TORONTO – Rogers Communications says claims by Bell Canada and Telus that the two wireless competitors and collaborators aren’t sharing spectrum are false. In fact, Telus is using Bell’s spectrum in Toronto for Long Term Evolution (LTE) services, according to Ken Engelhart, senior vice-president of regulatory at Rogers.
Earlier this month, Telus began advertising a 75 Mbps LTE service in Toronto. According to Engelhart, it would be impossible for Telus to provide an LTE service with those kinds of speeds in the 10 MHz of bandwidth it holds in Toronto. It would need 20 MHz to do it. Besides, he…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC said today that it will continue to license satellite relay distribution undertakings (SRDUs) because of a lack of competition in that market, but will not incorporate the transport of pay and specialty services into SRDU licensing.
In its decision the Commission maintained that its dispute resolution process “remains the best way to address concerns regarding uplink fees that the Bell direct-to-home undertaking charges Canadian pay and specialty services for the transport of their signals to cable headends in cases where they do not need to use Bell’s SRDU facilities.” Canada’s only two SRDU operators, Shaw Satellite…
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TELUS INSISTS THAT THE joint Long Term Evolution (LTE) infrastructure build the company has signed with Bell Canada is simply that: an agreement to share the costs of building out a national LTE network. Nothing more.
There will not be any spectrum sharing, says Michael Hennessy, senior vice-president of regulatory and government affairs at Telus in an interview with Cartt.ca. He explains that the premise of deploying the LTE network in conjunction with Bell is to reduce their respective capital costs of building a national network. “We each control our own spectrum and we’re using our own spectrum to support…
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VANCOUVER – Telus had a busy Friday.
On the financial front, the company released strong fourth quarter and full-year 2011 results across both its wireless and wireline networks. On the network technology side, the company turned on its LTE network in 14 markets from coast-to-coast.
Given the new, much-faster data capabilities of LTE (theoretically up to 75 Mbps download, but more practically somewhere in the 12-25 range), why isn’t Telus charging premium prices for the new devices and perhaps for different speeds of service, Canaccord Genuity analyst Dvai Ghose asked Telus executives during…
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VANCOUVER – Driven by wireless and wireline data growth, fourth quarter 2011 revenue at Telus hit $2.7 billion, an increase of more than 5% over the same three months of 2010, the company reported today.
The increase was generated by 6.5% growth in wireless revenue and 4% growth in wireline revenue, both driven by strong data growth, the company reported. Telus added 148,000 postpaid wireless customers in the fourth quarter as smartphone adoption continued to accelerate, causing wireless data revenue to increase by 43%. “This increase more than offset declining wireless voice revenues, resulting in wireless…
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VANCOUVER – Telus’ 4G LTE wireless service will debut in 14 metropolitan areas across the country on Friday.
The initial launch cities include Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area, Kitchener, Waterloo, Hamilton, Guelph, Belleville, Ottawa, Montreal, Québec City, Halifax and Yellowknife. But the company said Thursday that it will continue to roll out coverage with a goal of reaching more than 25 million Canadians by the end of this year.
Telus will also offer an array of LTE capable devices including the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE tablet, the LG Optimus LTE smartphone, the Novatel Wireless Ovation MC679…
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BEIJING, China – At a signing ceremony Thursday morning that included Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Huawei confirmed that it will provide LTE RAN (radio access network) equipment to Bell Mobility and Telus for their joint LTE wireless network in Canada.
"LTE is the gold standard of wireless technology, enabling Canadian consumers to connect and Canadian business to compete at a global level with access to the latest superphones, data services and mobile content”, said Bell Mobility president Wade Oosterman, in a statement. “The combined scale of Canada's largest communications company and an international technology leader like Huawei ensures we can…
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GATINEAU – Canadian consumers need their wireless companies to be much more transparent when it comes to contract terms and other matters, so the industry should have national standards when it comes to the provision of wireless services, Telus told the CRTC on Wednesday in calling for a public hearing on transparency in wireless.
The call for that new process came in a letter to the Commission from the company’s senior vice-president of government and regulatory affairs, Michael Hennessy, where he denied an accusation leveled by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre that Telus routinely charges wireless customers for 30 additional…
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VANCOUVER – Telus is hoping that their Optik TV customers in British Columbia and Alberta will want to watch television while on the move.
The company launched a free app that allows viewers to watch select programming from channels that they already subscribe to on their mobile devices, tablets and laptops. ‘Optik on the go’ debuted with content from Super Channel, Hollywood Suite, Family Channel, Disney XD, Disney Jr, and Baby TV in English, French and Mandarin.
Using the Cisco Videoscape platform, the app allows users to start, pause, rewind and fast forward their shows just like they do at home. Apple iPad, iPhone,…
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GATINEAU – Shaw Communications filed an appeal to the CRTC on Friday regarding last October’s policy decision to quash usage-based billing in favour of incumbents charging independent internet service providers either a flat rate, or a rate based on capacity and the number of users.
Under the new regulatory regime, ISPs can now sell smaller providers a set capacity per month, or a simple flat fee for a set level of speed – and was officially instituted February 1st. The new policy also means smaller ISPs will have to pay more to…
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