| 06 September, 2010 | Last updated 2 days 14 hours 48 minutes ago |
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Having Trouble Logging In?Report on WirelessArpin wanted to stay, 'but the wise men decided differently,' he saysTwo days after leaving his position as vice-chair of broadcasting at the CRTC, Michel Arpin sat down with me for an exclusive interview in his new office at Université de Montréal, where this week he officially took on a position as visiting professor in the communications studies department. For more than two hours, we discussed his departure from the CRTC, Quebecor Inc.’s Sun TV News application, and the transition to digital over-the-air broadcasting. The following excerpt has been edited for length and style. Use deferral accounts to deploy wireline DSL, not HSPA, CRTC tells BellThe CRTC denied an application by Bell Canada Tuesday to use its deferral account funds to deploy an HSPA+ broadband Internet service in 112 rural and remote communities in Ontario and Quebec. The commission instead directed Bell to deploy a DSL service comparable to what it offers in urban areas. As of May 31, 2010, incumbent phone companies Bell Canada, Bell Aliant, Telus Corp. and MTS Allstream had collected deferral account funds amounting to roughly $770 million, with interest, originating from a surcharge phone customers paid in urban areas during an inflated price cap period from 2002 to 2006. CRTC telecom decisions coming on wholesale access, deferral accounts August 27, 2010 - 1:17pm — Jonathan Migneault
The CRTC will hold lockups for the news media and industry next Monday and Tuesday for the release decisions on wholesale Internet access and on what should be done with the funds remaining in Bell Canada’s deferral accounts. Both lockups will start at 2 p.m. and end at 4 p.m., when the decisions are publicly released. Both decisions—the wholesale access decision on Monday and the deferral accounts decision on Tuesday—will be released at the same time that trading markets close for the day in Toronto and New York. Nunavut broadband access limited by scarce satellite capacity, says NBDCA lack of satellite capacity on the C-band will limit Nunavut’s ability to expand broadband Internet access in the territory, Oana Spinu, acting executive director of the Nunavut Broadband Development Corporation (NBDC), said in an interview. “There are several satellites that footprint the North and right now all the telecommunications services for the territory are using one of those satellites [the Anik F2], and its pretty much at capacity,” Spinu, head of the NBDC, a non-profit organization that helps provide broadband access to Nunavut residents, told The Wire Report. But Telesat, an Ottawa company that operates satellites serving the North, says there is still capacity to go around. Former political staffer, entrepreneur, gets bright idea for mobile campaign app August 25, 2010 - 5:11pm — Jonathan Migneault
Julian Haigh left a four-year career as a Parliament Hill staffer, working for Conservative MPs such as Joe Preston, Garth Turner and Peter Goldring, to launch a wireless startup in Vancouver for the politically minded. His new company is called D2D Campaign Solutions, and Haigh said his experience working on political campaigns gave him an idea to simplify the door-knocking process with a mobile application for the iPhone and BlackBerry. The app, which is still in development, will give campaigners and their political parties real-time information as they canvass constituents. Provinces criticized for reporting 100 per cent broadband accessCanadian provinces are taking criticism for reporting that they have 100 per cent broadband access. “This is outrageous, that public officials are going around saying that any area has 100 per cent or 95 per cent access,” David Ellis, a digital strategy consultant and course director at York University’s communications studies department, told The Wire Report. “I have a Cartier boutique right in my building, but that doesn’t mean I buy my watches there. Their watches start at $10,000 a piece. I can’t afford their watches.” Wireless operators oppose government's licence fee proposal for backhaul spectrumWireless operators are taking issue with Industry Canada’s proposal to charge licence fees on a per-MHz-per person basis for fixed services operating in the 25.25 to 28.35 MHz spectrum band. “It means you pay more money to do the same job just because [the antenna] goes near a larger group of people. But you aren’t serving a larger group of people,” Telus Communications Company spokesman Jim Johannsson told The Wire Report. In May 2010, Industry Canada launched a consultation on the use of the 25.25 to 28.35 MHz band, a large portion of which was previously unassigned. Government offered von Finckenstein plum jobs to push him out: Report August 20, 2010 - 5:58pm — Simon Doyle
The communications industry was buzzing this week following a report that the Conservative government offered CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein positions as an ambassador or judge to encourage him to leave his post early. Lawrence Martin, a columnist for The Globe and Mail, wrote this week that although von Fincksenstein’s appointment as chair of the CRTC does not end until Jan. 24, 2012, the Conservative government and Prime Minister Stephen Harper find him too “independently minded” and are trying to encourage him to leave “well before that date,” replacing him with “a rubber stamper.” In confidential background interviews, The Wire Report canvassed six industry and regulatory insiders for their knowledge about the matter. Make broadband a basic service, PIAC saysIn advance of a far-reaching CRTC hearing on access to basic telecom services, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) released a 50-page report Wednesday recommending that broadband Internet access should be treated as a basic service in the same way as telephony. “It’s a matter of strategic policy importance for the regulator and the government to ensure that everybody is on the network and everybody has access to those services,” Michael Janigan, PIAC’s executive director, told The Wire Report in an interview. The report concluded that broadband Internet service has become a vital component of modern society and that all Canadians should have access to it. On mobile, broadband pricing, U.K. knocks out Canada, every timeIt comes down to competition. At least, that’s the reason experts cite when they explain why Canada’s communication services persistently cost more than those in the U.K. According to the CRTC’s annual statistical report, released late last month, Canada’s average wireless service price per month in 2009 was $52, much higher than the U.K. ($33) but lower than the U.S. ($61). |
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