OTTAWA – Claiming he has a duty to protect the public from new texting fees (!), Industry Minister Jim Prentice has called the CEOs of Bell and Telus to his office to explain an impending wireless pricing change which both companies recently announced.
Beginning in August, both telcos intend to begin charging 15 cents per incoming wireless text message received by customers who are not a part of a data plan and who choose to pay as they go. Rogers, Canada’s largest wireless company, charges no such fee and has not announced plans to do so.
(Ed query: Is…
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OTTAWA – Globalive Communications Corp., the Yak-led consortium, which had boasted of becoming Canada’s fourth national carrier, appears to have a gaping hole in the province of Quebec as bidding activity peters out in Canada’s auction for advanced wireless services in the 2 GHz range.
“Globalive has as close to a national license as anyone, but Quebec is a hole for them,’’ says Evan Kelly, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s national communications industry leader. “They’ve backed off. Quebec is one of the regions where there are no multiple parties going after licences anymore, so it seems to have settled.’’
With 135 rounds…
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TORONTO – Will we have smart Internet networks, or big fat dumb pipes? If net neutrality proponents win the debate, we’ll wind up with big fat dumb pipes that’ll be far more congested than they are now. That’s the message three of the four panelists drove home at Wednesday’s net neutrality panel at the 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit.
Net neutrality, although it has different meanings, is essentially about equal access to the Internet. Proponents fear that broadband carriers will use their market power to control activity online and determine what content gets to the consumer first and fastest.
The…
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CTS 2008: A new way to do TV shows?
By Greg O’Brien
TORONTO – If he’d known then what he knows now, the mega-popular TV franchise Canadian Idol might have been brought to market with an entirely different business plan, said John Brunton, president and CEO of Insight Production, the company that makes the program for CTV.
Given the way the media market has grown and fragmented, perhaps the reality show could have first or also been sold to a telco or an ISP, he said, during a panel discussion on entertainment on broadband.
Noting that Rogers’ portal agreement…
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BANFF – Government policy for real new media, including social networks, should not focus on culture, but instead on industrial development, Telus recommends in a white paper on new media released during the Banff World Television Festival.
This approach will provide the flexibility needed to harness the opportunities of new media, suggests the report, entitled “A Friendly Future for New Media.”
“There are huge economic opportunities with new media. We should think about the world as a whole as the market for new media content,” said Telus vice-president of wireless, broadband and content policy Michael Hennessy.
The big western…
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BANFF – Former CHUM president and CEO Jay Switzer and former Standard Broadcasting president and CEO Gary Slaight are among a group of Canadian broadcast executives who have invested $5 million in GlassBOX Television, which runs digital specialty service Bite TV.
Other executives contributing the new venture and strategic capital to GlassBOX are former Alliance Atlantis Communications executive managing director of international television Ted Riley, former XM Radio Canada president and COO Stephen Tapp, and former QuickPlay executive Raja Khanna.
Khanna was named co-CEO of GlassBOX. Tapp, who also headed Chum Television, will be an advisor to the company…
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OTTAWA – Despite an auspicious beginning, the Advanced Wireless Spectrum auction that began this week still has the ingredients for “both a robust auction process and a more competitive marketplace thereafter,” predicts the SeaBoard Group in a white paper released Wednesday.
The SeaBoard Group contends that Canadians have not lost the promise of more choice in cell phone providers and of lower cost services because of the seeming bidder disarray. It points out that 24 of 29 new-entrant bidders remain in the race.
The research firm predicts that Videotron and MTS Allstream, now bidding on its own, will bid…
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AS THE ADVANCED wireless spectrum auction gets under way today, there are a couple of things that are clear.
First, Canadian consumers will see several new wireless operators (one or two national, some more regional) inside of 18 months after the auction’s end in three to five weeks, driving down retail prices and increasing competition for their business.
Second, thanks to the new rules favoring any newcomers to Canadian wireless that demand mandated roaming on the existing incumbents’ networks, Rogers Communications is going to take on most of that burden. It will tax the company’s system somewhat,…
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TORONTO – The charity event "Together for China – Earthquake Relief Telethon" brought to Chinese Canadians nationally on Friday by TV channels Fairchild and Talentvision, raised a phenomenal $2,286,300 across Canada.
The event was a national earthquake relief effort by Fairchild Television in partnership with the Canadian Red Cross featuring renowned performing artistes from Asia, Eric Tsang, Jackie Cheung, Alan Tam, Aaron Kwok, Hacken Lee and more popular singers from Hong Kong and representatives from Canadian organizations appealing and presenting pledges to help the earthquake victims.
The program was simulcast on Shaw TV Cable 4 and Shaw Multicultural Channel,…
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OTTAWA – David Golden (Canada’s first satellite CEO), Carol Stephenson (Master of Telecom Mediation and Advocacy), David S. Simmonds and sons (two generations of radio leaders), Jim Balsillie, and Mike Lazaridis will be inducted into Canada’s Telecommunications Hall of Fame this year, it was announced Friday.
Golden will be inducted in the Servants of the Public category, Stephenson in the Advocates and Academics category, Simmonds and sons, and Balsillie in the Icons of Business category, and Lazaridis in the Inventors and Innovators category.
They will be officially inducted into the Hall of Fame at the 2008 Telecom Laureate Awards gala…
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