Sirius XM Canada Holdings Inc. has to pony up more than $300,000 to make up a deficit in its Canadian content development contributions, the CRTC said. In a letter dated April 5, the regulator said the satellite radio provider was found to be non-compliant of its condition of licence to “contribute a minimum of 4% of gross revenues from its satellite subscription radio undertakings reported in its annual returns for the previous broadcast year to eligible initiatives for the development of Canadian content development” after an audit of the 2013-2014 broadcast year. Sirius...
The Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) led the telecom field for lobbying the federal government in March, logging 15 communication reports for the month, according to the federal lobbyists’ registry. Those reports were split between organization president and CEO Jay Thomson and long-time consultant Harris Boyd, as they communicated with a variety of MPs, such as Opposition heritage critic Peter Van Loan, Liberal finance committee chair Wayne Easter and an Innovation Canada policy advisor. Boyd, who has been registered to lobby for CCSA for more than a decade, communicates with the government about CRTC broadcasting distribution regulations, namely “to ensure proposed changes do not increase license fees or financial contributions to Canadian programming or impose new obligations to carry programming...
The CRTC’s decision Thursday to ban most forms of zero-rating means telecoms will have to rely on service in order to stand out from the competition, analysts said. The...
As the CRTC banned most forms of differential pricing practices Thursday — including declaring that telecoms can’t pick and chose Internet content to zero-rate and...
The city of Gatineau, Que., is turning to the CRTC to approve its municipal access agreement after BCE Inc., Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron, Rogers Communications Inc., Telus...
Annual subscription revenue from over-the-top (OTT) providers is estimated to be inching toward the billion-dollar mark in Canada, according to a new report from Convergence Consulting Group Ltd., which estimated a...
Telus Corp. said Thursday it will provide free WiFi in Montreal’s Old Port as part of a 20-year agreement “to equip the historic site with the latest next-generation wireless technology.” The company said in a press release that the area “will become a location of choice for rolling out the latest technology.” The free WiFi zone will be three kilometres wide, Telus said. It’s part of $100-million investment the company will make in the city in 2017. “In addition to the planned initiatives with the Old Port of Montréal, this major...
BCE Inc. said it is now the first carrier on the continent to have the capability of delivering quad band LTE-advanced service. “Also known as 4-carrier aggregation, Quad Band...
Canada’s largest telecoms said opponents of high-power and outdoor devices (HPODs) in the 5GHz frequency band have failed to provide adequate evidence against the move. Earlier this month, Canada’s major...
In his first day on the job, newly minted Rogers Communications Inc. president and CEO Joe Natale gave few details about his priorities, but said he’ll be working on a strategy in the coming...
A new report from broadband equipment maker Sandvine Corp. says that some Internet users are avoiding data charges by disguising Internet traffic to look like zero-rated content. “Enticed by the potential of receiving...
The CRTC may very well complete the record on net neutrality policy in Canada when it releases its decision Thursday afternoon on differential pricing practices,...
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) has released a schedule and details how it plans to shift the use of 600 MHz spectrum from over-the-air (OTA) television to wireless. ISED...
BCE Inc. is asking the CRTC to reinsert a phrase into its terms and conditions removed in last month’s decision on mobile wholesale mobile wireless roaming service tariffs that the company...
The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) has hired Cathia Badiere as its national director of research. Effective immediately, Badiere will oversee the organization’s collective bargaining, policy and industry research “to support ACTRA’s objective of...
A year after it began, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has completed its incentive auction of 600 MHz spectrum to be repurposed for wireless use. The auction, which ran March 29, 2016 to March 30, 2017, grossed $19.8 billion for 70 MHz of spectrum, the United States regulator said in a press release Thursday, adding that it was “among the highest grossing auctions every conducted by the FCC.” There were 50 winning bidders, with T-Mobile US Inc. acquiring 1,525 of the 2,776 licences available for $7.99 billion. “Consumers are the real beneficiaries, broadcasters invest new resources in programming and service, and additional wireless spectrum opens the way to greater competition and innovation in the mobile broadband marketplace,” Ajit Pai, FCC chairman, said in the release. The 175 winning...
The CRTC will begin measuring the books of digital media operations in the country, with the aim of eventually publishing data on their finances, the regulator said in its new three-year plan. Published on its...
After a series of high-profile departures from the company, Rogers Communications Inc. announced Thursday that it will welcome its new president and CEO next week. Former Telus Corp. head Joe Natale...
Shaw Communications Inc. said Wednesday that its Freedom Mobile division will have a new chief operating officer, as Paul McAleese takes over from Alek Krstajic. CEO Brad Shaw...
Analog and digital cable’s share of the TV market declined from 40 per cent to 36 per cent in 2016, while IPTV subscriptions picked up among English-speaking Canadians, according to new research from Media Technology Monitor...
The CRTC can’t retroactively apply regulations established almost a year after the fact to justify its prohibition simultaneous substitution during the broadcast of the National Football League’s (NFL) Super Bowl, BCE Inc. argued in court documents filed in its joint appeal of the decision. In a memorandum of fact and law filed with the Federal Appeal Court April 5, Bell said that the Simultaneous Programming Service Deletion and Substitution Regulations, which came into force Dec. 1, 2015, aren’t applicable to the Jan. 29, 2015 CRTC policy that first...
OTTAWA — Canada must develop a national policy and form a multi-party committee involving different levels of government to help inform decisions on autonomous and connected cars, a...
Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch is asking the Supreme Court of British Columbia to order five companies, including Shaw Communications Inc., to identify a customer Twitch is accusing of “malicious spambot...
Cogeco Inc. CEO Louis Audet said Friday that he’s not concerned about customers substituting wireline Internet service with wireless with the advent of 5G, and that the company...
The Canadian Wireless Telecommunication Association has hired Chris Jones as its new director of regulatory affairs, policy and research. Jones replaces Kurt Eby, who left the role at the CWTA in January to take a position in Toronto. According to emails from CWTA spokeswoman Sophie...
The CRTC has ordered wireless service providers to implement a system for the sending of emergency alerts over LTE networks that will be operational in a year’s time. In its...
A trio of consumer advocacy groups are asking the CRTC to revise December’s basic telecom services decision, stating in a review-and-vary application filed Wednesday that the regulator...
Amazon.com Inc. has secured the streaming rights to 10 Thursday Night Football games from the National Football League (NFL), according to a Wall Street Journal report. The deal is...
Telus Corp. and the government of British Columbia are committing $2 million to offer subsidized smartphones to up to 1,000 youth who are currently, or were previously, in government care. The...
There were fewer complaints accepted by the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) in the second half of 2016 than in the comparable time period a year earlier, according to the CCTS mid-year report, released Thursday. The organization accepted 3,995 complaints between August 1, 2016 and January 31, 2017, compared to 4,562 complaints the year before, about a 12.4 per cent decline. In its full-year report, released in November, CCTS said customer complaints were down 18 per cent year over year. There were also fewer violations of...
The Quebec Superior Court has approved a class-action lawsuit against BCE Inc. for allegedly misrepresenting the type of connections customers receive when subscribing to its Fibe services. The representative plaintiff,...
The Competition Bureau will be keeping an eye on how regional telecom providers can disrupt the incumbents’ hold on the market, the commissioner said Tuesday. In a speech to the...
Canada should allow high-power and outdoor devices (HPODs) in the 5GHz band before the World Radiocommunications Conference in 2019 (WRC-19), Canada's major telecom companies said in comments to the Ministry of Innovation,...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Tuesday it has improved its wireless service in the Kelowna, B.C. area. It said in a press release two new towers will provide better wireless coverage, adding it has also deployed...
The IMSI catchers found to be in use in Ottawa around Parliament Hill are not being operated by a Canadian agency and an investigation has been launched to find the culprits, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Tuesday. “The activity that was reported last evening does not, I repeat, does not involve a Canadian agency like the RCMP or CSIS,” Goodale told reporters in Ottawa, according to a transcript. The devices, also known as stingrays, that mimic cell towers and...
Toronto city council voted last week to ask the CRTC to force wireless providers to offer unlimited data plans. The motion, brought forward by councillor Michelle Holland, directs the city manager to convey a request to the CRTC...
OTTAWA — The development of connected and autonomous vehicles might be the thing that makes the issue of cyber security tangible, a Canadian intelligence official told senators Tuesday....
Rogers Communications Inc.’s chief strategy officer, Frank Boulben, is leaving the company. Rogers spokesman Andrew Garas said in an email Tuesday Boulben would depart at the end of April. Boulben joined Rogers...
Telus Corp. has finalized a deal it struck as part of BCE Inc.’s acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. to have 100,000 former MTS subscribers, or about one quarter of its postpaid wireless subscriber base,...
IMSI catchers are in operation around Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, according to an investigation by CBC/Radio-Canada’s news division. Also known as stingrays, the devices mimic cell phone towers and collect...
OTTAWA — Cyber security is everyone’s responsibility, but the federal government needs to take a leadership role to help stem the flow of money draining from the Canadian economy due to...
Ontario’s highest court has reversed an order by a lower court to allow a U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation team to investigate and prepare a report on seized data in a copyright infringement...
Ken Whyte, Rogers Communications Inc.’s senior vice-president of public policy, is leaving the company effective April 28. Whyte said in a posting on LinkedIn Monday that he resigned “this morning after 12 happy, fruitful years.” According to a note from...
Despite being well received in some western markets, it’s too early to determine how Shaw Communications Inc.’s BlueSky TV is working out for the company, according to Barclays Capital. “We expect it will take more time before we see the benefits of the new TV platform on [average revenue per user] and churn, as it will require greater consumer awareness and deeper penetration of the product,” analyst Phillip Huang said in a Monday note. Shaw launched its IPTV platform, which is based on Comcast Corp.’s X1 platform, in Calgary in...
Though virtual reality is still in its early days, it holds promise for Canada’s media industry — including for broadcasters as a new way to draw eyes to live events, such as sports, according to...
Targeted funding, flexible spectrum regulations and national testing infrastructure are key elements to an effective rollout of 5G in Canada, Innovation Canada heard from stakeholders last fall....
Cogeco Inc. has been fined for being offside of Quebec consumer protection rules by changing a contract without notifying the customer, the province’s consumer watchdog said Friday. The Consumer Protection Bureau...
Verizon Communications Inc. is working on delivering an online streaming television package this summer, according to Bloomberg. The report, published Thursday and citing anonymous sources, said the telecommunications...
As large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) push on with the build of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks, small providers say they are encountering an increasing number of areas where they have no access to wholesale Internet service from telcos. Such service gaps are “becoming increasingly large and prevalent,” the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) said in a Part 1 application dated Thursday, in which it asked the regulator to provide expedited wholesale access to...
Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. said Thursday that it has finished its LTE expansion project. In the province, 99 per cent of residents are now served by its LTE network, SaskTel said in...
Alphabet Inc.’s Google has launched a research facility in Toronto dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence (AI). The Vector Institute will focus on “expanding the applications of AI by performing...
Rogers Communications Inc. is making its gigabit Internet service available in 20 Toronto-area schools as part of a pilot project. “This pilot program will deliver top Internet speeds up to 55 times faster than those...
A Quebec union representing communications sector employees said it is disappointed with both the federal and provincial budgets, saying that in “both cases, no action has been taken to counter...
The United States House of Representatives has voted to repeal the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s privacy measures for Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The legislation was approved by the Senate last...
Iristel Inc.’s Ice Wireless is now selling plans with unlimited data and roaming in the United States and Mexico, the company said in a press release Wednesday. The plans “include unlimited calls, texts and...
BCE Inc., Telus Corp., and Rogers Communications Inc. believe the conditions supporting the wireless growth they have seen in recent quarters will stay in place in 2017, according to a...
Jacob Glick is leaving Rogers Communications Inc. after two years with the company and becoming a distinguished executive fellow in residence at the University of Ottawa. Glick was chief corporate affairs officer at...
OTTAWA — The federal privacy commissioner will be working with stakeholders to develop a “code of practice” to help address privacy concerns around connected and autonomous vehicles, a Senate committee heard Tuesday. There are a wide range of questions that still have to be answered when it comes to connected cars, Daniel Therrien told the standing committee on transport and communications as part of their study on the regulatory and technical challenges related to the deployment of connected and autonomous vehicles. Those questions include who is responsible...
A tool that allows users to see exactly where their Internet traffic is travelling, backed partially by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, has received a facelift make it easier to use...
MONTREAL — BCE Inc. will invest $854 million to bring fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) to all of Montreal’s homes and businesses within five years, the company said Monday....
Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp messaging service should not be a place “for terrorists to hide,” according to U.K. Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who appeared on a Sunday BBC program...
Following a quiet first quarter, wireless companies’ flanker brands stepped up the competition in March, ramping up promotional activity through data increases and handset discounts, according to Barclays Capital. Just...
OTTAWA — There should be a reasonable expectation of privacy from search and seizure not just for the recipient of a text message but for the sender as well, a lawyer argued in front of Canada’s highest court Thursday, after a lower court used unlawfully obtained texts from a recipient's phone to convict the sender in a firearms trafficking case. Accused trafficker Nour Marakah appealed a decision last year by the Ontario Court of Appeal, which upheld a conviction from a lower court based on evidence that was retrieved from recipient Andrew...
Hydro One Telecom Inc. — a subsidiary of Ontario electricity provider Hydro One Networks Inc. — has expanded its fibre network to connect to 30 data centres in Ontario and Quebec. It said in a press...
The federal government has extended the deadline for comments in its consultation on licence requirements for non-geostationary satellite orbit systems (NGSO). In a notice on its website Thursday, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada said “based on the merits of several requests for additional time to respond, the...
For all the focus on the digital economy, there was little in Wednesday’s budget for digital content creators, broadband infrastructure enthusiasts or fans of long-term planning, according to...
The United States Senate voted Thursday to repeal broadband privacy rules the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put in place last year, Reuters reported Thursday. The rules, which among other...
Telus Corp. is partnering with Quebec company Groupe DOmedic Inc. to offer a pharmacy management service called xPill Pharma to retirement homes, the company said in a Thursday press release. "Medication...
BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. are removing TSN, RDS and Sportsnet from traditional TV subscriptions for business customers with a liquor license and offering the channels...
OTTAWA — With a focus on the digital economy, the federal government will start looking beyond geography to bridge the digital divide in Canada, adding new funding to encourage Internet Service...
Iristel Inc. is partnering with satellite company Kepler Communications Inc. to help Internet of Things (IoT) devices seamlessly connect between cellular networks on the ground and satellites in the sky. The...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron says it’s the first Canadian telecom to launch a chatbot on Facebook Inc.'s Messenger service, which it will use to give users viewing recommendations from its Illico video-on-demand (VOD) catalogue. Called Chillico, the chatbot “harnesses technology rooted in artificial intelligence to communicate with Videotron's customers in an innovative and personalized way,” the company said in a press release Wednesday. Julie Brault, vice-president of branding and ominchannel digital strategy at Videotron, said in the release the bot “will give us more information about how our customers interact with this type of innovative service. In the long term, we expect to learn how we can permanently incorporate bots into our...
Canada’s telecommunications companies will continue to invest heavily to improve their networks’ fibre-optic infrastructure, driving competition between the telcos and the cablecos that will reach “unprecedented levels,” a Moody’s Investors Service report predicted. But...
The upcoming renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) could include pressure to change rules requiring some information to stay in Canada, University of Ottawa law professor...
Cogeco Inc. has launched a new 4K personal video recorder (PVR) to allow its subscribers to record and watch content at four times the resolution of high-definition TV. “This evolution in our offering is consistent with our ongoing commitment to better meet the changing needs of our...
The acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. expands the scale at which BCE Inc. operates, which is “becoming one of its most important competitive advantages,”...
Facebook Inc. is increasing its government relations presence in Ottawa, with three new registrations filed with the lobbying commissioner’s office last month. According to the federal lobbyists’ registry, the social media giant has contracted the services of U.K.-based consulting firm AA Access Partnership Ltd., bringing the number of consultants registered to lobby on behalf of Facebook to nine. Each of the three new consultants is registered to communicate with the House of Commons, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada about infrastructure, science and technology and telecommunications, according to the registry. The focus of these new registrations is “Canadian international telecommunications policy as it pertains to global broadband...
The rollout of 5G services will come sooner than expected after a wireless standards body agreed to accelerate the process for the deployment of the next-generation technology, according...
MONTREAL — The Federal Court of Appeal dismissed Monday a challenge to an injunction on the sale of pre-loaded set-top boxes. “In our view, in light of the uncontradicted evidence, including the advertisement that...
Nova Scotia may not be formulating its provincial broadband plan as a direct response to federal inaction, but that doesn’t mean the provincial government isn’t acting out of a need to...
The purchase of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. by BCE Inc. has officially closed, Bell said in a press release Friday. “Uniting the local and national strengths of MTS and Bell Canada, the new Bell MTS...
Quebecor Inc. reported $3.88 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2015, up 7.5 per cent or $271.8 million from a year earlier. It also reported a net loss of $22.5 million in the three-month period ending...
Following a year in which cord-cutting increased sharply, the trend seems to have levelled out somewhat in 2016, with Canada’s publicly traded telecoms losing 220,990 TV subscribers, compared to...
After analyst speculation about whether Quebecor Inc.’s returning CEO would affect the strategic direction of the company, Pierre Karl Péladeau confirmed on a conference...
Rogers Communications Inc. has rolled out a security tool aimed at helping businesses safeguard their social media accounts, the company said in a Wednesday press release. Social Media Security “monitors,...
The arguments made by BCE Inc. subsidiary Northwestel in its request to the CRTC to review and vary a decision setting rates for Northwestel’s Wholesale Connect service have already been put to the commission in the past and rejected, according to Iristel Inc. “Northwestel’s main arguments in support of the relief requested in the Application have been considered, weighed and ultimately refuted by the Commission,” Iristel said in its intervention, adding that the “very fact that Northwestel is repeating these arguments proves that there has not...
Global revenue from streaming e-sports and video game content will nearly double four years from now, according to Juniper Research, which projected total revenues from video game streaming...
Projects involving wireless technology, power grid and nuclear lab cyber security and the use of Internet connectivity to help first responders communicate are among 26 initiatives to receive federal government funding, according to a Tuesday press release. Up to $20 million in funding is available under a...
OTTAWA — A known software vulnerability led the federal government to pull Statistics Canada and Canada Revenue Agency websites offline late last week, officials said Monday, calling...
As the federal government gears up to review the Copyright Act later this year, information about the rate of piracy in Canada remains elusive, two full years since the implementation of the...
The federal privacy watchdog is asking the government to petition its counterparts in the United States to include Canada in a list of countries whose citizens are afforded protection for their personal information. In a Tuesday letter to the ministers of public safety, foreign affairs, national defence and justice, privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien said he “strongly urged the Government of Canada to ask the United States to add Canada” to the list of countries...
The CRTC is asking for comment on an aspect of the municipal access agreement between BCE Inc. and Hamilton, Ont., following a five-year disagreement between the two parties. The commission...
Alphabet Inc. said Thursday it is expanding its cloud platform reach by launching its first Canadian data service in Montreal. The Cloud Platform “consists of a set of physical assets, such as computers and...
On May 27, members of the Conservative Party of Canada will select who will succeed former prime minister Stephen Harper as permanent leader of the party, relieving interim Opposition leader Rona...
England’s biggest soccer league has been granted a court order to block computer servers that host and deliver content to a set-top box (STBs) application that allows users to watch its games...
The number of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) subscribers on 4G LTE mobile connections is expected to increase significantly and overtake over-the-top (OTT) applications over the next four years, according to Juniper Research. The...
Taxing foreign digital services such as Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime service, Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and Netflix Inc. could provide the federal...
A Federal Court judge ruled last week that a defendant must pay damages for selling products that allowed users to bypass another company’s technological protections, in the first such ruling in Canada. The case sets a precedent that will have a ripple effect on other industries, including media, according to...
United States president Donald Trump has nominated Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai for another five-year term at the helm of the regulator. Pai was first appointed as commissioner in 2012 and...
Former Bell Aliant president Karen Sheriff has joined the BCE Inc. board of directors, the company said in a Wednesday press release. “We are delighted that Karen Sheriff has agreed to bring her wealth of strategic and operational leadership experience and her deep knowledge of the Canadian communications sector to the service of our shareholders as a Director of BCE," board chairman Gordon Nixon said in the release Sheriff joined Q9 Networks Inc. in 2014, following Bell’s buyout of Bell Aliant. Q9 was later also acquired by...
