NL People

Randy Reynolds has been appointed president of Rogers Telecom Inc., effective December 12. Rogers Telecom is the former Call-Net Enterprises Inc. operation that Rogers Communications acquired this year. Reynolds, who will report to Nadir Mohamed, president and COO of the communications group at the company, will be responsible for driving Rogers Telecom’s focus on the small, medium and large businesses. He has experience in telecom primarily with Bell Canada where he served as president and CEO for BCE Mobile, Bell Nexxia and Bell West.

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NL Short Takes

Canadian businesses spend less on ICT than US counterparts
A new report for the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) reveals that Canadian businesses spend considerably less than companies in the United States on information and communications technologies (ICTs). Compiled by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS), the study illustrates the gap in ICT spending. In 2004, the average level of ICT investment from the business sector was $1,468 per worker in Canada compared to the per-worker average investment of $3,253 in the United States. The report concludes that the government should consider accelerating the depreciation of enterprise IT equipment and other economic incentives as ways to close the gap between ICT investment levels in Canada and the United States. A conference in Ottawa on December 6, CAN>WIN 05, brought many industry leaders together to debate and discuss some of the challenges associated with the widening productivity gap between Canada and our largest trading partner, the US (see article on page 6 for more details).

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Canada needs to do more to address lagging productivity, Ottawa conference told

Improving Canada’s labour productivity will take a concerted effort from government, the private sector and educational institutions, attendees of a recent conference in Ottawa heard. Speakers from the public and private sectors as well as Canadian economy analysts noted that there are many things that need to be done to decrease the ever-widening productivity gap between Canada and the United States.

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Telcos offer different opinions about recent CRTC reorganization

A senior MTS Allstream executive praises the recent reorganization at the CRTC, but hopes it will not slow the streamlining being undertaken on the telecom side. "I think frankly if there was a question, you would want to hope that the momentum that the commission has developed on the telecom side doesn’t get interrupted," Chris Peirce tells Network Letter. "I hope that isn’t the case, and I know that wouldn’t be the commission’s intention."

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Bell takes issue of alleged customer slamming from Primus to commission

Bell Canada is alleging that Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc. and other local service providers are switching customers over to their service without having first received proper consent. The practice is known as slamming and the incumbent telephone company wants the CRTC to intervene by ordering Primus Canada and the other offending carriers to stop the practice.

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VoIP and cable telephony growing past early adopter market: Decima Research

New consumer research from Decima Research Inc. suggests that alternative home phone technologies such as Voice over IP (VoIP) and cable telephony are poised to expand beyond the early adopter phase.

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CCR Editorial

The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports.

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U.S. satellite distributors seek relief from carriage requirements in Alaska, Hawaii

Distributors in Canada often cry that they don’t have enough capacity when the topic of regulated carriage of both analog and digital versions of TV channels comes up. In Canada, the CRTC has regulated that distributors must carry both versions of over-the-air channels in the transition period to digital, and has yet to rule on specialty TV channels. In the United States, a familiar debate is raging with direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV distributors DirecTV and EchoStar Satellite trying to be excused from having to distribute both versions of conventional local stations in Hawaii and Alaska come June 2007. The U.S. National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), however, is opposing such a move. Below is an excerpt from its submission to the Federal Communications Commission.

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CCR People

 Judith A. LaRocque, deputy minister of Canadian Heritage, has been named as president of the Canadian chapter of the International Institute of Communications (IIC). She replaces Alliance Atlantis Communications executive chair Michael MacMillan, who held the position for several years. He was replaced at the IIC Canadian chapter’s conference on December 12-13.

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CCR Short Takes

More foreign-owned ethnic channels seeking entry into Canada
More foreign-owned specialty TV channels are seeking authorization to be carried in digital in Canada, including Sun TV, a 24-hour service from India offering programming in the Tamil language (Broadcasting Public Notice 2005-125) and ATV Home Channel (America), a service from Hong Kong with programming in Mandarin and Cantonese (Broadcasting Public Notice 2005-123). Comments on these services, whose entry into Canada is being sponsored by the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA), are due on January 30 and January 16 respectively. The CCTA is also seeking approval for nine other general interest Chinese-language TV channels: CCTV-4 (serves audiences from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), The Satellite Channel of Southern Television Guandong (lifestyle and entertainment news in Cantonese), Southeast TV Station (in the Fujianese dialect), Jiangsu International TV Channel (a channel showcasing the Wuyue culture along the southern Yangtse River), Beijing TV (culture, history, fashion, travel, sports, etc. programming in Mandarin), CCTV Entertainment Channel (TV dramas, Chinese acrobatic shows in Mandarin), Dragon TV (news programming in Mandarin and English), China Yellow River Television Station (programming in Mandarin related to teaching and training), and Hunan Satellite TV (entertainment and informational programs in Mandarin). Comments on these nine channels are due by January 16 (Broadcasting Public Notice 2005-124). The cable association is also looking for approval for the entry of GEO TV, a 24-hour general interest channel from Pakistan (Broadcasting Public Notice 2005-112). As well, Quebec cablecaster Vidéotron ltée is seeking approval to carry four foreign-owned Spanish-language TV channels in Canada: Canal 52 MX, Supercanal Caribe, TELEFE Internacional, and TVColumbia (Broadcasting Public Notice 2005-126). Ethnic Channels Group Limited is also seeking the go-ahead for German-language ProsiebenSat.1 to be allowed to be carried in Canada (Broadcasting Public Notice 2005-113).

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