Post Tagged with: "spectrum"

Rogers Launches Advocacy Campaign on Spectrum Auction

Rogers has launched a new public advocacy campaign on the forthcoming spectrum auction.  Linking the roll-out of its LTE to the auction, Rogers warns that set-asides for new entrants “would be a recipe for leaving Canada behind the rest of the world, stalling Canadian innovation and limiting who can access […]

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September 23, 2011 19 comments News

Industry Minister Paradis Holds Closed Door Meetings With Telcos on Spectrum, Foreign Ownership

Bloomberg and the Wire Report are both reporting that Industry Minister Christian Paradis held meetings over the past two weeks with 13 of Canada’s largest telcos, including Bell, Telus, Rogers, Shaw, and others.  The full list of meetings supplied by Paradis’ office to the Wire Report: Aug. 16 Cogeco Cable […]

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August 30, 2011 12 comments News

US Strikes Deal With Canada, Mexico on Spectrum Sharing

AllThingsD reports that the FCC has struck deals with both Canada and Mexico to enable the sharing of certain wireless spectrum in border areas.

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August 3, 2011 Comments are Disabled News

Reflecting on The Liberal Digital Economy Strategy

The Liberals released their election platform yesterday and for those anxious for digital issues to occupy part of the policy debate during the campaign (myself included), we got our wish. The document identifies the digital economy as one of its three key areas for economic growth and features eight principles that includes broadband for all, bridging the digital divide, copyright, and an Open Internet.

At the start of the campaign, I highlighted ten digital economy questions that need answers and the Liberals have taken a good step at answering many of them. There is still need for greater detail, but at least they’ve put forward something to debate. By contrast, Industry Minister Tony Clement quickly tweeted that the Liberal document “borrows” from his digital strategy, yet unless I missed a press release, no Conservative digital strategy has been made public. There has been a digital economy strategy consultation, the creation of a government department within Industry Canada, a speech on a strategy that provided preliminary views, and elements of what will likely form the strategy (ie. open government), but none of these are the strategy itself. If Clement believes it borrows from his unreleased strategy, that only emphasizes how the issue is non-partisan and should be prioritized by all parties.

With respect to the strategy itself, perhaps its most significant aspect was the promise to use the revenues from the forthcoming spectrum auction to facilitate broadband access in underserved areas. In fact, sources advise that the commitments to fund CBC/Radio-Canada and the Canada Council for digital content creation will also come from spectrum revenues. Given that the auction is expected to generate billions of dollars, this is very significant. The revenues from the last spectrum auction went to general revenues (critics argue it went to the automotive industry). A commitment to use the spectrum revenues for purposes directly related to connectivity, culture, and the digital economy is an important step forward and helps ensure that new initiatives need not come out of tax revenues. It will be interesting to see if the Conservatives and NDP make a similar commitment.

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April 4, 2011 18 comments News

Spectrum Consult Could Form Cornerstone of Digital Policy for Next Decade

Appeared in the Toronto Star on February 20, 2011 as What to do with the Newly Surplus TV Airwaves As public frustration with the state of telecommunications services such as Internet access and wireless competition mounts, a relatively obscure government consultation on spectrum deserves far more attention. Last November, Industry […]

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February 22, 2011 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive