Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. will become the second Canadian telecom to resume charging overage fees to home internet customers who go over their data caps, with the company announcing it will end the COVID-19 relief measure on June 8. SaskTel announced in a Friday press release that it had extended the suspension of overage fees -- scheduled to end on May 31 -- a further eight days, but customers would again be charged for exceeding their caps as of June 9. SaskTel president and CEO Doug Burnett said in the release that the company understood the importance of...
A Federal Court of Appeal judge has rejected the argument made by the incumbent telecom companies last week that their appeal of the CRTC's wholesale broadband rates decision is too complicated to be done through videoconferencing. The two day hearing will proceed as originally scheduled, on June 25 and 26. In court filings last week, lawyers representing Rogers Communications Inc., Bragg Communications Inc., Cogeco Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., and Quebecor Inc. had asked justice David Stratas for the previously agreed-to hearing to be adjourned until the court can conduct...
An NDP plan for the federal government to add money raised from past and...
As the federal government and individual companies work on accelerating...
Amid the financial uncertainty and upheaval of the COVID-19 global...
Quebecor Inc. and Cogeco Inc. have both announced staff layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Quebecor announced on Friday morning it would lay off 10 per cent of its workforce, which the company said amounted to about 1000...
Canada’s telecommunications sector is a “constructive place to hide” for financial investors as markets continue to feel the impact of COVID-19, RBC Capital Markets analyst Drew McReynolds says. In a briefing note to investors on Wednesday, McReynolds said he believed telecom stocks currently ranked well on “relative earnings resilience and valuation.” “In addition to the sector’s reasonable leverage and defensive dividend-paying characteristics in an exceptionally low...
Cogeco Inc. chief financial officer Patrice Ouimet has told an investor...
GATINEAU, Que. — The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic and Open Media have unveiled...
GATINEAU, Que. — How threatening the prospect of mandated MVNO access is...
Both the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) and the Canadian...
There’s no firm timeframe for when Cogeco Inc. will roll out its new IPTV service, despite the cableco previously telling investors it would become available in 2019. Cogeco’s CEO Phillipe...
Telecom providers both big and small have unanimously rejected a...
Ken Smithard, the president of Cogeco Inc.’s Canadian telecom division, is leaving the company after 20...
Despite improvements in customer service that have lowered customer...
Consumer advocacy groups are urging the CRTC to require incumbent wireless providers to make low-cost data plans a condition of operation in the latest round of submissions to the regulator’s review of the mobile wireless industry. The Coalition for Cheaper Wireless Services (CCWS), the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) and OpenMedia filed additional comments in a second round of interventions preceding the regulator’s wireless review hearing early next year,...
The Competition Bureau is officially endorsing a policy that would temporarily mandate access to the incumbents’ network infrastructure by mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), the watchdog said Monday. The recommendation...
The country’s largest TV service providers are appealing an increase in the over-the-air distant signal...
A few months ahead of the introduction of the CRTC’s Internet Code, scheduled for Jan. 31,, a grouping of the largest telecom companies in the country are asking the regulator to make the code apply...
Cogeco Inc. is looking forward to the upcoming spectrum auctions in 2020, especially since Innovation, Science, and Economic Development put in place new tier 5 spectrum licensing rules this past summer. The new licenses,...
As the Canada Revenue Agency considers how to administer $595-million worth of tax credits it pledged to news media, the Quebec government has unveiled a newspaper assistance...
BCE Inc., Quebecor Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. are arguing in...
Investors are overly preoccupied with the wireless divisions of telecom companies, and as such have been overly punitive toward Rogers Communications Inc. this summer, according to a look in on the...
In their Friday appeal of the CRTC decision on wholesale internet rates, the affected cable companies are asking the Federal Court of Appeal to defer to a 2006 Harper-era directive that advised the...
In a widely anticipated move, several of the country’s biggest telecom companies have filed for leave to appeal a CRTC decision establishing a new rate regime for wholesale internet broadband. The decision, issued August 15...
Two local Quebec radio groups representing around 60 stations in the province are asking the provincial...
The CRTC has set guidelines for how the country’s largest telecoms and the city of Gatineau should...
Cogeco Inc. said Monday that the new wholesale broadband rates set by the CRTC will cost the company $25 million in retroactive payments, while Rogers Communications Inc. said it "expects to record a...
The country’s biggest telecoms are asking the Supreme Court of Canada to review a decision by a lower...
CRTC chairman Ian Scott said the new internet code will address many of the underlying issues that have resulted in complaints about the industry's poor sales practices, which...
The last two months have seen a glut of project funding announced under the Connect to Innovate (CTI) program, with $29 million being funneled to 13 projects: three in New Brunswick; two each in Prince Edward Island, Ontario, and...
The federal government will create over 600 smaller spectrum licensing areas across the country, which...
Ahead of its wireless review hearing, the CRTC is asking Canadian telecoms...
Cogeco Inc. will launch its new IPTV service in its entire Canadian footprint by the end of the calendar...
The CRTC has asked several telecoms to explain how their throttling of wireless speeds once customers exceed their data allotments doesn’t violate the commission’s regulatory policy on internet traffic management practices (ITMPs). In a June 28 letter posted to its website this week, the regulator issued requests for information to eight telecoms related to their use of ITMPs. That includes questions to Shaw Communications Inc.’s Freedom Mobile, Rogers Communications Inc. regarding its Chatr flanker brand, and BCE Inc.’s Bell MTS and Lucky Mobile about throttling mobile speeds after...
The independence of the panel that will determine which print news...
The CRTC has ruled that Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron must continue to participate in an industry-wide working group charged with creating a set-top box (STB) data measurement system. In April, Videotron walked away from the group, saying it didn’t want to provide any of its data to the STB working group. In an April letter to the CRTC, Shaw...
Cogeco Inc. said it has hired Marie Ginette Lepage as its new...
The House of Commons industry committee has endorsed Xplornet Communications Inc.'s call that the ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) should not claw back any of the 3.5...
In recent weeks, telecom issues haven’t escaped the increased rhetoric...
Cogeco Inc. is lobbying the government to help Canadian radio news...
A CRTC project dating back to 2015 that seeks to measure the internet performance of service providers (ISPs) in Canadian homes to help drive policy decisions is kicking off a second phase. The...
Telus Corp. is going to court over the CRTC’s decision last month to grant smaller internet providers a...
The CRTC’s new, consumer-focused policy direction doesn’t go far enough, according to smaller companies and advocacy groups, who told the government the proposed language...
Cogeco Inc. has long been a vocal proponent of mandated mobile virtual operators in Canada, so it’s no...
In the lead-up to a meeting with Amazon.com Inc., the government was...
Complaints about TV service to the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS)...
All Canadians whose earnings fall below the government’s low-income measure should have access to internet service for $10, an advocacy group is telling the panel reviewing the broadcasting and telecom acts. ACORN Canada also...
Canada’s publicly traded telecom companies added more than one million total wireless customers last year, putting an exclamation point on a year of explosive growth in the sector. The five largest wireless carriers added 1,454,180 new subscribers to their base in...
Cogeco Communications Inc. says it’s inked a deal to sell its Cogeco Peer 1 cloud services business for $720 million. The data centre business is being sold to affiliates of the Los Angeles-based investment firm Digital...
BCE Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., and Quebecor Inc. are warning against a...
The CRTC has finally set a threshold for a metric it said will improve the quality of service (QoS) for applications reliant on the rapid transmission of data. The regulator said Tuesday that it...
Canada’s largest cable companies said they already have existing provisions that allow providers to buy and resell their services to other providers. Late last year, the CRTC asked the cablecos...
Cogeco Inc. is raising caution about the negative impact the government's...
Cushioned between a subscriber base that on average doesn’t take gigabit...
The CRTC has sided with a small telecom that was reselling wholesale...
Cogeco Inc. isn’t among the list of participants in the 600 MHz auction, released by Innovation Canada...
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) has launched a consultation on a newly proposed category of smaller service areas for spectrum licensing, a moved...
The Commission for Complaints for...
Part of Cogeco Inc.’s plan to deliver gigabit internet service to its footprint is to put two fibre...
Just as it did in Ontario, Cogeco Inc. is now expanding its gigabit...
Cogeco Inc. has a new senior vice-president of public affairs and communications, the telecom announced Tuesday, following the retirement of René Guimond. Marie-Hélène Labrie will replace...
A government program intended to connect low-income families with affordable internet launched Friday. In June, Innovation Canada announced it is investing $13.2 million over five years into the Connecting Families program to “help bridge the digital divide for...
TORONTO — The idea of cross-subsidization of industries did not find...
Cogeco Inc.’s implementation of a new customer management system, which...
GATINEAU — Telecom providers who appeared before the CRTC Thursday said...
The CRTC has approved Cogeco Inc. to purchase 10 radio stations from RNC Media Inc., it said in a decision Thursday. “The Commission considers that the RNC stations integrated into Cogeco could...
A new online radio service from Quebecor Inc. indicates the company is...
Five months after ushering the internet into the quality of service regime, the CRTC said Friday it is directing cable incumbents to provide status of service reports to customers of wholesale clients...
Cogeco Inc. has staked out parts of Ontario for a gigabit expansion that features its DOCSIS 3.1 technology, it said in a Friday release. The Montreal-based cable company announced the high-speed offerings will now be...
Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. (SaskTel) announced the launch of a new TV service using Ericsson AB’s MediaFirst-powered IPTV platform in a press release on Wednesday. Dubbed the maxTV Stream, according to the...
There is no need to set thresholds for jitter as part of the basic service standard, telecoms said in interventions to a CRTC consultation Monday. The regulator launched the consultation in July, when it issued standards governing latency, data packet loss and jitter -- the rate at which packets of data arrive to their destination out of the correct order and cause slowdown and disruption -- all as part its basic service standard, which sets out the minimum internet service that should be available to all Canadians. The CRTC declined to set a standard for jitter, instead launching a...
Cogeco Inc. is going with MediaFirst for its first IPTV platform, a move...
The CRTC renewed the licences of a slew of broadcasters in multiple decisions on Thursday, taking a hands-off approach to issues like pricing of standalone channels, but setting conditions of license for community programming,...
Xplornet Communications Inc. will not be able to service thousands of its rural customers with...
The CRTC will question telecoms about their sales practices at an October hearing in Gatineau, Que., the regulator said Monday as it launched a consultation. The proceeding is in response to an order by the federal government...
Cogeco Inc.'s renewed interest in entering the wireless market is partly driven by the opportunity to jump directly into building an entirely new type of cellular network, said CEO Louis Audet. “At this point in time, the opportunity exists to start with a blank sheet...
Amir Bigloo, who has a history of successful spectrum purchases as CEO of...
The CRTC is now accepting interventions in its review of Cogeco Inc.’s plans to buy 10 radio stations from RNC Media Inc. Cogeco is proposing a tangible benefits package of six per cent of the...
In a pair of studies measuring home internet service this week, BCE Inc. was positioned at the two ends of the spectrum, topping out the list of fastest connections in Canada, but falling to near the...
An announcement Thursday that Cogeco Inc. has bought more spectrum makes it clear the company is “exploring a viable economic model for a wireless service,” Canaccord Genuity analyst Aravinda...
Cogeco Inc. has bought $8 million worth of the 2500 MHz paired spectrum band from Kian Telecom Inc.,...
TORONTO — Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains announced Wednesday the...
Innovation Canada (ISED) released the results of its 2018 residual spectrum auction Friday, with Cogeco Inc. ending up as the big spender. The Montreal-based telecom picked up seven paired and 16 unpaired licenses in the 2300...
MONTREAL — Despite a generational change at the helm of Cogeco Inc., the...
The CRTC has issued a call for comments after correcting the data it used to determine wholesale rates during the regulator’s look at mandatory carriage renewals, according to a Friday letter. Originally, the consultation which prompted a hearing on the matter used data indicating that the rate of subscription losses had declined in the 2015-2016 year, from the previous 2014-2015 period. But the letter said numbers supplied by Suzanne Blackwell of Giganomics Consulting Inc., on behalf of Cogeco Inc., Quebecor Inc., and Shaw Communications Inc., showed the subscription decline...
TV service providers told the CRTC this week that cord-cutting by Canadians shouldn’t be the reason to give channels with mandatory carriage on basic packages higher monthly carriage fees. Shaw Communications Inc., Quebecor Inc. and Cogeco Inc. told the CRTC in a joint presentation during a hearing this week that they...
A dispute between two internet service providers (ISPs) over the...
Cogeco Inc. has reached a deal with RNC Media Inc. to acquire 10 of RNC’s radio stations. The deal,...
The notice-and-notice regime requires internet service providers (ISPs) to...
Despite qualifying this week for an auction of wireless spectrum, the head of Cogeco Inc. refused to answer questions about the company’s intentions on wireless going forward. “I would like to point out that this is congruent with the company’s previously announced...
A proposal to implement a website-blocking system to fight piracy has drawn...
Innovation Canada has released its framework for the 600 MHz spectrum auction, now scheduled for March 2019, and it will set aside 43 per cent of spectrum for “regional competitors and potential new market entrants,” according...
A coalition of internet service providers (ISPs) is taking the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) to task over a proposal to significantly raise the cost of hydro pole installation across the province, which they say will inevitably lead...
Canada’s publicly-traded telecoms lost fewer TV subscribers in 2017 than...
The owner of iHeartRadio Media Inc., the company that aggregates radio content through its app, has filed...
TiVo Corp. is going after a second Canadian telecom for patent infringement, claiming in a lawsuit filed...
MONTREAL — Cogeco Inc. is feeling more optimistic about the possibility...
Alphabet Inc.’s Sidewalk Labs kicked off the new year by registering to...
A few months after the emergence of a proposal asking the CRTC to shift funding away from the Broadcast Participation Fund (BPF), the organization that helps bring consumer interests in front of the commission has filed its first registrations to lobby the regulator and the...