WE HAVE SOME questions for everyone. Feel free to answer, if you like, at editorial@cartt.ca. Answers will remain confidential – unless you’d like us to make them public… ************ 1. Quick, what’s a two-syllable word, ending in “o” that is a low-cost Canadian wireless brand? With the launch of a new name, Koodo, on the Telus network, we now have three answers to that question – counting Bell’s Solo and Rogers’ Fido. Can someone in marketing can explain to me the reasons why cheap Canadian wireless brand names apparently must end in o? Why is that such a…
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KELOWNA – The Canadian CommTech Trade Show is urging delegates to book soon to take advantage of registration savings. Delegates registering by March 14th can save $10 a day for the show and seminars in Kelowna on May 14-15th.
The show has increased its exhibitor forum by over 30% and will offer 25% more technical training sessions. The early bird rate of $80 per day includes a casual lunch, beverage breaks trade show and 26 training sessions to choose from.
Session topics range from GPON trial updates from Telus and Sasktel to outside plant line conditioning and deep fibre…
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VANCOUVER – With the completion of a final wireless installation on Mount Byang,
near Port Alice on northern Vancouver Island, most Telus cellphone customers in B.C.
and Alberta now have access to wireless high speed Internet service.
As a result of a three-year, $100 million investment program, Telus has installed
hardware at more than 1,100 cell sites in B.C. and Alberta, providing wireless service to
about 95 per cent of residents.
The company said they’ll now have access to the Internet at speeds approaching home
Internet service.
“Western Canadians can now enjoy access to wireless broadband Internet pretty much…
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TORONTO – Leave it to Ted Rogers to take a shot at his competition while complaining about regulation – in the same sentence.
During Friday’s conference call with financial analysts, the Rogers Communications founder bemoaned the new rules announced in November by Industry Minister Jim Prentice surrounding the wireless spectrum auction coming in May, but especially took shots at the conditions placed on him when it comes to mandated network roaming for newcomers.
While spectrum has been set aside for new wireless companies, the ministry also said that the incumbents must allow customers of these newbies to roam on…
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VANCOUVER – Telus came to the rescue of several people awaiting organ transplants this weekend in British Columbia.
According to a story in The Globe and Mail, what with the Oscars going on, Hollywood types had claimed many of the corporate jets often hired to shuttle harvested organs to their needy recipients.
Click here to read the story of how Telus rode to the rescue.
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GATINEAU – Reply comments filed with the CRTC on Friday on its broadcasting distribution undertakings and specialty services policy review don’t show anyone has changed their minds. They’ve mostly dug right in, as expected.
(And, we’ll set aside the fee for carriage debate right away for this particular piece. Over-the-air broadcasters and producers who look to see more funds flow their way want consumers to pay a fee for conventional TV stations. Cable and satellite companies do not. We’ll dive deeper into the issue in a later story.)
This story, however, is a tale of two extremes. We looked…
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GATINEAU – Internet protocol television (IPTV) is officially on ice for 2008 at Bell Canada.
During Monday morning’s hearing into the acquisition of Bell by a group led by the Ontario Teachers pension plan, CEO George Cope confirmed what was already an open secret, that it has no plans to deliver digital television terrestrially over the Internet backbone until 2009 at the earliest.
CRTC vice-chair telecom Len Katz was inquiring about including the value of Bell’s terrestrial cable license (to be served using IPTV) in the calculation of transaction benefits. Cope confirmed that Bell, with a digital TV service already…
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OTTAWA – Minister of Industry Jim Prentice has been “about to” introduce new copyright legislation for about three months now at least, according to Ottawa sources.
Perhaps March will be the month it happens…
In the meantime, the Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright has submitted a position paper to the minister “urging the government to strike a balance in copyright reform that reflects the needs of users and creators,” says its letter.
Besides the members in the headline, the BCBC also includes smaller stakeholders like EastLink, Cogeco Cable, SaskTel, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Retail Council of…
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VANCOUVER – Fourth quarter 2007 revenue at Telus came in at $2.33 billion, an increase of 3.4% from a year ago, the western telco announced this morning.
“The performance was driven by 9% growth in wireless revenue and 7% growth in wireline data revenue, partially offset by declines in local and long distance wireline revenues. Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased 8% to $953 million due to a 14% increase in the wireless segment and 2% increase in the wireline segment,” reads the release
Net income in the quarter ended December 31, 2007, was $400…
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HAMILTON – Fibre to the home is certainly possible – and from a pure bandwidth point of view, certainly desirable. From an economic point of view, though? Not so much.
And is such a conversion going to happen any time soon here in Canada? Not likely. At least that was the consensus around the lunch table I sat at Tuesday at Carmen’s Banquet Hall in Hamilton during the SCTE Ontario Chapter Winter Technical Conference.
Well over 200 from the technical and engineering side of the cable industry descended on Hamilton to hear 10 speakers wax eloquently about the advantages…
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