Business Critical IT Current and reliable data is a crucial for making solid strategic and operational decisions. This data is the foundation for budgeting, forecasting, analyzing, reporting and lastly improving your business. Intelligent solutions are necessary to drive cost reduction, enhance resiliency and raise user experience. Solutions must work seamlessly across enterprises as well as business units. Three Solutions - One software StableNet® incorporates Fault Management, Performance Mana...

Bell Canada announced this week that it is 'poised' to begin deploying the 3500MHz band spectrum it won last summer to expand and upgrade 5G services in urban and rural markets across the country. Bell says that the addition of 3500MHz frequencies to its 5G network will give customers a faster experience with peak theoretical download speeds of 'up...

Rogers Communications announced yesterday that it has started to deploy its 5G 3500MHz spectrum holdings, with the first location going live in Nanaimo, British Columbia. The company will continue its deployment across Canada, including the urban centres of Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver and multiple rural areas. More re...

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) has opened its mmWave Licensing Framework Consultation, proposing to make more 5G spectrum available to develop higher quality services and innovative new applications. According to ISED, the mmWave 26GHz, 28GHz and 38GHz bands are expected to support both highly localised mobile 5G service...

Canada's federal government announced CAD55 million (USD44 million) in funding to bring high speed fixed internet to an additional 11,000 rural homes throughout New Brunswick, with the rollouts to be implemented by Rogers Communications and Xplornet. A press release from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) shows a list of 249...

Canada's Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications issued a joint statement on Monday stating that they have agreed to postpone closure of their proposed CAD26 billion (USD20 billion) merger in order to resolve objections by the Competition Bureau, which filed court applications on 9 May to prevent the consolidation of two of the country's larg...

Canada's Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Francois-Philippe Champagne, yesterday announced a new proposed policy direction in the telecoms sector which will require the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to put in place new rules to improve competition and support consumers, aimed at achieving lower pric...

Globalive Capital – chaired by Anthony Lacavera – has signed a 20-year nationwide mobile network and spectrum sharing agreement with Telus Communications, effective only in the event that Globalive is successful in its bid to buy Canada's fourth largest cellco Freedom Mobile – the company originally founded by Lacavera and currently a subsidiary of...

In a long-delayed decision, Canada's federal government has opted to ban the country's telecoms operators from using Chinese equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE to build their 5G networks, and furthermore intends to order operators to remove such equipment from their existing networks. Francois-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science...

Canada's Federal Court has this week rejected nationwide operator Telus Communications' attempt to block Quebec-based rival Videotron's rights to 3500MHz 5G mobile licences in western provinces won at auction last year. The ruling follows the same court's refusal of a stay request from Telus and fellow nationwide player Bell Canada in October 2021,...

The Government of Quebec has allocated a portion of funding in its rural broadband connectivity programme for subsidising SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service for 10,200 'hard-to-reach' homes. A CAD9.5 million (USD7.4 million) subsidy is being offered for purchasing hardware for the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite service, currently costing...

Canada's Competition Bureau has filed court applications to prevent the proposed CAD26 billion (USD20 billion) merger of two of the country's largest fixed and mobile telecoms companies, Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, as it seeks to 'protect Canadians from higher prices, poorer service quality and fewer choices' particularly in mobi...

Canada's Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications gave a joint statement on Saturday disclosing that they were notified of the Commissioner of Competition's intention to file applications to the Competition Tribunal opposing Rogers' proposed merger with Shaw. Rogers and Shaw stated that they remain committed to the merger, while moving their d...

Bell Canada's operating revenue increased 2.5% year-on-year to CAD5.850 billion (USD4.576 billion) in Q1 2022, driven by 4.2% higher service revenue of CAD5.177 billion on strong mobile, residential internet and media division growth. Product (equipment) revenue was down 8.8% to CAD673 million, reflecting fewer new mobile device transactions and lo...

Are you are planning to implement new IT projects such as data center consolidation, server virtualization, cloud computing, or perhaps adding new applications on the network?  Do you understand exactly how these upgrades will affect the existing applications and the user experience?  What strategy are you going to use to ensure application performance is not compromised?  It is imperative that you understand how each of the components can affect overall application performance. A...

The Vancouver Sun reports that Vancouver's Aquilini family (Aquilini Investments) is interested in buying Shaw Communications' cellular network operating division Freedom Mobile, which is up for sale as Rogers Communications attempts to offload the unit to gain regulatory clearance for its proposed merger with Shaw by the end of this quarter. It wa...

Over the last couple of years, the growth of IP-based video communtications and IP videoconferencing has explodied due to the the substantial increase of work from remote locations. Video communications are expected to be smooth. Network teams need to be prepared, as video brings several unique challenges. This article will explore key video requirements and monitoring strategies to ensure the technology meets user expectations. Managing in Real Time The primary challenge differentiating managem...

More mobile devices are now connecting to more data from more sources. IT challenges are complicated by increasingly high customer expectations for always-on access and immediate application response. This complexity creates network "blind spots" where latent errors germinate, and pre-attack activity lurks. Stressed-out monitoring systems make it hard, if not impossible, to keep up with traffic and filter data "noise" at a rate that they were not designed to handle. Network blind spots have beco...

Canada's Rogers Communications reported 'solid operational improvements' in its Wireless (mobile), Cable (fixed internet/pay-TV/voice) and Media divisions in Q1 2022. Total revenue improved 4% year-on-year to CAD3.619 billion (USD2.871 billion) in the three months ended 31 March 2022. Group quarterly EBITDA rose 11% y-o-y to CAD1.539 billion, with ...

Canada's Rogers Communications has announced the successful testing of 8Gbps symmetrical fibre broadband access speeds in lab and customer trials, under a plan to launch the new download and upload speeds commercially 'in summer 2022 for customers in select areas across Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland'. Rogers claims that the launch will mo...