By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — Cogeco CEO Philippe Jetté doesn’t want to discuss when he expects the company will launch a wireless service.
He was pestered with questions from journalists Thursday before the company’s annual general meeting — is it a matter of weeks, months, years? — but repeatedly said that they’re working toward a launch and would announce their plans in the near future. An actual launch is unlikely in the “short term” because “some preparation work remains,” he told analysts earlier.
Jetté expressed some frustration with the length of the process, both in terms of regulatory obligations and the slow pace of…
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By Ahmad Hathout
TekSavvy has filed a Part 1 application to the CRTC asking for a review of a wind down of older coaxial network technology by Cogeco that it said will affect its ability to provide service to its customers.
The large independent telecom relies on Cogeco’s last mile coaxial facilities at two interconnection locations in Burlington and Windsor, Ontario. Cogeco allegedly told TekSavvy that it is migrating wholesale customers to fibre technologies, including to radio frequency over glass technology (RFoG) at the Burlington site as soon as last week with eventual migration at both sites to ethernet passive optical…
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Five Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs who are members of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology (INDU), including its two vice-chairs, are calling on the committee’s Liberal chair, Joël Lightbound, to initiate a hearing on the increasing prices of wireless services.
In a letter dated Jan. 8 and obtained by Cartt, INDU committee vice-chairs Rick Perkins (Conservative) and Sébastien Lemire (Bloc Québécois), along with Conservative MPs Ryan Williams, Bernard Généreux and Brad Vis, take aim at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government’s policy decisions that they claim “are increasing costs for Canadians across…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The federal government’s procurement website published late last month a contract on behalf of the CRTC that requests a report that delves into a comparative analysis of international mobile wireless roaming rates.
The regulator is asking for an in-depth analysis of the rates provided by Canadian carriers versus their international peers in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
“The study must include an analysis of the factors that may explain the differences (e.g. regulatory, economic, geopolitical, structural and/or technical)” in the pricing between the Canadian and international carriers, according to a statement…
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CRTC also announced more money allocation from third call
The CRTC has formally denied an application by Bell that requested the regulator change the way it collected money for the $750-million Broadband Fund.
Bell requested last December that the regulator stop collecting money from the internet service providers until it has disbursed the money it has collected and to return the money it hasn’t given out. Part of the reasoning is that there have been many more funding programs available since the Broadband Fund was launched and that the unused money held by the CRTC and not distributed could be…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The large telecommunications companies are urging the CRTC to turn away applications asking it to require a pre-production test environment for next generation 911 calls, saying it is unnecessary and too costly.
Some public safety answering points (PSAPs) and the government of British Columbia filed separate Part 1 applications with the regulator asking for it to mandate the ability of these emergency entities to hook up to a pre-production test environment for NG911 so that real 911 calls are not at risk when testing software updates and new features. The NG911 networks are expected to carry multimedia, such…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Quebecor is asking the CRTC to align the access rates to large last mile fibre networks for both disaggregated and aggregated regimes.
Last month, the regulator approved on an interim basis and within six months competitor access to the fibre of Bell and Telus that goes directly to buildings in Ontario and Quebec under the aggregated regime, which allows competitors to bundle from the large telco the traffic transport mile with the last mile. The decision is being appealed to the Federal Court by Bell, which is disproportionately affected by it.
In a Part 1 published…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Foreign streamers are not really serious about pulling investments in Canada if they are required to make a base contribution to Canadian content, claimed the president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) on Thursday.
Over the course of the three-week hearing on whether online platforms should contribute a base financial amount to Canadian content funds, the CRTC has heard from significant foreign entities that such a requirement would either harm their existing partnerships with the Canadian partners or force them to reevaluate their presence in the country.
But the CAB thinks the claims are questionable.
“I have had a…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The country’s highest court has granted Thursday Telus’s request to hear its case that the CRTC has jurisdiction over wireless access to municipal infrastructure.
The Vancouver-based telecom is appealing from the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision that determined that Parliament did not intend for “transmission line” under section 43 of the CRTC-administered Telecommunications Act to include wireless technologies. Telus has argued that the wireless signals must route back to hard wires anyway.
“By focusing on the point that small cell antennas send and receive wireless signals, the court below failed to appreciate the importance of the physical connections between…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Bell has filed a trademark for the name “Bell Pure Fibre,” reflecting its drive to connect more homes directly with the advanced technology.
The trademark was filed late last month, according to the trademarks database.
While the telco uses the language “pure fibre” on its website, it is not used as a proper name for the internet packages – instead, it is used to characterize the technology behind the package.
Bell has said that it still has at least five million homes in its…
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