ELLIOT LAKE, ON – The DiversityCanada Foundation wants the Governor in Council to quash a section of the Wireless Code of Conduct regarding prepaid wireless service cards, after the CRTC declined to do so.
The Foundation and the National Pensioners Federation submitted a joint petition Monday seeking to overturn a provision in the Code that they say “permits Bell, Rogers, Telus and other wireless providers to place expiry dates on cash held in the accounts of 3.7 million prepaid wireless consumers”.
The petition claims that the CRTC breached its duty of procedural fairness by ignoring evidence that prepaid wireless accounts hold…
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TORONTO – “It was not a take or leave it situation,” Ken Engelhart, senior VP of regulatory at Rogers Communications Inc., says of the roaming agreement the company signed with new entrant Wind Mobile.
In an interview with Cartt.ca Wednesday, he rebutted a number of the points that Simon Lockie, chief regulatory officer at Wind, made during an appearance before the Standing Senate Committee on Transportation and Communications on Tuesday. It’s simply not true that Wind had no choice but to accept the agreement it did, Engelhart says.
“I disagree very strongly with the notion that this…
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MONTREAL — Bell Canada has begun the rollout of its 700 MHz wireless services across the country and will announce “in the next month or so” the communities across Canada, representing 96 or 97% of the population that will be able to use it by the end of 2015, BCE president and CEO George Cope said Monday.
The network upgrade, which will make use of the $565 million worth of spectrum Bell bought in this year’s auction, is just one of many improvements to the company’s services that Cope spoke confidently about in a speech to the Canadian Club of…
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GATINEAU – New entrants and would-be wireless providers find themselves trying to again convince the federal telecom regulator that it needs to intervene in the wireless market. At the same time however, the incumbent operators tell the CRTC everything is working just fine as it is.
The comments come as the CRTC is studying the wholesale wireless services market with the goal of determining if the market is competitive enough or whether it needs to impose more regulations on roaming, tower and site sharing and others. All interventions can be found here. The public hearing is scheduled for September…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Cable companies reported modest growth in revenues and subscribers in 2013, while satellite companies recorded a decline in both categories, according to the CRTC’s statistical and financial results for the industry released Thursday.
According to Broadcast Distribution 2009–2013: Cable, Multipoint Distribution Systems and Direct-to-Home, combined revenues for both cable and satellite companies increased by 4.8% from $14.1 billion in 2012 to $14.8 billion in 2013. The total number of subscribers, (which includes customers subscribed to IPTV services such as Bell’s Fibe TV or Telus’ Optik TV, but excludes independent cable companies with less than 2,000 subs and who…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC must address "the incentives" that Canada’s largest mobile wireless companies have to raise their competitors’ wholesale prices, and, offer new entrants help in gaining a foothold in the market.
That’s the gist of a submission made public Thursday by the Competition Bureau to the CRTC, in response to the Commission’s review of wholesale mobile wireless services.
Noting that mobile wireless companies, particularly new entrants, may need to enter into arrangements with the likes of Bell, Rogers and Telus to obtain certain wholesale mobile wireless services, the Bureau said that the retail market power that these large incumbents wield…
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MONTREAL – By fixating on promoting the emergence of a fourth wireless carrier in each of Canada's regional markets, the federal government has lost sight of the ultimate goal of promoting the development of a dynamic, efficient telecommunications industry, says a new research paper released Tuesday by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI).
The paper, The State of Competition in Canada's Telecommunications Industry – 2014, says that the current government has committed itself to relying on market forces as much as possible to achieve its telecom policy objectives. But this orientation has been contradicted by set-asides, spectrum caps, mandatory network…
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OTTAWA – “Combined, the new entrants spent about $3 billion to acquire spectrum, build networks and go after subscribers,” said John Bitove, the chairman of foundering wireless company Mobilicity – as well as the yet-to-launch Feenix Wireless, which purchased spectrum in this year’s 700 MHz spectrum auction.
He was speaking to delegates at the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Biennial National Conference on New Developments in Communications Law and Policy held in Ottawa last week in a session on the success, or failure, of Canadian wireless policy. Panellists, which also included economist Steven Globerman, Rogers’ Ken Engelhart, and lawyer George…
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TORONTO and GATINEAU – Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. has lobbed pretty serious accusations at VMedia Inc., alleging the company is using the public Internet to deliver TV services and that it’s distributing unauthorized foreign services to its subscribers. VMedia says ECGL has all it all wrong.
Now though, the CRTC has decided to hear more fully from both parties. In a letter posted on its website on May 5, the Commission has removed VMedia’s applications for additional BDU services in several Atlantic Canadian markets as well some in Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well as a national video on…
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REGINA – Despite increased competition in the province, SaskTel ended 2013 with net income of $90.1 million and operating revenues of $1.2 billion, up $22.7 million from 2012.
But according to president and CEO Ron Styles, that amount could drop to $59.2 million next year due to unintended consequences of new federal regulations that encourage the presence of four wireless companies in all regions of the country. Styles is scheduled to meet with federal government officials this week to express concern over prices in provinces with four carriers, such as Saskatchewan, which he says are much lower than in provinces where…
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