OTTAWA – Canada’s wireless service providers will introduce inter-carrier multimedia message services (MMS) to wireless phone customers across the country on July 1.
This is the broadest initiative of its kind in North America, says the the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA). The move will enable customers with MMS-capable mobile phones, regardless of the customer’s wireless service provider, to instantly send and receive messages with rich content to and from the MMS-capable phones of friends, family and colleagues.
MMS, commonly referred to as picture messaging or video messaging, extends text messaging to include photos, video clips, graphics, audio clips…
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BURNABY – The Telecommunications Workers Union announced Wednesday that it will table a comprehensive response to all of the major issues that have been raised by Telus.
At the same time, union president Bruce Bell will send a personal letter to Telus president and CEO Darren Entwistle, asking him to “free his bargaining committee to engage in serious bargaining,” says the union press release.
The union is undertaking the two moves as part of its attempt to kick-start the stalled negotiating process, which has led to accusations and a work-to-rule campaign by the workers right after Telus…
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BURNABY, B.C – "For 4 1/2 years, we have tried everything imaginable to get Telus to bargain with us, but they have refused to budge," opens the latest press release salvo from Telecommunications Workers Union president Bruce Bell.
"Starting today, we’re trying a different approach. As of (Monday) morning, the union is initiating a campaign that combines working-to-rule with providing super service to customers," Bell continued.
Reading through the litany (below) of musts for TWU members now would be pretty funny, if it weren’t such a serious issue. It seems Telus’ union employees will now be busy topping up…
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SAN ANTONIO – There were no official numbers at press time but boy, it sure seems real crowded here at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo – a good thing for the vendors, who filled every open space this year.
Here’s a bit of what www.cartt.ca heard and saw today. ************** This morning’s CTO session was interesting on a number of levels. The panelists were Tony Werner, senior vice-president and CTO Liberty Media, (and also a former Rogers CTO), Mike Hayashi, senior v-p advance engineering and subscriber technology at Time Warner Cable, Paul Woidke, vice-president technology for Comcast Spotlight, and…
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TORONTO – With the telecom industry taking swing after swing at the Commission he runs for three straight days, CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen jabbed back on Wednesday.
He was given the last word by Canadian Telecom Summit organizers and spent much of his speech at the conference defending the CRTC’s VOIP decision. The May 12th voice over Internet protocol regulatory decision said, mainly, that for the incumbent local exchange carriers VOIP will be regulated the same as their traditional circuit-switched systems in that they must file tariffs each time they want to alter their pricing.
Telephony newcomers like cable…
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NIAGARA FALLS – The CRTC will begin three days of hearings in the honeymoon capital today focusing on a potential new TV station for the region and on six applicants for a radio station serving Woodstock and Tillsonburg, Ontario.
As reported only by www.cartt.ca last week, ITV founder Wendell Wilks is behind the well-financed, ambitious proposal for TV Niagara. He’s due up first thing this morning and is opposed by broadcasters and cable companies alike.
The roster of radio applicants for the 104.7 FM station license include Byrnes Communications, Standard Radio, CHUM Radio, Newcap Broadcasting, Sound of Faith…
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TORONTO – VOIP, wireless, video, SMS, IMS, GSM – we are on the cusp of major telecom changes – not to mention a riot of acronyms you can’t identify without a program.
It was clear through several sessions at the first day of the three-day Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto that wireless and voice over Internet protocol telephony are leading a revolution in communications, world wide. Here’s a bit of what we saw and heard.
Ericsson Canada’s president Mark Henderson told delegates that video looks to be the next big thing in wireless. Good video too, with interactive television…
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TORONTO – Don’t expect Bell Canada Enterprises to let up on the CRTC any time soon.
Still stinging from the Commission’s May 12th VOIP decision, which maintains traditional regs on telcos’ voice over IP offerings while cablecos and others get a head start, BCE CEO Michael Sabia made plain today in his keynote address at the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto that the company will keep pressuring government for wholesale change.
The situation is dire, he said, as Canada loses ground in the information communications technology (ICT) space to forward-thinking countries like Ireland and Korea. “By making a conscious…
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TORONTO – While he didn’t name names, one of the newest players in the telecom space in Canada appear to be having problems dealing with a certain western MSO.
At a Monday session during the Canadian Telecom Summit entitled VOIP Pioneers – Early Results, Matt Stein, vice-president of new technology and services with VOIP provider Primus Canada, expressed his frustration with customer issues that are peculiar to the west.
“The vast majority of our quality issues are from Alberta and British Columbia,” he said. “An overwhelming amount comes from those provinces and while I won’t name the company, it…
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WE ALL HAVE A WISH-list, don’t we? Things we think and sometimes say about what we’d change if a genie popped from a bottle.
While a genie grants but three wishes, I have many, many more than that. Greedy, I guess, but here goes. I wish:
* I had telephone call display on my TV screen. That’s a nifty option Sasktel and MTS offer on their DSL TV service. It’s something I’d certainly pay for.
* Telcos and cablecos would quit going after each other at the Commission so often and concentrate on their marketing and engineering. Each side…
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