OTTAWA–GATINEAU – With wireless service networks now accessible to 99% of the population, more and more Canadian households are dropping their landlines, according to the 2014 edition of the CRTC’s Communications Monitoring Report.
The report, released Thursday, provides an overview of the Canadian communication industry for the year ended August 31, 2013. This year, the CRTC is releasing the report in three parts. The first, about the country’s broadcasting sector, was released earlier this month, and the third part will be released in October with data on international comparisons, the National Do Not Call List and consumer spending on…
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TORONTO – BlackBerry executive chairman and CEO John Chen paraphrased a line from a popular Huey Lewis and the News song Wednesday while showing off the company’s new Passport smartphone. “It’s cool to be square”, he laughed, in reference to the device’s unique, square-shaped touch screen.
At ease on stage during the splashy event held at a sports bar in downtown Toronto, Chen cracked jokes and played up his love for Canada, calling Passport’s launch the start of “a great Canadian comeback story”. Even Canadian icon Wayne Gretzky was on-hand to praise the company and the new device. “I have…
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NEW YORK – PC Mag said that it has awarded a tie to Bell and Rogers for the title of fastest mobile network in Canada.
Its second annual test of Canadian wireless service, published Monday, the on-line magazine said that both companies “could really teach U.S. carriers how to build urban LTE networks”. With a focus on speed and reliability and its results weighted for population, the test found that Rogers' LTE network had blazing download speeds for large files, and Bell's network had superior upload speeds and often better webpage download times.
While noting that Telus appeared to have some…
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GATINEAU – Independent ISP TekSavvy Solutions told the CRTC Tuesday it would love to become a broadcast distributor because that’s what its customers are asking, but added it can’t enter the game at the moment because the cost of bandwidth is simply too high.
According to a study from Nordicity, the bandwidth costs for the ISP to provide basic service would come to $80 if networked PVR capability was included. “That’s just the bandwidth – before we pay for content or anything else,” said TekSavvy CEO Marc Gaudrault in his opening remarks to the Commission’s Let’s Talk TV policy hearing.
He…
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TORONTO – Tony Lacavera found the investors he needed.
Back in June, the chairman and CEO of Wind spent considerable time in public campaigning almost like a politician, singing the growing wireless company’s praises (including at the Canadian Telecom Summit, pictured), noting if he had some finances behind him and if the federal government made a few changes, he just might be able to make a go of being a fourth national wireless company after all.
Since then, Lacavera has been pounding the pavement in search of that capital and today the company…
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GATINEAU – The funding of big budget Canadian programming as well as the role of the U.S. TV channels in the broadcasting system were put under the microscope during the fourth day of the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV policy hearing.
Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications and Cogeco Cable warned of significant negative consequences to the Canadian system if the commission removed US 4+1s (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX + PBS) from basic cable packages. The CRTC’s proposal was certainly a bone of contention for Rogers with the company saying it would face the wrath of subscribers if these channels were removed from…
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GATINEAU – Late Wednesday evening, after the TV lights had long been turned off and almost everyone else had gone home, Corus Entertainment stated its belief that despite the myriad changes happening in the global media market, the CRTC shouldn’t really do too much to upset the Canadian apple cart.
However, if the Commission does move on a smaller, mandated basic package, which is one of the many proposals under review, Corus asked that new regs be sure to include kids programming in the lineup. Corus is a big kids content producer, of course, but the company didn’t ask that…
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TORONTO – Despite their continued discounted pricing, Canada’s new wireless entrants are expected to own only 5.8% of the wireless market (or 1.64 million Canadian wireless subscribers) by the end of 2014, the same percentage as they did at year end 2013, according to a new report from Convergence Consulting.
Canadian Wireless: Assessing the Impact of New Entrants, September 2014 says that Wind Mobile and Mobilicity can in some cases undercut incumbents Rogers, Bell and Telus and their discount brands on voice and on combined voice/data packages by more than 60%. Though in some cases, especially against Videotron,…
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TORONTO – The CEOs of BCE and Rogers say they are more than happy to offer access to their upcoming online subscription video-on-demand services to other TV providers, and at least one of those other providers is eager to sign up.
At the annual BMO Media and Telecom investors’ conference in Toronto on Tuesday, Rogers CEO Guy Laurence said Shomi, a joint project with Shaw that is set to launch in November, was to have other partners (as Cartt.ca first reported earlier this year). But they decided to launch without them because they “couldn’t get their…
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TORONTO – Bell Media and Corus Entertainment have inked a multi-year, multi-platform deal with HBO for the exclusive Canadian rights to the entire past-season library of every HBO scripted series currently on air. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The deal includes the rights to more than 700 episodes from past seasons of current programs, in addition to the 300+ episodes of HBO series that are already available (Ed note: so take that, shomi and Netflix). Starting this fall, past seasons of hits like Game Of Thrones, Girls, Boardwalk Empire, and True Detective will also made available to…
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