OTTAWA – While official spectrum license transfer applications were filed by Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications in early September, sources tell Cartt.ca senior officials at Industry Canada have let Rogers executives know they’re unlikely to be granted control of Shaw Communications’ unused AWS wireless spectrum.
In January of 2013, as part of a larger deal, Rogers bought an option from the Calgary-based company to acquire its AWS spectrum in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Northern Ontario to be exercised when the moratorium on its sale expires. It ended September 1st and the two companies applied to…
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GATINEAU – The argument which says the incumbent telcos would simply stop investing in fibre networks if competitors were granted access to them is just not true, according to the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) and Primus Telecommunications Canada.
Chris Tacit, legal counsel to CNOC, told the CRTC on the second day of the hearing that telcos will continue to build because they need to compete with the cable companies (and vice versa, for that matter).
“First of all, they have a natural incentive to build wherever there is a cable carrier because otherwise the cable carrier will eat their lunch,”…
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TORONTO – Once viewers are convinced to try the various TV Everywhere platforms being made available by carriers and broadcasters, keeping them engaged with great content and a seamless user experience reduces subscriber churn and leads towards making a profit from the significant investments that broadcasters have made in TVE apps and services.
A panel moderated by Cartt.ca’s Greg O’Brien at the CTAM Canada Broadcaster Forum held Wednesday at Toronto's Sony Centre saw experts from Vidéotron, Corus Entertainment and the CBC offered insight into their organizations’ current TVE services, while TVE platform experts from U.S. technology providers Accedo…
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TORONTO – Rogers wants the CRTC to dismiss Bell’s allegations that its new GamePlus online hockey viewing app provides Rogers with an “anticompetitive advantage.”
In a submission Thursday to the Commission, filed in response to Bell’s complaint last month, Rogers described Bell’s application as “nothing more than Bell’s attempt to use the Commission’s regulatory processes to inhibit or hinder our ability to provide Canadian consumers with new and innovative content offerings”.
GameCentre Live is Rogers’ new online platform that allows fans to stream over 1,000 regular season and playoff games online and to whatever device they like for $200 a…
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GATINEAU – Here we go again.
Several years after the CRTC set the rules for mandated access to essential broadband facilities, the big telecommunications service providers (TSPs) and their smaller competitors who rent space on those TSP networks, will once again take their turns before the Commission beginning Monday to argue about mandated access to incumbent networks, specifically the deep fibre networks built by the large cable and telco incumbents.
As can be expected, the incumbents are going to argue that the retail broadband market is already highly competitive, the result of vigorous battles among facilities-based competitors. Any unwarranted…
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TORONTO – Quebecor Media chief financial officer Jean-Francois Pruneau said Wednesday morning his company would love to be part of a national wireless play, has talked to investors and others about it, but is still awaiting the right conditions.
The big attraction at this point, he told Scotiabank’s telecom and cable investors conference in Toronto, is that the initial network builds have been done. “We don’t have to invest from the ground up, like the new entrants had to do,” he said, meaning any new national wireless company Videotron may be part of, would be “buying this at…
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TORONTO – Members of the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) voted 73.7% in favour of joining the United Steelworkers (USW) in a referendum vote counted Friday.
The TWU represents 12,000 members across Canada who work for telecommunications companies including Telus and Shaw Communications, as well as employers in related telecommunications sectors. The USW is a diverse private-sector union with 225,000 members working in every region and sector in Canada.
The merger agreement takes formal effect on January 1, 2015, but both unions said that they will kick off joint activities immediately. The agreement includes strong, mutual commitments around collective bargaining, education, organizing…
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TORONTO – Any time members of the Canadian telecom industry gather together for a conference, the age-old debate about just how competitive the market actually is here inevitably emerges. The Canadian ISP Summit held this week in Toronto was no exception.
And in fact, opposing views on the subject, firmly expressed, provided most of the sparks during the conference’s final session on Wednesday, a panel discussion that tackled many of the regulatory issues currently faced by the telecom industry.
Moderated by telecom industry consultant Mark Goldberg (co-founder and organizer of the annual Canadian Telecom Summit), the regulatory panel featured: Dr. Michael…
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OTTAWA – Canadians’ complaints over their telecom and Internet services fell for the first time in the seven year history of the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS), but Commissioner Howard Maker stopped short of calling it a trend.
“From our examination of other statistics… we are cautiously optimistic that the industry as a whole is becoming more focused on customer issues and on how it addresses customer problems”, Maker wrote in the 2013-2014 annual report, called ‘Driving Positive Change’, released Tuesday.
The CCTS received 11,340 customer complaints in 2013-14, down 17% from 13,692 in 2012-13, and successfully resolved…
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TORONTO – Canada needs an autonomous Internet infrastructure that keeps local web traffic routed within the country’s borders as much as possible, said Jacques Latour, chief technology officer for the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), during a presentation at the Canadian ISP Summit in Toronto on Monday afternoon.
Latour said too much of Canadian Internet traffic flows south of the border through major U.S. cities, such as New York, Chicago and Seattle.
“If for some reason there’s an attack against the U.S., like a cyber-attack, and they decide to shut down the borders, in Canada we’re screwed,” Latour said….
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