Bureau notes past Shaw comments about its influence in the market
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The Competition Bureau has asked the Federal Court to compel the disclosure of records from four telecoms related to its inquiry into the proposed purchase of Shaw by Rogers.
The competition watchdog filed the first in a possible series of document requests on July 22, which, if approved, will force Bell, Telus, Quebecor, and Xplornet (respondents) to disclose related information on mobile wireless activity in the shared operating provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba, and outside.
That information, which falls roughly within the timeframe between…
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VANCOUVER — Telus International, a leading provider of digital customer experience solutions for global brands, announced today the launch of Intelligent Insights, which the company describes as “a tool-agnostic platform to monitor and manage robotic process automation (RPA) solutions and bots.”
Intelligent Insights lets companies track their digital operations on a single platform to monitor effectiveness, cost savings and opportunities for innovation, says a press release.
“Over the past year and a half, we have seen businesses significantly increase their spending on automated solutions to stay connected with their customers, ensure business continuity and realize efficiencies as a way to address…
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By Denis Carmel
IN A DECISION RENDERED last Thursday, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) dismissed an application for judicial review that had been brought by six broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) and partially granted an application made by a group of nine collective societies.
The appeals stem from a decision from the Copyright Board of Canada (the Board), issued in August 2019 relating to royalties for the period 2014–2018.
In Canada, cable providers (BDUs) can distribute local over-the-air television signals for free and without permission from the signal owner. But, in the case of distant signals, the BDUs can distribute without permission…
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FORT MCMURRAY – WOOD BUFFALO, AB – Telus announced yesterday it is collaborating with the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo on a $21 million project to connect several communities directly to the Telus PureFibre optic network.
The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo will contribute $13.2 million, making this “one of the single largest partnerships between Telus and a municipality to expand connectivity to benefit local residents and businesses,” according to a press release.
The project will connect residents and businesses in Draper, Janvier, Fort McKay, Conklin, Anzac and Gregoire Lake Estates directly to gigabit Internet speeds and will expand cellular…
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VICTORIA and QUEBEC CITY — Telus Communications announced today it is investing more than $100 million combined in Victoria, B.C. and the Capitale-Nationale region of Quebec this year to further support residents and businesses in those communities through the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent economic recovery.
In Greater Victoria, Telus is investing $63 million in 2021 as part of its $13 billion investment in infrastructure and operations across British Columbia through 2024. The company’s investments in Greater Victoria include expanding its 5G network, building new wireless infrastructure, and connecting more households and businesses to its gigabit-enabled PureFibre network, says a Continue Reading
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), wrote the CRTC last week to express “serious concerns regarding the actions” of Bell, Telus, and Rogers with regards to their recently released low-cost plans.
On July 14, Bell, Telus and Rogers each released new low-cost and occasional-use plans, as directed by the CRTC in Telecommunications Regulatory Policy CRTC 2021-130. PIAC, in its letter to the CRTC, noted the policy indicated “the Commission expected that the incumbents provide at least one low-cost plan on their premium brands.”
Despite this, PIAC did not find any such plan on the any of the companies’ premium brand…
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VANCOUVER and ST. LOUIS — Telus Agriculture, the ag-tech business unit launched by Telus in November 2020, and Rabobank, a global food and agriculture bank, today announced they have jointly acquired Conservis, a Minneapolis-based company “that integrates disparate farm technologies into one streamlined interface to manage the business of farming,” according to a press release.
With its farm management system platform, “Conservis enables family and institutional farms to organize data from different sources, eliminate error-prone manual entries, create winning business plans, and confidently manage costs, production and marketing throughout the entire year,” reads the release.
Rabo AgriFinance, a Rabobank subsidiary…
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Telus fastest mobile operator during the quarter
SEATTLE — Shaw Communications and Rogers Communications were the fastest fixed broadband providers in Canada in the second quarter of 2021, according to Seattle-based broadband and mobile network testing company Ookla, which released its Q2 2021 Canada Market Report today.
Using Speedtest Intelligence data from the second quarter, Ookla gave Shaw and Rogers speed scores of 181.66 and 179.95, respectively, for their fixed broadband network performance. Ookla’s speed score incorporates measurements of each provider’s download and upload speeds to rank network speed performance, with 90% of the final score being attributed to download…
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Rogers, Telus and Bell have all put out new low-cost and occasional-use wireless plans in compliance with a CRTC directive to do so by today.
The directive was part of the outcome of the CRTC’s recent review of mobile wireless services and required each of the three national companies to provide customers with three new low-cost mobile plan options.
The Commission mandate says the carriers must include unlimited Canada-wide calling, unlimited text messaging, and a minimum of 3 GB of data. Fido (owned by Rogers), Koodo (owned by Telus) and Virgin (owned by Bell), are all…
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By Amanda Oye
LARGE INTERNET SERVICE providers have been the recipients of the vast amount of funding from the Universal Broadband Fund that had been allocated as of June 30th, 2021.
Jay Thomson, CEO of the Canadian Communication Systems Alliance (CCSA), compiled publicly available data, which shows Videotron, Cogeco, Bell, Telus and Rogers have been the major winners of UBF funding (see chart below).
The data takes into account two sets of funding. The first is funding from the UBF’s Rapid Response stream and the second is from the Canada-Quebec Operation High-Speed project, which received half of its $826.3-million funding from…
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