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 after a three-year review, substantially reduced the rates that incumbent telecom companies are allowed to charge internet resellers, and also requires incumbents to make retroactive payments to the resellers, totalling some $350 million across the industry. In two separate filings -- one from BCE Inc. and the other jointly filed by Bragg Communications Inc.,...
The country’s largest wireless service providers have “significant room for improvement” when it comes to providing important and timely information to customers who are elderly or live with disabilities, a new CRTC-commissioned report said. Released by the regulator on Friday, the report said information about accessibility and wireless services on websites, in advertising, and through customer service phone lines could be improved by making that information more prominent, explaining it in greater detail, and giving that cohort of Canadians easier ways to differentiate between...
The NDP’s promised telecom service price caps would apply to all wireless...
OTTAWA — On the second and final day of a potentially precedent-setting court hearing on site-blocking, a Federal Court judge gave the parties until Wednesday to negotiate a revised draft site...
OTTAWA — Lawyers representing BCE Inc., Quebecor Inc.’s Groupe TVA, and Rogers Communications Inc. asked a Federal Court judge this morning for a court order that would force a number of internet...
Whatever the outcome of next month’s federal election, there will be no...
Even before the federal election campaign officially kicked off, telecom price caps already emerged as a proposal that, if implemented, would reverse a decades-long policy trend in Canada and diverge from international norms.
Even some of those who would welcome the idea...
As analysts predict the CRTC’s decision on wholesale internet rates is likely to be appealed, they are divided on what impact the new rates would have on the industry as a whole. In a note released Monday morning,...
The CRTC has set guidelines for how the country’s largest telecoms and the city of Gatineau should...
The Conservative Party is promising new rules for electronic data collection and technologies like the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence if it wins in this fall’s federal election....
The CRTC has served a web hosting provider with an order to produce a...
OneWeb’s constellation of low-earth orbit satellites will offer service in Canada’s North starting in 2020, the company said Wednesday. It will launch with 16 hours of service a day by the end...
Quebecor Inc. announced in a release Tuesday that Patrick Jutras would take over as senior vice-president and chief advertising officer of Quebecor and its TVA Group subsidiary. Jutras was previously vice-president of digital...
In the latest development in the months-long conflict between BCE Inc. and Quebecor Inc., the CRTC has decided that Bell cannot suspend its wholesale roaming service to Quebecor subsidiary Videotron,...
If the CRTC finds that device financing options beyond two years do not...
As major spectrum auctions considered important for 5G networks grow nearer, Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (ISED) wants to know more about how spectrum is used in Canada, and is looking at Victoria, B.C.-based Tutela Technologies to gather crowd-sourced information for it. In an advance contract award notice posted to the government’s procurement website Thursday, ISED’s Communications Research Centre said it wants to “increase the size and scope of its [radio frequency] spectrum monitoring capabilities … via crowdsourcing smart phone applications by buying this data...
The Federal Court of Appeal has decided that it will delay making a decision on whether or not to grant BCE Inc.’s leave to appeal a June CRTC decision giving CloudWifi Inc. access to Bell wiring...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron is in talks with other telecom companies about...
The NDP is already throwing cold water on reports that the Liberals are considering a price cap and mandated access for mobile virtual network operators as part of the incumbent party’s campaign plank. In a Tuesday evening...
Analyst notes published this week confirm much of what was already known about the impact of new CRTC wholesale broadband rates on incumbent carriers. Namely, the new wholesale rates will hit the...
Telus Corp. told the federal government that prohibiting Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.’s equipment from next-generation networks would significantly delay the deployment of...
The Office of the Prime Minister announced late last week that Simon Kennedy would become deputy minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development starting September 3. Kennedy will be replacing John Knubley, who retired in June after seven years at ISED and 39 years in public service. Kennedy has been deputy minister of health since...
The price of wireless plans is going down slightly, but the price of phones is skyrocketing, according to Consumer Price Index data released last week by Statistics Canada. In July, telephone...
Telus Corp. is contemplating asking the Supreme Court of Canada to review a...
BCE Inc. still wants the Federal Court of Appeal to grant it leave to appeal a June CRTC decision, but the company is content to wait until the CRTC concludes its own internal process, according to an...
Bragg Communications Inc.’s Eastlink followed public consultation protocol when it advised New Brunswick residents that it was planning to build a cell tower in a residential area, according to...
Counsel to Voltage Pictures LLC and a number of movie studios is asking the Federal Court of Appeal to review a case that found Rogers Communications Inc. is owed $67.23 to disclose the personal...
Quebecor Inc. hasn’t established that it actually owns the set-top box data at the centre of a new...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron and Shaw Communications Inc. added their voices...
Innovation Canada is asking Canadians to use a tool designed to test internet performance in order to inform how it designs its $1.7-billion Universal Broadband Fund. The initiative, announced Tuesday, will use the internet performance test of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), an organization that manages .ca domains. Those who participate will be asked to run a speed test, which routes the user’s response to the nearest exchange point test server, determining how...
Shueisha Inc., a Japanese publisher of comic books, has filed an...
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 federal government is spending $151 million to lay some 1,700...
The country’s biggest telecoms are asking the Supreme Court of Canada to review a decision by a lower...
BCE Inc. has responded to lower wholesale rates for internet service announced by the CRTC last week by reducing its fixed wireless rollout in rural areas by 20 per cent....
The new wholesale tariffs for internet service announced by the CRTC Thursday are unlikely to have a large impact on the big publicly traded telecoms, though their profits will be affected marginally,...
Wholesale-based ISPs are praising a decision by the CRTC to lower the rates...
The union representing employees at Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. has rejected the latest contract offer from the telecom and are in a legal strike position. That means Unifor can...
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) has endorsed a number of petitions to the Governor in Council, joining the call for the government to send the CRTC’s June decision granting a mandatory...
BCE Inc. has quietly dropped prices for its new “unlimited” data plans across the country, with residents of Quebec and, to a lesser extent, Saskatchewan and Manitoba seeing even lower prices. ...
Continuing its expansion into the digital health services sector, Telus...
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is seeking assistance in moving...
The federal government announced on Monday the creation of the CyberSecure Canada program, a new certification program for Canadian businesses to further promote cyber security as a central tenet of commercial enterprise. In a release from Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, the department describes the...
Rogers Communications Inc. said its flanker brand Fido would begin offering what the company is calling data overage protection, joining the flagship brands that have all launched some level of plan doing away with overage charges in recent months.
Rather than the...
CloudWifi Inc. has asked the federal court of appeal to dismiss a motion...
Prices for communications services are on a downward trend, according to new data from the CRTC, but spending on those goods are also on the rise. Those services are made up of mobile wireless (with unlimited voice and SMS...
Quebecor Inc.’s CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau said he’s “happy” that...
The Federal Court is setting at $35 the hourly rate that Rogers...
OTTAWA — A Federal Court judge has granted an interim ban on what the big telecom companies are calling a “pirate” IPTV provider, which operates under the names GoldTV.ca and GoldTV.biz.
The injunction granted by the court on Wednesday ordered the sites to be shut...
The CRTC has directed telecom companies to disclose an additional set of...
The big three telecoms are telling the CRTC that their practice of slowing...
Removing wireless data caps and giving customers the option of financing...
The CRTC said Friday afternoon that it thinks the 36-month smartphone financing plans that have entered...
A week after Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains announced an $85-million investment and a memorandum of understanding that tips as much as $600 million in federal government investments over the next...
Shaw Communications Inc. is blasting the move by the wireless industry’s...
BCE Inc. said the race to “unlimited” wireless...
Just as it allowed Corus Entertainment Inc. to do last month, the CRTC has given approval to BCE Inc. to...
The country's largest telecoms are siding with BCE Inc. in its fight against a CRTC decision that ruled providers including CloudWifi Inc. can access only its fibre wires in multi-dwelling buildings. Earlier this month, BCE Inc. said it would suffer “irreparable harm” should the CRTC decision stand This week, the country’s biggest telecom companies filed interventions that agree with Bell. Rogers Communications Inc., Telus Corp., and Shaw Communications Inc. all say it is unfair to Bell that the CRTC is giving internet service providers like CloudWifi access to only its...
CRTC chairman Ian Scott said the new internet code will address many of the...
Rogers Communications Inc. is lobbying the City of Montreal to be involved in the city’s 5G pilot...
Telus Corp. has followed in the footsteps of rival Rogers Communications Inc. in making its device...
BCE Inc. is asking the CRTC for permission to conduct a 90-day-trial using artificial intelligence and machine learning for call blocking “certain known, verified, fraudulent scam voice telephony...
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 British Columbia; and one each in Alberta and Nova Scotia. According to the ministry of Rural Economic Development, which was created in January and took over responsibility for the CTI fund which predates it, the cluster of announcements in the past several weeks is little more than a coincidence. Projects are approved after an appropriate period of due...
The launch of new plans from Shaw Communications Inc.’s Freedom will...
Shaw Communications Inc.’s Freedom is responding to the wireless...
OTTAWA — As part of its strategy to tackle rural broadband in Canada,...
The federal government will create over 600 smaller spectrum licensing areas across the country, which...
The Ontario government’s $315-million plan to improve connectivity in the...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s CEO Joe Natale said there has been a 50 per...
BCE Inc. is asking for leave to appeal the CRTC’s June decision granting CloudWifi Inc. competitor access to Bell’s service wires in multi-dwelling units (MDUs). That decision allowed internet...
Canaccord Genuity analyst Aravinda Galappatthige said the wireless frenzy unleashed by the new no-overage plans will negatively impact Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp., while benefiting Shaw...
OTTAWA — With the federal government’s decision on whether to ban Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd equipment from 5G networks still looming, the company and Iristel Inc.’s Ice Wireless held a press conference in Ottawa Monday to announce they’re partnering up to connect...
Three of the nation’s largest broadcasters are suing the owners of a service that is allegedly selling...
The Liberal government plans to have the CRTC be the body in charge of developing and then enforcing telecom regulation related to future cybersecurity laws, according to a memo for Heritage Minister...
WireIE Holdings International Inc., a wholesaler of enterprise telecom services, has been helping telecoms across the country deliver internet and TV services to underserved areas, an effort that will...
The CRTC has suspended the deadlines it set for BCE Inc. to file tariffs on access to its fibre wire inside buildings and for other carriers to file interventions in a related proceeding. In a June decision, the regulator...
As facial recognition becomes increasingly accessible to police and other authorities, its use is prompting debate about what rules govern or should constrain the technology...
Rogers Communications Inc. Monday announced what it is calling a 5G “innovation lab” with the Waterloo-based Communitech. “Our partnership with Communitech is part of our work to bring...
Despite being “saddened” by the exit of one of its members, the panel reviewing Canada’s communications laws said it was forging ahead with its final recommendations, due in January 2020. Hank Intven, a lawyer and...
The CRTC has asked the country’s wireless providers for information about new device financing plans that have appeared on the market in the last few weeks. In a letter signed by CRTC chief of consumer, research and...
Conservative and NDP MPs criticized the Liberal government Tuesday for what...
Bragg Communications Inc.’s Eastlink is bringing in a program that encourages customers to upgrade their phones after 12 months -- bucking an industry trend of switching at the end of the standard two-year contract term. ...
Ahead of its wireless review hearing, the CRTC is asking Canadian telecoms...
The CRTC has approved an acquisition by Stingray Group Inc. of the radio station CHOO-FM in Drumheller,...
The federal government has declined an application by SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology Inc. asking for changes to the CRTC’s rural broadband fund. SWIFT -- a non-profit organization that...
BCE Inc. is challenging the CRTC's decision to allow internet service providers to access its fibre wires in multi-dwelling buildings, saying in a Part 1 application to the...
The average Canadian household spent $233 a month on communication services in 2017, a $10.17 or 4.6 per cent increase from a year earlier, according to data from Statistics Canada released late last...
The same week that concerns were raised about new device financing plans...
Cogeco Inc. will launch its new IPTV service in its entire Canadian footprint by the end of the calendar...
The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) said...
The CRTC will require wireless providers to send a second visible test of the wireless emergency alert system in November if an alerting authority opts to execute such a test,...
Juniper Research is projecting over five billion people will have some form of digital ID by 2024, as the Canadian government seeks information on how it can meet its own goals for the emerging...
Iristel Inc. hasn’t provided enough evidence in a dispute with BCE Inc. to compel the CRTC to re-regulate some transport services, the commission said Wednesday. Iristel had asked the CRTC to...
Artificial intelligence technology allowing videos to be seamlessly...
The wireless service outage that began on Sunday and affected the...
The federal government approved spending on a fibre project in Manitoba...
The CRTC has filled the last of its open commissioner slots, as Yukon lawyer Claire Anderson has been named to the vacant seat representing British Columbia and the Yukon. Anderson, who practices law at the Whitehorse firm...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron will challenge a recent CRTC decision ordering it to turn over information collected from TV set-top boxes to a working group. The CRTC issued that decision earlier this...
The federal government will contribute $71 million to a project from the Eastern Ontario Regional Network (EORN) that aims to improve mobile connectivity in the region. “Once completed, the...
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...
