OTTAWA – With just a few weeks left to go before the CRTC’s widely anticipated hearing on vertical integration, the Commission has provided interveners with a sneak peek into what exactly it plans to focus on.
The Regulator posted its agenda and issued a letter on Monday saying that its panel intends to focus on five key areas:
1. Perceived problems and benefits with respect to the Canadian broadcasting system resulting from vertical integration;
2. Concerns with respect to exclusivity of content distribution, including distribution over mobile and broadband platforms;
3. Requirement for protection of independent broadcasters or independent distributors;
4. Adequacy of current ex…
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NOW WE KNOW WHAT happens when you try to combine an ideology that says big business is all-bad with sets of inaccurate data to try and make recommendations on fostering Internet “openness”.
You end up with a rambling report (honestly, we stopped counting after 10,000 words, but the 44-second video about the report is cute) chock full of conflicting messages and untenable ideas. And that’s just what Internet advocacy group OpenMedia.ca has produced with its report “Casting an Open Net.”
Instead of a concise and well-researched case against usage-based billing (UBB) that could have sparked a constructive debate between OpenMedia.ca…
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OTTAWA – Many wireless providers are telling Industry Canada that it should restrict Inukshuk Internet’s ability to fully participate in the 2500 MHz spectrum auction.
MTS Allstream, Quebecor Media Inc., Shaw Communications, Telus Corp., and EastLink all suggested in comments to the 2500 MHz licensing process that it would be unfair to allow Inukshuk unfettered bidding in the auction because it owns 98% of licensed 2500 MHz bandwidth and a considerable chunk of the overall band. Inukshuk is a joint venture between Bell Canada and Rogers Communications.
For MTS, it’s no longer a question of whether competition is…
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TORONTO – The company has had its hiccups, but as of Thursday, Public Mobile has been open for a year.
The wireless start-up with the spectrum, G-band, that so few wanted (and some quite unique advertising that stands out from the crowd by cleverly using their very customers) has battled the incumbents and new competitors in the marketplace, in front of regulators and in the courts and emerged energized, says Bruce Kirby, the company’s vice-president of strategy and business development.
“It’s been a lively year,” he told Cartt.ca in an interview. “There has been some interesting behaviour by the incumbents who…
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OTTAWA – One year after its launch, 25,000 Canadians now subscribe to the wireless Amber Alerts program, according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA).
The free text message service assists Amber Alert agencies in providing the public with immediate and up-to-date information about a child’s abduction, and solicits the public’s help in the safe and swift return of the child. The program is administered by Canada’s wireless telecommunications industry, in partnership with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Ontario Provincial Police and Amber Alert agencies across the country.
The Amber Alerts program is available to cell phone users in all 10…
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OTTAWA – The country’s big Internet service providers will be required to provide static Internet protocol (IP) address allocation for their third-party Internet access (TPIA) services, the CRTC has ruled.
A static IP address is a number that is assigned to a device, such as a computer, to be its permanent address on the Internet. An ISP assigns the address when it provides an Internet access service to an end-user.
Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw and Videotron originally told the Commission that it is unclear whether the managed router solution they use to provide static IP addresses for business customers would work for their TPIA…
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SLAVE LAKE, AB – It’s the not knowing that really bothers Ric McLaren.
The general manager of Cable TV Slave Lake said Wednesday that three days after fire ravaged the town in which he has lived with his family for the last eight years was evacuated, he still doesn’t know for sure whether his home or his family-run cable TV business is still standing.
“We don’t know anything 100%, but we’re 99% sure that our office and our headend is intact,” he told Cartt.ca in a phone interview. “The only real information that we’ve got has been through Facebook and photo…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has ordered the country’s telcos to pay over $215,000 to the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) in order to cover its costs during the obligation to serve hearing last fall.
The consumer group asked the Commission that it be reimbursed for legal fees, consultant fees, expert witness fees, disbursement fees and tax while representing the organizations Canada Without Poverty, Option consommateurs, and Rural Dignity of Canada, an amount that it said totaled $216,795.66.
On Monday, the CRTC agreed that PIAC should be paid $215,276.46, and that the amount should be divided up among all telecommunications service providers…
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TORONTO – The future of TV in the digital age will be debated by senior representatives from Telus, Rogers, Corus, the Canadian Media Production Association, Google TV and Boxee at this year’s Banff World Media Festival.
Moderated by Michael Hennessey, chair of the Festival’s Foundation in addition to SVP regulatory and government affairs at Telus, the panel will discuss what role traditional television infrastructure and new digital technologies will play in the living room of the future, as well as what is at stake for the Canadian and international media ecosystem in these changes.
Panel participants will include David Purdy, vice-president…
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CALGARY – According to almost 1,000 Calgarians who took the “Mobilicity Network Challenge” over the last two weeks, administered by the company, most found the new network as good as or better than what they hear on the networks of the likes of Telus, Rogers or Bell.
“In fact, 41% of participants in the western city could not tell a difference between the Mobilicity network and a Big Three carrier network. And, of those who said they could tell a difference, 78% preferred the call made on the Mobilicity device,” says a Mobilicity press release.
"The fact that over 40% of…
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