OTTAWA – Three of the nation’s incumbent telcos are going to the Federal Court of Appeal saying the CRTC’s win-back rule violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Bell Canada, SaskTel and Telus today officially applied to the Federal Court of Appeal challenging the "win-back rule" imposed on them by the CRTC, saying it violates their freedom of expression.
The Commission likely knew this was coming since, as reported here by www.cartt.ca, the companies had already filed that complaint with the Commission, only to be told it would be rolled into the local forbearance hearings beginning…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable today made official its launch of voice over Internet telephony in many of its major service areas.
Over the last year, Cogeco Cable has successfully tested its new digital telephone service in the Trois-Rivières area in Québec and in the Burlington/Oakville Ontario corridor.
These conclusive trials, as well as the market studies conducted at the same time, have helped to better pinpoint the services and functions that customers want, says the company.
In 2001, Cogeco abandoned testing it was doing in the telephony space after spending about $25 million, saying it would wait for the…
Continue Reading
VANCOUVER – Telus and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) have launched a new annual contest which features $20,000 in cash prizes and an opportunity to present their projects to a panel of industrial, academic, and media experts.
The IEEE Telus Innovation Award invites IEEE Canada student members in their final year of an engineering or technology program at a Canadian undergraduate institution to submit a significant Information Computing and Telecommunication (ICT) Technologies project for which they are receiving education credit.
"We are very pleased that Telus is sponsoring this award," says Bill Kennedy, president of IEEE…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Last week’s Canadian Telecom Summit saw the leaders of Canada’s largest ILECs stay relentlessly on the attack, hitting at the CRTC as well as Canadian cable companies.
While Bell Canada Enterprises CEO Michael Sabia’s keynote on Tuesday said the telecom regs were just plain wrong, Telus Communications CEO Darren Entwistle backed him up the next day.
Both executives are peeved at the May 12th voice over Internet protocol regulatory decision which said, mainly, that for the incumbent local exchange carriers VOIP will be regulated as their traditional circuit-switched systems in that they must file tariffs each…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
ST-LAURENT – National wireless provider Telus Mobility today announced the official opening of two new, state-of-the-art retail locations in Quebec City, one on trendy de la couronne boulevard and another in the Galeries de la Capitale.
Combined with the renovation of F.M. Electronique and recent opening of Expert-Cell Télécom, two prominent independent dealers, Telus Mobility has invested more than $500,000 to provide Quebec consumers with the company’s wireless wares.
These two new corporate store locations are part of the company’s network of more than 3,000 retail locations across Canada, including more than 100 corporate retail stores.
www.telusmobility.com
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
