The CRTC said Friday that the deadline for final submission in its wholesale wireless review has been delayed by three days. Final submissions in this proceeding, for which hearings start on Sept. 29, will be due Monday, Oct. 20, the CRTC said on its website. That's delayed from Friday, Oct. 17. The commission said the extension was given because its website will be unavailable after 4 p.m. on Oct. 17 due to maintenance and testing....
Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Thomas Lukaszuk said his staff was unable to negotiate a discount from Telus Corp. when, as a deputy premier in 2012, he rang up more than $20,000 in data and roaming charges while travelling overseas. Lukaszuk published an apology on his website after the Edmonton Sun broke a story indicating that, while on a personal trip to Poland and Israel in October 2012, he used 2.29 GB of data, which resulted in a $20,243.91 bill paid for by the government. The Alberta politician said although he was on a personal trip, he performed government...
Wind Mobile on Thursday announced lower prices for domestic roaming as it begins using higher-quality networks for its customers travelling outside their base. The company said in a press release that data speeds will be up to...
On Wednesday the CRTC released average domestic retail prices for wireless carriers as part of its ongoing examination of the wholesale wireless market in Canada. The CRTC declined a request from Wind Mobile to make public the...
The CRTC issued a decision Thursday in the first of its two reviews of wholesale wireless roaming in Canada, finding that Rogers Communications Inc. committed “unjust discrimination” in...
Now that the federal government’s domestic roaming caps are in place, Wind Mobile is looking to upgrade to 3G for its roaming network by the end of the summer, chief regulatory officer Simon Lockie said on Tuesday. His...
Quebec’s superior court has denied a motion for a class action lawsuit against BCE Inc., Telus Corp. and Rogers Communications Inc. Law firm Fasken Martineau, which represented Rogers’ Fido division and its Rogers Communications Partnership, said in a posting on its website judge Michel Yergeau ruled on July 2 that the motion didn’t meet the criteria necessary to authorize a class action. The judge ruled that Inga Sibiga, a customer of Rogers’ Fido brand, did not have sufficient legal interest to bring a case against Bell or Telus, was not an adequate...
Vancouver-based Roam Mobility Inc. has added LTE data to its roaming plans for Canadians travelling to the United States, the company announced on Wednesday. From July 7, customers who purchase one of the company’s plans...
CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais reportedly said in an interview with the Financial Post that the commission needs to be careful not to force roaming rates that are prohibitively low or encourage too much competition. The article...
The European Commission said Tuesday that limits on mobile roaming charges throughout the European Union for users based in member countries will be reduced as of July 1, including a more than 50 per cent cut to data charges. The...
Quebecor Inc. said explicitly Wednesday that it intends to become Canada's "fourth wireless competitor," though it needs "a fair and competitive federally regulated roaming...
As the CRTC continues its review of the wholesale wireless market in Canada, U.K. regulator Ofcom is proposing a new rate control to lower the price British wireless carriers can charge one another for completing calls to a...
BCE Inc. on Tuesday said it has reduced the cost of wireless roaming in South Korea for voice, text and data plans. Bell said in a press release it is now charging $30 for 60 minutes of voice time in the Asian country, compared...
OTTAWA — Proposed federal legislation that caps wholesale wireless prices is a good start but “doesn’t solve the issue,” Wind Mobile co-founder and chief regulatory officer Simon Lockie told a Senate...
Canada’s wholesale wireless market is “dominated by an oligopoly” and is not competitive enough to “stem abuses” from the three incumbent wireless providers, Wind Mobile...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Mobility unit, in an intervention filed in the CRTC’s review of wholesale wireless services, said that meddling in the rates carriers charge to let other carriers use their network could affect the “vigorous competition” that exists in the wireless market. In its filing, made Thursday, Bell said the CRTC must strike “the right balance” between encouraging infrastructure owners to invest in new technologies and allowing competitors to access...
Orange Horizons, an arm of French telecom giant Orange SA tasked with exploring new markets, said in a CRTC filing on Wednesday that it is taking a close look at the Canadian wireless market. Orange,...
Roam Mobility Inc. said Tuesday that Staples Canada would start carrying its SIM cards and unlocked phones, geared toward those travelling to the United States, through both its retail and online operations. According to a press...
While the federal government’s current plan for limiting wholesale roaming rates charged within the wireless industry is a “step in the right direction,” a new study from the...
Bell Aliant Inc. on Tuesday reported declines in both first-quarter revenue and profit. The company’s financial records indicated that revenue came in at $675.7 million, down 1.2 per cent from the previous year. Net...
The CRTC said Friday that the deadline for initial interventions in its review of wholesale wireless services has been extended to May 15 from May 1. Other dates, such as the Aug. 20 deadline for further interventions and the public hearing date of Sept. 29, have been left unchanged. The CRTC said in an online notice that l’Union des consommateurs, a Quebec consumer group, had asked that the initial deadline be extended to May 22 to allow parties more time to look at wireless companies’ responses to the CRTC’s requests for information, and that the deadline for further...
Rogers Communications Inc. took a hit in this year’s first quarter in both revenue and profit numbers, according to results released Monday. The company said it had $3.02 billion in operating revenue for the three months...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Tuesday announced some new overseas roaming deals, including a data-only plan for $9.99 a day. Raj Doshi, Rogers’ senior vice-president of products, said in a press release: “Our...
The European Union voted on Thursday to end roaming charges by December 2015 and enshrine net neutrality in all 28 member nations as part of its efforts to build a “connected continent,”...
The government has released details of its plans for a clamp down on the domestic roaming rates Canada’s carriers charge one another for the privilege of moving between networks. New-entrant wireless providers, such as Wind...
Roam Mobility Inc. said Tuesday that its SIM cards for roaming in the United States are now available at Best Buy and Future Shop outlets. It said in a news release that unlimited talk-and-text plans...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron unit said Wednesday it was reducing roaming rates for customers travelling to the United States, Europe and the Caribbean. It said data roaming rates for the U.S. have been cut to 15 cents per...
The CRTC said Thursday it has launched a public consultation into the competitiveness of the wholesale wireless market in Canada. The commission said in a press release it is seeking comments on the...
OTTAWA — The federal government will propose amendments to Canada's telecommunications laws to “clarify” prohibitions against breaking Industry Canada's spectrum auction rules and to give the CRTC new...
BCE Inc. said that, as of Tuesday, its wireless customers would see “significant decreases” in the cost of roaming in Cuba. Bell said in a release Monday that, for roaming packages bought in advance, data usage in Cuba is as low 60 cents per megabyte, voice is as low as 50 cents a minute and texts can be as cheap as 15 cents each. For just voice and text, it said customers can get 60 minutes of voice, unlimited incoming texts and 200 outgoing texts for $45. On a pay-per-use basis, Bell said voice calls will now be billed at $2 a minute in Cuba and data at $8 per MB, which it said...
Canadian Competition Commissioner John Pecman called the roaming rates incumbent wireless firms charge new entrants “unjust” and repeated the Competition Bureau’s call for the CRTC...
Comments made to the CRTC as part of its review of domestic roaming rates paint a picture of different alliances made among Canadian wireless carriers — reminiscent of the TV show Survivor...
The Competition Bureau said high roaming rates charged to domestic wireless competitors are “likely” hurting the level of wireless competition in Canada. On Wednesday, the bureau said in...
The government’s move to limit wholesale domestic roaming rates will have little impact on major wireless providers’ bottom lines, experts say, while not all agree on how much the move...
The CRTC has launched a consultation to examine wireless providers’ wholesale roaming rates and will launch another next year on the “sustainability” of wireless competition, the commission said Thursday. “We are concerned that some wireless companies may be making it unfairly difficult for Canadian providers that do not operate a national network to compete in the marketplace,” CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais said in a press release. “We are equally concerned that the current wholesale arrangements may be having a negative impact on the competitiveness of...
U.S. telecommunications provider AT&T Inc. said Monday it has launched LTE roaming in Canada through a partnership with Rogers Communications Inc. AT&T said the deal makes it the first U.S. carrier to offer international...
BCE Inc. said Monday it is reducing data roaming charges for customers travelling in Mexico, China, Australia, New Zealand and most European countries. Bell said travel data passes for these areas...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Thursday announced new U.S. roaming rates, which it said double its previous data caps and provide more talk time as well as unlimited texting at lower prices. A basic data plan starts at $7.99,...
BCE Inc. cut the cost of its roaming packages for customers visiting Bermuda and “most Caribbean islands,” the company said. In a release Tuesday, BCE said its “30-day Travel Bundle,” which previously cost...
BCE Inc. chopped its U.S. mobile roaming pricing as telecom carriers face possible regulatory intervention from the CRTC on roaming rates. In a release Monday, BCE said it was cutting the cost of its monthly U.S. roaming package...
The CRTC is ordering Canada’s mobile providers to answer questions about the roaming agreements they enter into with other wireless carriers after hearing “concerns” from consumers and new entrant players about...
Canadian wireless consumers can cancel long-term wireless contracts with mobile phone providers after two years without any cancellation fees, the CRTC said in new wireless code of conduct...