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Tagged Videotron

CRTC roundup: Videotron doesn’t want to closed-caption porn

July 28, 2008 – 9:40 pm | Posted in TV

Lots of fun at the CRTC:

  1. Videotron has applied for a change in the license for its illico video-on-demand system. They want a change in the requirement that it broadcast closed-captioning with 90% of all programming during the day to add an exception: “adult movies and programs for pre-school children.” In other words, they don’t want to have to waste money closed-captioning on-demand porn and baby programming that nobody is going to read anyway.
  2. Rogers, which owns CITYtv but not the CP24 all-news cable channel that CITY started (that station belongs to CTV after CTV bought CHUM, even though it shares a newsroom with Rogers-owned CITYtv — complicated enough for you?) wants to create a new all-news, all-Toronto digital specialty channel with the imaginative name CITY News (Toronto). Presumably, this would replace CP24, which would then be properly absorbed into CTV, which would have to decide what to do with it since it already has its own all-news network.
  3. The Fight Network wants to create a new digital specialty channel Le Réseau des combats, which would be a French version of its existing programming.
  4. Application for a new digital specialty channel Chaîne Ethnoculturelle Clovys Entertainment Channel, which would broadcast mainly francophone music from urban, world and latin music styles.
  5. CTV wants to amend the license for MuchMusic to allow it to carry game shows (presumably music-related, but then again this is MuchMusic we’re talking about)
  6. The CBC (and its gajillion partners) are applying for a license to broadcast the Documentary channel in high definition. Considering the channel is mostly NFB archives from the 70s, this would seem to have limited use.
  7. VidéOptique Inc. wants to create an on-demand programming network in Drummondville and nearby areas.
  8. Corus Entertainment wants to move its talk radio station 102.1 FM from Montmagny to Quebec City to make it a Quebec City station and have access to the much larger urban market.

UPDATE (Aug. 2): Pat Lagacé has some comments about Videotron and porn CC. He says deaf people will have to start reading lips of the porn actors. I’m not quite sure which lips he’s referring to.

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Daddy Day Camp… on demand!

April 1, 2008 – 4:00 am | Posted in Opinion

If you’re like me, you think Daddy Day Camp is the best movie ever created. This fun-for-the-whole-family film, starring award-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr., is the smash hit sequel to “Daddy Day Care” (notice the last word is different there, how ingenious when they could have just called it Daddy Day Care 2!).

If you never got a chance to see it in the theatre, now’s your chance to see it in your home theatre, at just a bit more than the price of a DVD rental and with none of those annoying extra features and deleted scenes and stuff.

Videotron’s Illico digital service offers Video-on-Demand, a service whereby for only $5, you can download a new release and watch it as many times as you want on your digital terminal over a 24-hour period. If you wanted to rent the DVD, you’d be billed less, which means you’d have to deal with change and stuff, and you’d have anywhere from two days to a week to see the movie. With such a long rental time, you’re bound to get confused and forget the movies altogether, until your living room is filled to the ceiling with rented DVDs you forgot to return.

And if you don’t have Videotron Illico digital TV? Well now’s the time to buy! A basic digital terminal costs $99, but for a limited time only Videotron will give you one for only $49 with contract! That’s practically giving it away! Or you can upgrade to high definition and a personal video recorder for only the low low price of your first-born child! How can you not take advantage of this opportunity?

Buy now!

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Videotron’s new service could cost you $24,315.00 a month

February 6, 2008 – 8:04 pm | Posted in Montreal, Opinion, Technology

Videotron is rolling out a new ultra-super-mega-speed cable Internet service, 50 megabits per second, starting in Laval. Unfortunately there are two problems with it:

  1. It’s expensive. $90 a month ($80 with a 12-month subscription)
  2. There’s a 50GB cap (combined upload/download), $1.50/GB after that, with no upper limit on bandwidth-related overcharges. This cap is actually lower than their 10 megabit “Extreme High-Speed” service, which is only $75/month and has a 100GB/month cap.

According to my l33t math skills, it would take just over two hours at the maximum download speed to surpass the cap. In the theoretical (but practically impossible) situation where you were using that bandwidth non-stop for a 30-day month, the overage charges would amount to $24,225.00.

Roberto offers that you won’t be using the top speed all the time, which is true. At just about anything beyond 10 or 15 megabits, the bottleneck is going to be on the other side.

But if you’re not going to use the top speed, why pay for it? The 30-megabit service is $15 less per month, and still faster than you’ll really need unless you have a dozen people in your family downloading movies at the same time.

This service sounds good on pamphlets and in press releases, but the cap ensures that the people who would really find such service useful aren’t the ones they want using it.

UPDATE (March 15): Criticism of Videotron’s marketing campaign, which seems to be targetted at movie downloaders.

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Videotron discovers Mac

December 17, 2007 – 3:03 pm | Posted in Montreal, Technology

Waiting only 23 years after the media-glitzed introduction of the Apple Macintosh, cable Internet provider Videotron has decided to start supporting the operating system used by hundreds of thousands of Quebecers.

I can’t find the press release online, so whether this will apply to subcontracted technicians who have never heard of Macs isn’t clear.

At this rate, they should have basic Linux support by 2020.

UPDATE: Roberto forwarded me the press release:

The only provider with in-house experts for Mac support

Videotron now supports Apple/Mac platform

Montréal, December 17, 2007 — Videotron has announced that it now supports the Apple/Mac platform in its regular customer service operations. The move will benefit the growing proportion of Videotron subscribers who use Macs. Customer service, technical support and technical quality staff have already received training to enable them to guide customers towards connectivity solutions between Apple/Mac systems and Videotron’s service.

“As the only major Internet Services Provider in its service area to support Apple/Mac users with in-house experts capable of solving Internet-related problems of all kinds on Apple/Mac platforms, we are proud to be able to serve this growing customer group,” said Manon Brouillette, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Content and Product Development.

Supported applications
Forty Videotron customer service employees have received training and are able to advise Apple/Mac users on setting up Mac software such as Apple Mail, browsers and Mac OS 10.x and higher, including Jaguar v10.2, Panther v10.3, Tiger v10.4 and even Leopard v10.5, the release of which was announced in October. Like other Videotron services, this support is available 24/7.

“With the booming popularity of Apple and Mac products today, we are confident that our decision to support these platforms and meet all the needs and challenges involved will have a very positive impact on customer satisfaction,” said Manon Brouillette.

As of January 2008, Videotron will be offering Mac users an Internet kit that has been fully redesigned for Apple/Mac systems, including installation CD, modem box and documentation.

Security on the Mac

Videotron has decided not to offer any security services for Apple/Mac products for now, since Apple/Mac systems have little vulnerability to security threats. However, the growth of Apple’s market share may eventually lead to the introduction of Mac security systems similar to what is available for PCs.

Videotron Ltd. (www.videotron.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Quebecor Media Inc., is an integrated communications company engaged in cable television, interactive multimedia development, Internet access services, cable telephony and wireless telephone service. Videotron is a leader in new technologies with its illico interactive television system and its broadband network, which supports high-speed cable Internet access, analog and digital cable television, and other services. As of September 30, 2007, Videotron was serving 1,616,000 cable television customers in Québec, including 720,000 illico subscribers. Videotron is the Québec leader in high-speed Internet access, with 899,000 subscribers to its cable modem service. As of September 30, 2007, Videotron had activated 39,000 phones on its wireless telephone service and was providing cable telephone service to nearly 574,000 Québec households and organizations.

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What is a wireless spectrum auction?

December 1, 2007 – 2:25 pm | Posted in Business, In the news, My articles, Technology

It’s perhaps notable that two blog posts I’m linking to about the announcement by Industry Canada that part of the wireless spectrum auction will be set aside for new entrants to the market start with the word “finally”.

Though Michael Geist did a good job explaining the issue back in June (certainly better than Industry Canada’s very technical policy framework document), I take a crack at it in today’s Gazette.

In short, it means some wireless frequencies (which cellphones use to communicate with cell towers, and for which wireless providers need licenses from Industry Canada to operate) will be reserved for new companies in the market, like Shaw or Yak or Videotron (which currently re-sells Rogers service under its own brand). This wasn’t the idea of the current oligopoly (Bell, Rogers, Telus) because they say it gives an unfair advantage to newcomers (even though many of their licenses came through similar breaks given to their predecessors).

So now, the only thing standing in the way of at least one new entrant into the business (either regionally or nationally) is the opening bids, which for a high-bandwidth national frequency could reach past $200 million.

Videotron plans to use $500 million to setup a Quebec-wide network (including the cost of the cell site equipment and administrative costs of running an entire wireless network), which might expand to other provinces if successful.

Also included in the decision this week is a requirement for existing cell providers to share tower space with new entrants (which will significantly lower their startup costs) and a requirement to allow roaming (so, for example, new Videotron customers will be able to use their phones outside Quebec with reasonable fees being billed for use of the other company’s network).

Read more of my article here.

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Internet providers have better things to do than monitor my bandwidth

November 28, 2007 – 3:06 pm | Posted in Montreal, Opinion, Slow News Day, Technology

Le Devoir has an article today claiming that Bell and Videotron deliberately ignore unusual increases in clients’ Internet bandwidth usage which might tell them that someone is gaining access to their connection without their knowledge.

The logic is simple: They can see clearly when bandwidth usage goes up, but they don’t warn the customer because they profit heavily off bandwidth overage charges.

Thing is, I’m not terribly convinced that’s the answer.

First of all, there’s an assumption that Internet Service Providers like high-bandwidth users. But they don’t. They hate peer-to-peer networks and other bandwidth-intensive activities. The vast majority of Internet users are well below their monthly quota, and the difference between the two is free bandwidth the companies are not eager to give away. There’s also the problem that a high-bandwidth user will slow the connections of other users on the network.

Secondly, I have no reason not to believe the providers’ PR-clouded appeal to their own laziness. They say they don’t have the resources to check every account for unusual activity (and if they do for one customer, they’ll be expected to do it for all). They’d have to hire tons of new people just to do this (and they won’t, of course; they’ll just pull people off technical and customer service). They’d have to do it on a schedule more often than once a month (because that’s when people are billed for excessive bandwidth use), and that’s really not feasible.

Similarly, the comparison with credit card companies and banks is a bit silly. These organizations deal directly with money, which is very important. You might get charged $30 for maxing out on bandwidth for one month, but it’s hardly the end of the world.

Finally, this isn’t an exact science. An increase in bandwidth usage might mean someone’s stealing your Wi-Fi, or it might mean your grandson is over for the holidays and is playing Halo 3 all day. And how many Wi-Fi leechers really run up the bandwidth meter anyway?

Just my two cents. (That doesn’t put me over the limit, right?)

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Some tales of customer service woe

June 18, 2007 – 1:07 am | Posted in Business

Roberto Rocha’s Your Call is Important to Us series is off to a … start. His blog has received five comments so far, and all but one are about Bell. He even has a cute little video explaining how the series will work for those with ADD who can’t read the article or blog posts.

In honour of the series, here are a couple of tales of my own about recent experiences with customer service:

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