CALGARY – While remaining mum on just who the manufacturer is, Shaw Communications says it will launch a new residential media hub/gateway in May.
The new customer premises device (which would replace existing set top boxes) is meant to compete with Telus’ Microsoft Mediaroom-driven Optik TV.
Telus’ TV service offers customers options cable doesn’t, like the ability to remote-program their DVR and multi-room DVR ability – meaning customers can watch shows on any room there is an Optik-connected television. Its more-flexible search functionality lets customers find shows or movies by the name of the actors or directors instead of…
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TORONTO – The Canadian broadcast and telecom industries appear to have plenty to say about the proposed merger of Bell and CTV. With comments and interventions due on Tuesday, three weeks in advance of the CRTC hearing, most stakeholders offered their conditional support, but only with safeguards in place to preserve industry competition.
Rogers tied its support of the deal to Bell’s continued opposition to the issue of value-for-signal (a.k.a. fee-for-carriage). Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw and Telus at one point banded together to challenge the CRTC before the Federal Court of Appeal arguing that the Commission lacks the power…
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TORONTO – Despite assertions to the contrary, Shaw may not roll out its new wireless service this year. As the Calgary-based company prepares for its annual general meeting on Thursday, at least one industry analyst is predicting that a “widespread wireless launch in 2011 seems unlikely”.
“Building a wireless asset may be more challenging and take longer than some may think”, wrote Dvai Ghose, the managing director and head of Canadian research for Canaccord Genuity, in a note to investors on Monday. “Shaw has publicly stated that it aims to launch wireless in 2011. However, it had also planned to…
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WE JOURNALISTS JUST love our year-end lists, don’t we? They are everywhere. However, we don’t do predictions here. They only thing I have found to be certain when trying to predict the future is that nearly all the time, the predictions are wrong.
So instead, here’s our list of 10 open questions heading into 2011.
1. How much market share will the Telus and Bell Canada IPTV services take from incumbent cable companies? The user experience of the Microsoft Mediaroom-driven Optik TV and Fibe TV is just so darn good and so darn integrated (I’d switch just for the whole-home PVR…
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TORONTO – The first ever 3D broadcast of CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada is coming to TV screens across the country.
Viewers with a 3D-ready television, along with the associated pair of glasses, will be able to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs take on the Montreal Canadiens at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT on December 11. The broadcast will be available free to Bell TV subscribers on channel 1933 (satellite TV) and 1208 (Fibe TV); Shaw Direct subscribers on channel 233/333 (Classic/Advanced); Telus Optik TV subscribers on channel 656 and Telus satellite TV subscribers on channel 1933; and to Vidéotron…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has completed its review of the large incumbent local exchange carriers’ support structure service rates.
The ILECs’ support structure services are tariffed wholesale services that make poles, strands, and conduits available to third parties for use as an input to provide competitive retail services. In a decision on Thursday, the Commission approved revised rates for the wholesale support structure services of Bell Aliant, Bell Canada, MTS Allstream, Telus and Télébec, effective 21 July 2009.
It also initiated a follow-up proceeding regarding service pole rates and a possible markup on Phase II support structure costs.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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TORONTO – When it comes to content and its distribution, what’s open and what’s closed off can be difficult to define – and what’s freely available to all and what’s behind a walled garden can both work as business plans.
That was part of the messages Monday morning during a session at Toronto’s NextMedia entitled: “Open vs. Closed, Content in the Digital Age”.
While many folks often talk about the preservation of the wide open internet and how individual business interests are interrupting that, those same people freely play inside such closed environments as iTunes, Netflix and Facebook, noted Michael…
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OTTAWA – Should there be spectrum caps for incumbents? Set asides for smaller companies? If so, what should they be? Should we align our bandwidth plan with the United States? Should we hold the 2500 MHz auction at the same time as the 700 MHz spectrum auction? How much spectrum should be set aside for public safety agencies? Does there need to be government intervention in rural regions? How will any new foreign investment rules affect the auction?
These are just some of the questions Industry Canada has asked the Canadian wireless industry in the paper it released late Tuesday:…
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TORONTO – A 13.5% increase in self-paying subscribers contributed to XM Canada’s “sound” financial performance for fiscal 2010.
Self-paying subscribers totaled 432,200 as of August 31, 2010, up from 380,900 in the same period last year.
Average monthly subscription revenue per subscriber (ARPU) was $11.28 and $11.74 for the fourth quarters of 2010 and 2009, respectively, and $11.21 and $11.88 for fiscal 2010 and 2009, respectively. The company said that ARPU declined in the fourth quarter of 2010 and in fiscal 2010 due primarily to an increase in automotive self-paying subscribers which have a lower ARPU, an increase in subscribers committing…
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OTTAWA – Calling the wireless contracts from Rogers, Bell and Telus “anti-consumer”, Mobilicity has launched a national push for new laws that would make some of the contract terms offered by wireless carriers illegal.
Such a law already limiting wireless contracts exists in Quebec (although it’s really a larger consumer protection law that doesn’t target cell phones) and a private members’ bill on the same topic is now before the Ontario legislature.
In letters to Industry Minister Tony Clement as well as to the B.C., Alberta and Ontario provincial governments – the other provinces where Mobilicity has spectrum (consumer…
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