TORONTO – Canada’s wireless industry will announce North America’s broadest WiFi hotspot on Wednesday.
The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), in conjunction with national wireless service providers Bell Mobility, Fido, Rogers Wireless and Telus Mobility, has announced the launch of inter-carrier WiFi service along with the commitment to develop more than 500 new hotspot locations this year.
This new hotspot network, the broadest inter-carrier undertaking of its kind in North America, allows for cross-Canada roaming between carrier-run hotspots under a common brand.
“It’s the first of its kind in Canada, certainly, and it’s also the first of its kind…
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OTTAWA – Rules that go too far in preventing telcos from contacting customers in order to win them back is contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, say Canada’s incumbent telcos.
A submission to the CRTC last month from Eastern telco Aliant (since supported by Bell Canada, Telus and Sasktel) says, in part, “that the Commission’s order extending the ‘no-contact’ rule beyond local residential service is inconsistent with the principle of freedom of expression, encompassed in s. 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
As a way to foster competition, telco regs have prevented the…
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TORONTO – While technically, they lost, the Canadian Recording Industry Association says it welcomes Thursday’s decision by the Federal Court of Appeal.
The appeal was denied, but the ruling clarified the steps necessary to obtain disclosure of the identities of alleged large-scale uploaders from Internet service providers and rejected the findings of the motions court with respect to copyright law.
"We welcome the court’s confirmation that Canada isn’t a piracy haven," says CRIA President Graham Henderson. "This was the key issue on which we appealed, and we’re delighted that the court agreed with us."
The court decision hinged on…
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OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed a challenge from the Canadian music industry over gaining access to the names of a number of high-volume music file-swappers, but has left the door wide open for further court action.
Reading the decision, though, makes it seem like the judges thought that such file-swapping needs some deeper exploration but were bound by the rules of law to dismiss this particular lawsuit.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association had wanted Canadian Internet service providers Shaw Communications, Rogers Cable, Telus, Bell Canada and Videotron to give it the names of 29 music…
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OTTAWA – The everyday consumer probably doesn’t understand – or care to understand – what the VOIP decision was all about. They just want better stuff cheaper.
In the end, the decision was more than a little anti-climactic. Each side had it figured out already because the CRTC had left more than enough clues about the way it was leaning.
The decision was made official at 4 p.m., www.cartt.ca posted its story at about 4:01 (as soon as the CRTC web-heads turned back on the WiFi) and the wave of pre-written press releases soon began to wash into the…
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MONTREAL – Canadian VOIP provider Babytel sharply criticized the CRTC for leaving Canadian cable companies unregulated in Thursday’s decision.
“This is asymmetrical regulation," said Stephen Dorsey, babyTEL president and CEO.
“This is regulating Bell, Telus and other incumbent phone companies on price while ignoring the cable incumbents with their sizable territories and customer base of high-speed Internet users. Competition – and consumers – would be better off with no regulation than this asymmetrical regulation," he added.
“Bell and Telus will be partially self-regulated in that they will be restrained in VOIP offerings to avoid cannibalizing legacy telephone business; whereas…
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OTTAWA – “Why did we find that VOIP is a telephone service? Because Canadians use it as a telephone service,” CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen said today at the Commission’s headquarters upon the release of its voice over Internet decision.
The decision confirmed what the Commission had said previously: that it would continue to regulate VOIP when it is provided and used as a local telephone service.
That means incumbents like Bell and Telus will continue to have to file rate tariffs with the Commission for approval – to make sure predatory pricing below cost doesn’t happen – while the…
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IT SEEMS AS THOUGH most people in the industry have this afternoon’s CRTC voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) decision figured out.
Cable companies and telephone companies alike believe the Commission will maintain what it already said it believes: that despite the technology delivering it, VOIP is still just local phone. And that means the incumbent telcos will remain bound by the same traditional regulations they already have to deal with, mainly tariff-filing when they wish to alter their rates, which makes them a slower-moving competitor in the marketplace.
The telcos have done their level best to try to spook…
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OTTAWA – “Why did we find that VOIP is a telephone service? Because Canadians use it as a telephone service,” CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen said today at the Commission’s headquarters upon the release of its voice over Internet decision.
The decision confirmed what the Commission had said previously: that it would continue to regulate VOIP when it is provided and used as a local telephone service.
That means incumbents like Bell and Telus will continue to have to file rate tariffs with the Commission for approval – to make sure predatory pricing below cost doesn’t happen – while the…
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OTTAWA – Did the industry have this decision pegged or what?
Mere minutes after the CRTC’s voice over IP decision was put out, the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association issued a press release declaring itself pleased by the decision, while Bell Canada wired one out which blasted the decision, saying it will appeal immediately, just like BCE CEO Michael Sabia said here last week.
“I think we’re very happy,” CCTA president Michael Hennessy told www.cartt.ca in Ottawa today upon the decision’s public release. “It’s pretty much what we expected and for the telephone companies, they’re allowed into the market, they’re…
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