose.
In a research note to clients this week entitled ‘Revenge of the Telcos’, Ghose said that Telus and Bell continue to take TV and broadband share from the likes of Rogers and Shaw, at the same time as cable telephony has matured. Part of this shift can be attributed to the telcos’ Mediaroom platform which offers desirable features such as whole home and remote PVR, a superior interactive guide and social media interoperability. While next generation cable boxes…
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TORONTO – “With legal and regulatory certainty, the time for Wind on the defence is at an end. The big three no longer have the luxury of a distracted and artificially crippled new competitor,” Globalive chairman and CEO Anthony Lacavera said on the final day of the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto. “The time for Wind on offence has arrived.”
But it isn’t only the big three incumbents – Rogers, Bell and Telus – that Wind Mobile is suiting up to take on. Wind is also looking to differentiate itself from its fellow new entrants by shifting its marketing and…
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TORONTO – Telus will invest $280 million in the Greater Toronto Area over the next three years to further expand its 4G LTE service.
The investment is part of $650 million in infrastructure upgrades being made across Ontario through 2014 and builds upon the $22 billion that Telus has already invested in operations and technology throughout the province over the last 10 years. The telco also extended its commitment to supporting local charities and community organizations.
"The demand for wireless services is exploding in the Greater Toronto Area and Telus is committed to making investments in infrastructure and technology to better…
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TORONTO – Chris O’Neill believes that Canadians worry too much about failing.
O’Neill, managing director of Google Canada, said failed high-tech ventures are actually a badge of honor in Silicon Valley, where Google is headquartered. Speaking in Toronto at the Canadian Telecom Summit late Monday afternoon, the native Canadian and Western University grad argued that failed ventures by entrepreneurs increase their odds of succeeding the next time around.
“Canadians view failure as something to be ashamed of,” he said. “That’s not true.”
Concerned that Canada won’t take steps to create a lasting digital economy, O’Neill rattled off statistics about the rapid growth…
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TORONTO – Telus and Rogers Communications may disagree on many things. But they both strongly favor a national consumer protection code for the telecom industry.
Echoing the call by Rogers communications divisional president Rob Bruce on Monday, Robert McFarlane, executive vice president and CFO of Telus, urged the federal government to adopt a national regulatory standard for protecting mobile phone customers. In Tuesday’s opening keynote at the Canadian Telecom Summit here, McFarlane argued that the country needs a single national code rather than “a patchwork of provincial rules” covering wireless contracts and services.
“It has been 20…
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TORONTO – Machine to machine communications, the mobile wallet and mobile video (mmmm…) are the three most exciting opportunities on the immediate horizon for the Canadian wireless industry, but only if we get a few things done first, Rogers' communications division president Rob Bruce told the Canadian Telecom Summit this morning.
Bruce explained in his opening keynote how machine to machine (M2M) technology is transforming health care, security, government and energy, among other things. He predicted the Canadian M2M market would be providing $400 million in network revenue by 2015.
The mobile wallet, on the other hand, will alter the way…
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TORONTO — With more and more companies of all stripes shifting their data workloads to the Internet, the outlook for the cloud is sunnier than ever these days. Several key obstacles remain, however, before cloud-based services prevail in all sectors of the economy.
That was the consensus of a breakout session on “Performance Cloud” at the Canadian Telecom Summit here on Monday morning. Three of the four panelists exhorted telecom carriers, cable operators, wireless providers and other telecom service providers to start offering cloud-based services to commercial customers now, if they aren’t doing so already. But they also warned of…
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MONTREAL – Telus will invest $840 million in Quebec over the next three years to expand and enhance its wireless and wireline networks.
The telecom company said Monday that the bulk of the investment will be put towards expanding its 4G LTE wireless network in the Montreal and Quebec City regions, and potentially into rural areas of the province depending on the outcome of the pending spectrum auction.
Telus also said that it will enhance its wireless and wireline networks for business customers, create 75 new wireless sites across the province, and extend the reach of its Optik TV and Internet services. In…
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