BCE Inc. filed a Part 1 application with the CRTC seeking clarity on three key areas of uncertainty identified by the Ontario Court of Appeal, in response to a proposed class...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Canada and Northwestel have responded to Iristel Inc.'s application to suspend disconnection notices sent by the incumbents in a dispute over unpaid bills....
Iristel Inc. and two BCE Inc. properties have reached separate agreements...
The CRTC has given the green light to BCE Inc. subsidiary Northwestel Inc....
The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) and TekSavvy Solutions...
BCE Inc. subsidiary Télébec is asking the CRTC for permission to...
Canada should look to Britain and Australia for lessons on how to regulate internet advertising, a new study by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre maintains. The consumer...
Amongst those independent internet service providers (ISPs) who had been pleading with the federal...
Iristel Inc. filed a petition to the governor in council to vary a decision...
A Toronto-based telecom and broadcasting consultant is arguing to the CRTC that Rogers Communications Inc.’s pending...
In an at-times testy exchange between CRTC chair Ian Scott and MPs on the...
Vancouver-based Novus Entertainment Inc. said Wednesday it will refrain from raising internet prices for three years as it allows customers to sign up for its residential internet service without locking themselves into...
On the heels of Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron announcement Wednesday, Distributel Communications Ltd. said Friday that -- along with its recently acquired Primus subsidiary -- it would be suspending...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron is suspending its long-distance charges for all calls from Canada to Haiti, where a recent earthquake has left many residents homeless, and to...
Fewer Canadians are paying for data overage fees and fewer are complaining...
Iristel Inc. is launching a service that will allow Canadian phone numbers to be paired with less expensive plans offered by U.S. telecom companies. On Monday the company announced its $6 per month "Mobifi" service, which it said will be available on its website in late-June. In a press release the company said the service “is ideal” for entrepreneurs re-locating in the United States and for snowbirds who live in the U.S. or Mexico for part of the year. Mobifi, the release said, will forward voice and data from a Canadian phone number to a phone with an American SIM card,...
Quebecor Inc. has continued to grow its revenues in spite of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, according to...
The Competition Bureau has reached a consent agreement with electronics distribution and services company WESCO International Inc., which will see the company divest its utility and datacom businesses...
Canadians are complaining less about their wireless service and fewer consumers are receiving unexpected charges in their monthly wireless bill, according to wireless code...
Major Canadian telecoms have ended one of their major relief measures for Canadians who suddenly shifted...
The CRTC has given interim approval to BCE Inc.’s Northwestel application for urgent relief that will allow to it waive data overage charges for its cable and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) internet customers. The waiving of overage fees for March and April matches the moves of a number of telecommunication service providers, promised as many Canadians began working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As well as waiving overage fees for its cable and FTTP customers, Northwestel will grant all residential DSL internet customers an extra 100 GB of data on top of their plan amount,...
Multiple Canadian internet providers have suspended caps on data usage as they prepare for a huge...
Mobile wireless prices are lower or have stayed the same across all service "baskets" compared to last year, but the higher data plan prices remain stubbornly higher than most other countries, a new...
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. ...
Quebecor Inc.’s CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau said he’s “happy” that...
The big three telecoms are telling the CRTC that their practice of slowing...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s CEO Joe Natale said there has been a 50 per...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s reasons for launching a no-overage-fee...
Rogers Communications Inc. is pointing to higher data availability...
There doesn't appear to be a clear winner among Canadian telecoms after the intense sales period around Black Friday, according to Barclays Capital analyst Phillip Huang. “Deals for this year's Black Friday weekend once again focused on big bucket data plans, but are more amped up variations of the prior year,” he wrote in an analyst note. “We believe this round of big bucket data promos drove significant volumes during the Black Friday week. However, based on our checks, we believe...
Shaw Communications Inc.’s Freedom Mobile will highlight its lack of...
The CRTC wants the Big Three to submit options for lower-priced data plans...
BCE Inc.’s Bell MTS in Manitoba is dropping its province-wide wireless unlimited data plan option and increasing prices for upgrading or new customers, it announced Tuesday. New customers will...
The big three wireless providers doubled down on their proposed low-cost,...
Just over a quarter of Canadians surveyed by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) said they don’t know how much broadband data they have, a concern a CIRA spokeswoman said could be attributed to digital literacy. The Internet Factbook trend report, released Wednesday, notes that 27 per cent of the 1,203 Canadians it surveyed in March don’t know how much data is included in their packages, despite the 85 and 81 per cent who are satisfied with their speed and data amounts,...
The Competition Bureau is among those who are telling the CRTC that mandated low-cost, data-only plans should have more data on offer, in a move that raises the stakes of the regulator’s proceeding...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s systems had a technical glitch that...
Following the launch of a 10 GB wireless plan for $50 by Shaw...
While Canadians saw prices for basic mobile phone subscriptions fall, data released by Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Canada on Tuesday indicated that high-end mobile phone plan...
Several telecoms are backing Rogers Communications Inc.’s request for an extension to implement certain...
Rogers Communications Inc. is asking for more time to implement updates to its bill management systems in...
Shaw Communications Inc.’s Freedom Mobile has announced a new set of...
Rogers Communications Inc. said it will begin allowing the manager of shared wireless plans to control the quality of video streamed by members of the share plan. “With the new feature, the data manager (mom or dad, for...
Wearable use in Canada and around the world is trending up, but the numbers for smartwatches are still too low to suggest BCE Inc. can see any real gain as it prepares to be the first Canadian carrier to deliver Apple Inc.’s first cellular-enabled watch. Apple...
The CRTC is seeking comment on whether it should grant regional...
The European Union’s elimination of roaming charges has pushed global mobile roaming revenue numbers down, according to a new report by Juniper Research. The EU recently said it was eliminating roaming charges after it came...
Customers of Rogers Communications Inc.’s flanker brand, Fido, are being offered free wireless data...
Rogers Communications Inc. has increased its mobile data overage rates to a cost per gigabyte of $70 for new plans. The changes, instituted Wednesday, include a two-cent increase per megabyte — to seven cents from five —...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron is increasing the data limits of wireless customers affected by the upcoming shutdown of its Unlimited Music service. The company has sent letters to customers informing them that they will begin receiving additional monthly data when the...
The CRTC said Thursday it won’t give Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron extra time to shut down its...
As part of a decision on its review of the Wireless Code, the CRTC has eliminated unlocking fees for smartphones and mandated that all newly purchased devices must be provided unlocked as of Dec. 1, 2017. “Based on the...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron made its bed and now it has to lie in it, according to consumer and digital rights advocates who opposed the company’s request for a delay in complying with the CRTC’s...
Netflix Inc. is setting up “download zones” in certain areas in Ontario to help the data starved pre-load movies and TV shows onto their devices, according to a Canadian Press report. WiFi...
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...
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...
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...
Nearly 85 per cent of Canadians believe approval for additional costs in family phone plans should be made by those who pay the bills, not those who use the phone, according to a survey commissioned...
The Wireless Code should be amended so that it codifies data as a “key contract term” in wireless contracts, the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) argued on the final day of the CRTC’s public hearing examining the three-year-old regulations, since that wouldn’t change a customer’s ability to adjust their allotment. “We sat here this week… and we heard service providers talks about need to maintain flexibility. I must confess to you, I didn’t understand arguments when I heard it,” Howard Maker, CCTS...
The European Union is set to eliminate mobile roaming charges within its 28-member bloc by this summer, as EU negotiators came to an agreement Wednesday on wholesale prices that would eliminate the charges by June...
Rogers Communications Inc. has made its Roam Like Home plan available to “most customers on a consumer plan,” the company said Monday. The service allows customers to use the data bucket and voice...
Former CRTC commissioner Raj Shoan won’t pursue a second challenge regarding the ability of the CRTC chairman to name panels, after a judge dismissed a similar application last month....
GATINEAU, Que. — The question of whether differential pricing practices (DPPs) can be used for socially beneficial purposes came up on the fourth day of the CRTC’s hearing on DPPs...
GATINEAU — The CRTC shouldn’t take the non-participation in this week’s hearing by content providers who might eventually benefit from zero-rating and other differential pricing practices as non-interest, a five-commissioner panel studying the issue heard Tuesday. The remarks were made by Blair Levin, an advisor to Facebook Inc., during his appearance before the panel. He was speaking in response to a comment from chairman Jean-Pierre Blais over whether the CRTC should be inferring anything from what Blais called the “non-participation or the reluctant...
T-Mobile US Inc. has been ordered to pay a $48-million settlement following an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) into its advertised “unlimited” data plans. In press...
In an unexpected move, Rogers Communications Inc. has announced Guy Laurence is no longer CEO of the company and will be replaced by former Telus Corp. CEO Joe Natale, a choice...
A new report from OpenMedia says that when it comes to residential wireline Internet service, small Internet Service Providers (ISPs) “have less restrictive data caps and more regions with...
TORONTO — Rogers Communications Inc. CEO Guy Laurence said Thursday the company will eliminate an “irritant” among its customers by giving them the ability to manage...
Users of Reddit Inc.’s website have largely railed against differential pricing in a discussion initated by the CRTC, with an overwhelming number of comments on the social platform expressing...
Quebecor Inc.’s chief financial officer Jean-François Pruneau said Thursday the company is content to wait to sell the 700 MHz spectrum it picked up in 2014 and...
Netflix Inc. argued that data caps are an “unnecessary constraint on advanced telecommunications capability” in a filing with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)....
Promotions offering customers extra data as part of back-to-school promotions by Canada’s largest three wireless carriers will help drive upgrades by customers, according to a research note by Barclays Capital analyst...
While digital and mobile options for watching the Summer Olympics are gaining in popularity and engagement, television continues to own the podium for the Canadian outlet broadcasting the two-week multi-sport tournament happening now in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In an April press release marking 100 days until the start of the Games, CBC/Radio-Canada, which holds the Canadian broadcasting rights for the event, said its coverage would be “the most digitally-accessible Games experience in Canadian history, available across more platforms than ever before.” Greg Stremlaw,...
Canadians continue to pay among the highest prices internationally for wireless and broadband Internet services, according to a new report comparing telecom service prices released Thursday by the CRTC. The ninth annual...
Though the success of Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s Pokémon Go mobile game could be the tip of the iceberg for augmented-reality applications, experts said they don’t expect wireless companies to make any major shifts in...
The Wireless Code has proved effective in the two years since its implementation, suggest the results of a CRTC-commissioned study, which reported a decline in wireless complaints as well as...
Facebook Inc. and AT&T Inc. have waded into the CRTC’s review of differential pricing practices, arguing that the commission should allow carriers to offer zero-rated services...
The body that regulates the telecommunications market in the European Union released draft guidelines Monday to ensure providers steer clear of zero-rating policies unless justified, a move that comes ahead of a CRTC discussion on the matter this fall. In a 43-page document, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) set out to establish “common rules to safeguard equal and non-discriminatory treatment of traffic in the provision of Internet access services and related end-users’ rights,” including handling zero-rating and sponsored...
TORONTO — With customers’ usage of data increasing exponentially, and carriers limited in how much they can charge for that data, telecoms will have to turn to 5G networks, Ericsson...
Three Canadian media outlets will be able to display their pages faster on smartphones while using less data after adopting a new platform developed by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, according news articles by Corus...
CRTC commissioner Raj Shoan has filed another court challenge regarding the ability of CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais to assign commissioners to panels that make decisions on issues before the...
Net neutrality advocates welcomed the CRTC’s launch of a new consultation on “differential pricing practices” for both wireline and wireless data plans Wednesday, a process that will see a public hearing kick off...
OTTAWA — A panel discussion on net neutrality Friday dug into whether zero-rating can help or harm market competition, with Ted Woodhead, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs at Telus Corp. taking issue with the...
Netflix Inc. subscribers can now regulate how much wireless data they use in the newest version of the company’s Android and iOS application. As of May 5, the mobile app users could take advantage of “added...
As it takes ownership of Wind Mobile, Shaw Communications Inc. will continue positioning Wind as a cheaper option compared to the big three national wireless carriers, according to the company’s chief operating officer....
Verizon Communication Inc. announced Tuesday it is introducing a new sponsored data service, called FreeBee Data, to help businesses drive better consumer engagement without cutting into...
All major mobile carriers in Canada are raising their prices, according to analysts. Drew McReynolds, an analyst with RBC Dominion Security, detailed in a research note last week how BCE Inc. had recently raised its prices on share plans for premium smartphones by $5 to $65 a month, its plans for other smartphones by $5 to $55 and bring-your-own device plans by $10 to $55. Those rates are before data plans are added. Scotia Capital analyst Jeff Fan said in a note released this week that all three of the major incumbents, including Telus Corp and Rogers Communications Inc., have announced price hikes for new customers of their main plans of $5 a month, and have reduced or eliminated the price advantages of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) plans. Fan added Bell flanker brand Virgin Mobile and Telus flanker brand Koodo have raised their prices by...
The CRTC on Wednesday started a consultation that asks whether it should refrain from regulating some arrangements between incumbent wireless carriers and smaller operators regarding domestic roaming where the terms or conditions...
Netflix Inc. is re-encoding its entire library of content in order to provide customers with a better experience for watching content while using less bandwidth to process it. The company said in a blog Monday that the...
BCE Inc. announced Monday that subscribers of Bell’s Fibe TV and Bell Alliant’s FibreOP TV will have access to their Netflix Inc. account directly from their TV receivers. It said in the release that all Fibe TV...
Newly released survey results show that almost 10 per cent of Canadians still do not have Internet access at home, and more people cite its relevance to their personal lives than affordability as a...
Wind Mobile is looking to make LTE service available to at least some of its customers by the end of next year, after announcing it has borrowed $425 million to help it do so. On Thursday, Wind issued a press release that indicated it has secured a new financing package worth $425 million that involves backing from Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Also involved is Finnverva, the export credit agency of Finland, where the technology provider for Wind's network upgrade, Nokia Corp., is based. Wind said said the money secured would...
BCE Inc. was tops in RootMetric’s 2015 Canadian mobile network performance review that was released Wednesday, with Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. not far behind. The U.S.-based mobile analytics company said in...
The CRTC has asked Canadian wireless carriers that provided roaming access to other domestic carriers — when legislation was in effect that capped domestic roaming prices to retail rates — to file new information,...
Otono Networks Inc. announced Wednesday it is launching next year in the U.S. a new prepaid wireless mobile service specifically for parents that will include two free lines for their kids. It said...
Otono Networks Inc.’s Roam Mobility, a provider of SIM cards for out-of-Canada mobile usage, announced Friday it is launching a new SIM card for visitors to Canada. The Vancouver-based company said in a press release that...
The CRTC has accepted, for the time being, tariffs proposed by the wireless incumbents for what smaller carriers in Canada have to pay to have their customers roam on the bigger companies' networks. The commission said in a...
The three incumbent mobile-service providers and their flanker brands were all offering Black Friday specials, lasting until the Sunday, Nov. 30, that included an extra gigabyte per month on select plans. BCE Inc., Rogers...
The domestic roaming rates for voice and text services BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. have asked the CRTC to implement are significantly lower than what they currently...
Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. announced Tuesday it is introducing new roaming rates and five new roaming add-on plans for customers traveling outside of Canada. It said in a press release that the new rates, part...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced on Thursday a new Internet service for Ontario under its Fido brand. Information provided by the company by email said customers of its discount mobile service Fido have been asking for "quality home Internet at a great price." Rogers said the service will be available to postpaid Fido mobile customers within Rogers' cable footprint in Ontario at a cost of $50 a month. Customers of this service will get download speeds of 30 Mbps with a monthly data cap of 300 gigabytes, which it said "is perfect for one to three people streaming in a...