1.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
2.
Ontario
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Ontario, one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada, is located in east-central Canada. It is Canadas most populous province by a margin, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all Canadians. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and it is home to the nations capital city, Ottawa, and the nations most populous city, Toronto. There is only about 1 km of land made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border. Ontario is sometimes divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontarios population and arable land is located in the south, in contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and is heavily forested. The province is named after Lake Ontario, a thought to be derived from Ontarí, io, a Huron word meaning great lake, or possibly skanadario. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes, the province consists of three main geographical regions, The thinly populated Canadian Shield in the northwestern and central portions, which comprises over half the land area of Ontario. Although this area mostly does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals and in part covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, studded with lakes, Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions, Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario. The virtually unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the north and northeast, mainly swampy. Southern Ontario which is further sub-divided into four regions, Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Golden Horseshoe, the highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 metres above sea level located in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands, the Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. A well-known geographic feature is Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Escarpment, the Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies roughly 87 percent of the area of the province. Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario that is the southernmost extent of Canadas mainland, Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend slightly farther. All are south of 42°N – slightly farther south than the border of California. The climate of Ontario varies by season and location, the effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend mainly on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontarios climate is classified as humid continental, Ontario has three main climatic regions
3.
Bell TV
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Bell TV, is the division of BCE Inc. that provides satellite television service across Canada. It launched on September 10,1997 and as of 2004 it has been providing Bell TV for Condos, Bell TV provides over 500 digital video and 100 HD and audio channels to, as of May 2010, over 1.8 million subscribers. Bell TV services are also repackaged and resold by Telus as Telus Satellite TV, high technology development costs and delays placed Tee-Comm in a severe financial position, prompting the remaining partners to pull out in 1996. Instead, U. S. satellite-TV provider Echostar Dish Network was chosen to provide the receivers, the Hughes DirecTV system had already been optioned to Power Broadcasting, in Canada, it has since been withdrawn. ExpressVu launched service in September 1997, initially as Dish Network Canada, followed by ExpressVu Dish Network, Bell took over full ownership of ExpressVu by 2000. The ExpressVu name was retired in August 2008 along with the Today Just Got Better advertising campaign, Bells television services as a whole are now simply called Bell TV. When disambiguation is required, the service is called Bell Satellite TV. Plans have been shelved for any additional ExpressVu satellite expenditures assuming pending CRTC, as a result of this, SES has announced that they will not be replacing the ill-fated AMC-14 now that Dish Network has cut this deal with Telesat & BCE for Nimiq 5 usage. In 2009, Telus reached a deal to resell a re-packaged version of the Bell TV service in parts of Alberta, the Telus-branded service co-exists with the Bell-branded version of Bell TV, which is still offered in the markets that Telus Satellite TV is offered. In 2012, Bell changed satellite plans in Ontario and they are now sold in packages called Good, Better and Best similarly to its competitor Rogers Cable in that region. Channels in the Best tier can still be purchased in theme packages and this also does not affect other regions such as Quebec, where there are different types of plans. Along with these changes, Bell discontinued sales and rentals of its final standard-definition television receiver, customers who still have an older SDTV with an AV input can use an HD receiver, but the quality will be limited to 480i due to technical limitations. Bell TV broadcasts from two satellites, Nimiq 4 and 6. Nimiq 4 was launched on September 19,2008, and Nimiq 6 was launched on May 17,2012, both satellites follow an equatorial path, giving coverage to most of Canada. Nimiq is an Inuktitut word for that which unifies and was chosen from a naming contest in 1998. The two satellites are owned and operated by Telesat Canada, Bells uplink site is located in North York, Toronto, Ontario. Nimiq 4, located at 82° W primarily serves Bell’s high-definition television content, Nimiq 6, located at 91. 1° W primarily serves Bell’s standard-definition television and radio content. Each satellite has 32 Ku-band transponders, a transponder usually has enough bandwidth to broadcast approximately 10 channels
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
Ottawa
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Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It stands on the bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, the two form the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area and the National Capital Region. The 2016 census reported a population of 934,243, making it the fourth-largest city in Canada, the City of Ottawa reported that the city had an estimated population of 960,754 as of December 2015. Founded in 1826 as Bytown, and incorporated as Ottawa in 1855, the city name Ottawa was chosen in reference to the Ottawa River nearby, the name of which is derived from the Algonquin Odawa, meaning to trade. The city is the most educated in Canada, and is home to a number of post-secondary, research, and cultural institutions, including the National Arts Centre, Ottawa also has the highest standard of living in the nation and low unemployment. It ranked second out of 150 worldwide in the Numbeo quality of life index 2014–2015, with the draining of the Champlain Sea around ten thousand years ago the Ottawa Valley became habitable. The area was used for wild harvesting, hunting, fishing, trade, travel. The Ottawa river valley has archaeological sites with arrow heads, pottery, the area has three major rivers that meet, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years. The Algonquins called the Ottawa River Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning Great River or Grand River, Étienne Brûlé, the first European to travel up the Ottawa River, passed by Ottawa in 1610 on his way to the Great Lakes. Three years later, Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls of the area and about his encounters with the Algonquins, the early explorers and traders were later followed by many missionaries. The first maps of the area used the word Ottawa to name the river, philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first settlement in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from Ottawa in Hull. He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, set about to create a community called Wrightsville. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City, the following year, the town would soon be named after British military engineer Colonel John By who was responsible for the entire Rideau Waterway construction project. Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of todays Parliament Hill and he also laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighbourhoods named Upper Town west of the canal and Lower Town east of the canal. Similar to its Upper Canada and Lower Canada namesakes, historically Upper Town was predominantly English speaking and Protestant whereas Lower Town was predominantly French, Irish, bytowns population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was being completed in 1832. In 1855 Bytown was renamed Ottawa and incorporated as a city, William Pittman Lett was installed as the first city clerk guiding it through 36 years of development. On New Years Eve 1857, Queen Victoria, as a symbolic, in reality, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had assigned this selection process to the Executive Branch of the Government, as previous attempts to arrive at a consensus had ended in deadlock
6.
Shaw Communications
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Shaw Communications Inc. is a Canadian telecommunications company that provides telephone, Internet, television, and mobile services all backed by a fibre optic network. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Shaw provides services mostly in British Columbia and Alberta, with systems in Saskatchewan, Manitoba. Through its subsidiary Freedom Mobile, Shaw provides mobile services in areas of British Columbia, Alberta. The companys chief competitor is Telus Communications, Shaw was founded as Capital Cable Television Company, Ltd. in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1966. The company changed its name to Shaw Cablesystems Ltd. and went public on the TSX in 1983, however, two swaps, in 1994 and 2001, with Rogers Cable have resulted in its assets being restricted to Western Canada and a few areas of Northern Ontario. In 1999, Shaw spun out its media properties into a second publicly-traded company, in February 2003, the Florida systems would be sold to Time Warner Cable, while the Texas systems were sold to Cequel III, as part of its then-Cebridge Connections subsidiary. In 2008, Shaw entered the AWS spectrum auction with the intention of becoming a wireless phone provider. The auction ended July 2008, giving Shaw Communications enough spectrum to build a network in its home provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. This spectrum ultimately went unused and was sold to Rogers Communications in January 2013, in July 2009, Shaw announced its acquisition of Mountain Cablevision, in September, Rogers sued Shaw to block the sale, citing violations of a non-compete clause. However, the suit was dismissed by the Ontario Superior Court. The purchase was approved by the CRTC on October 22,2009, the acquisition was Shaws first cable property east of Sault Ste. Marie since the 2001 swaps with Rogers and Cogeco, on April 30,2009, Shaw announced a deal to acquire three television stations — CHWI-TV in Windsor, Ontario, CKNX-TV in Wingham, Ontario and CKX-TV in Brandon, Manitoba — from CTVglobemedia. However, it was reported on June 30,2009 that Shaw has backed out of the deal and is declining to complete the purchase. CHWI-TV would remain on the air as is, CKNX-TV would become a repeater of London station CFPL-TV in September 2009, canwests newspapers were not part of the Shaw deal and were sold separately to Postmedia Network. The acquisition was completed on October 27,2010, after CRTC approval for the sale was announced on October 22, the campaign was designed by the Vancouver-based agency Rethink, who were also responsible for Bell Canadas beaver characters Frank and Gordon. In April 2013, Shaw Business Solutions took over Enmaxs Envision subsidiary, the acquisition was completed for $225 Million. In 2014, Shaw partnered with Rogers Communications to launch Shomi,1,600 of Shaws 14,000 employees were affected by the consolidation and cuts. In 2013, Shaw attempted to begin developing an IPTV-based platform for its television services, however, after experiencing issues developing the platform, Shaw took a $55 million write-down in June 2015, and announced that it was licensing Comcasts cloud-based X1 architecture
7.
Penthouse (magazine)
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Penthouse, an iconic mens magazine founded by Italo-American Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, temporarily evolved into hardcore. Penthouse has been owned by Penthouse Global Media Inc. since 2016, although Guccione was American, the magazine was founded in 1965, in the United Kingdom, but beginning in September 1969, was sold in the United States as well. At the height of his success, Guccione, who died in 2010, was considered to be one of the richest men in the United States and he was once listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people. The Penthouse logo is a key which incorporates both the Mars and Venus symbols in its design. The magazines centerfold models are known as Penthouse Pets and customarily wear a distinctive necklace inspired by said logo, Penthouse magazine began publication in 1965, in the UK and in North America in 1969, an attempt to compete with Hugh Hefners Playboy. The magazine was founded on humble beginnings, due to Gucciones lack of resources, he personally photographed most of the models for the magazines early issues. Guccione would sometimes take several days to complete a shoot, as the magazine grew more successful, Guccione openly embraced a life of luxury, his former mansion is said to be the largest private residence in Manhattan at 22,000 square feet. However, in contrast to Hugh Hefner, who threw wild parties at his Playboy Mansions, life at Gucciones mansion was remarkably sedate and he reportedly once had his bodyguards eject a local radio personality who had been hired as a DJ and jumped into the swimming pool naked. Penthouse has also, over the years, featured a number of authorized and unauthorized photos of such as Madonna. In both cases, the photos were taken earlier in their careers and sold to Penthouse only after Madonna, in the late 1990s, the magazine began to show more fetish content such as urination, bondage and facials. On January 15,2016, a press release emanating from then owner FriendFinder Networks announced that Penthouse would shutter its print operations, however, managing director Kelly Holland quickly disavowed the decision and pledged to keep the print version of the magazine alive. In 1982, Guccione was listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people, with a reported $400 million net worth. An April 2002 New York Times article quoted Guccione as saying that Penthouse grossed $3.5 billion to $4 billion over the 30-year life of the company, with a net income of almost $500 million. While these titles were successful, it is reported that the science and health magazines Omni and Longevity cost Penthouse almost $100 million. On August 12,2003, General Media, the parent company of the magazine, immediately upon filing, Cerberus Capital Management entered into a $5 million debtor-in-possession credit line with General Media to provide General Media working capital. In October 2003, it was announced that Penthouse magazine was being put up for sale as part of a deal with its creditors, on November 13,2004, Guccione resigned as Chairman and CEO of Penthouse International, the parent of General Media. Penthouse filed for protection on September 17,2013. The magazines owner FriendFinder’s current common stock was wiped out and was no longer traded on the open market, in August 2013, FriendFinder’s stock was delisted from Nasdaq because it consistently failed to trade for more than $1
8.
Rogers Cable
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In 1980, Rogers purchased Premier Cable, which controlled the system in Vancouver, parts of Ontario, and had investments in Irish cable companies in Dublin, Galway and Waterford. In 1986 Rogers sold their shares of Irish companies to the Irish state broadcaster and state telecoms company, these cable companies are now part of the UPC Ireland network. In 1981, Rogers entered the U. S. cable market, obtaining franchises in Orange County, California, Minneapolis, and Portland, Oregon, and purchased the cable system in San Antonio. These assets were acquired by Paragon Cable in 1989 for over US$1 billion, Paragon in turn was acquired by Time Warner Cable several years later. Rogers continued to buy other operators, the largest such acquisition came with Rogers 1994 acquisition of Maclean-Hunter, through its acquisition of Maclean-Hunter, Rogers has also briefly owned cable systems in the United States, which it promptly sold to Comcast in 1994. In March 2000, Rogers agreed to swap systems with Shaw Communications, exchanging its systems in British Columbia for Shaw systems in Quebec, the deals gave Rogers and Shaw more consistent service footprints in Eastern and Western Canada respectively. In 2008, Rogers announced an offer for Aurora Cable. Shaw argued that the agreement violated unfair competition laws, the suit was quickly thrown out by the Ontario Superior Court, arguing that the non-compete agreement limited competition, and that Rogers claims of future harm were speculative in the extreme. The sale would go through. In January 2013, as part of an exchange of assets between the two companies, Shaw pulled out of Hamilton and sold the Mountain Cablevision business to Rogers. In October 2015, Rogers announced that it would begin to offer 4K-compatible set-top boxes, beginning in Toronto, telecasts of 4K sporting events from Sportsnet and TSN began to be carried on these set-top boxes in January 2016. With the Rogers takeover of Aurora Cable Internet, Aurora, Ontario, over the years, and at various times, Rogers has owned all or part of various cable operators serving areas across Canada, including Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, and Northern Ontario. All of the systems in Western Canada were traded to Shaw Communications in late 2000, in exchange for that companys assets in Ontario and New Brunswick, and many of the others were sold to Cogeco. Through Rogers Cable, Rogers is the largest shareholder in CPAC, a public affairs and politics cable channel based in Ottawa. CPACs main programming consists of live and delayed coverage of the House of Commons, Rogers Cable previously operated a chain of video rental stores known as Rogers Plus, it launched as Rogers Video in 1988, after which it grew by acquiring smaller chains. The Rogers Video chain and Rogers Wireless retail stores were merged into a chain known as Rogers Plus in 2007. After 23 years in business, Rogers Plus discontinued movie and game rentals in 2011, in the beginning of 1995, Rogers along with several other cable companies, added a number of new cable channels under a negative option billing plan. Subscribers opting out of paying for the new channels stood to lose much of their existing specialty channel programming, a representative for Rogers said that they were replacing WQLN and WPBS for WTVS, as viewers wanted a feed that has a higher-quality reception
9.
Shaw Direct
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Shaw Direct is a direct broadcast satellite television distributor in Canada. Known for their direct broadcasting by satellite distribution, it is majority-owned by cable TV operator Shaw Communications Inc, as of 2010, Shaw Direct had over 900,000 subscribers. The company was known as Star Choice until April 15,2009. A full list of channels carried by these three satellites is available from satellite-related sites such as Lyngsat, Anik F1 carries most mainstream English-language programming, Anik F2 programming includes French-language and HDTV broadcasts. A third planned satellite, Anik G1, was launched on April 15,2013 and this new satellite provides Shaw Direct customers with access to over 210 HD channels, beating out rival competitor Bell TV as having the most HD channels in Canada. Shaw Direct began in Lincoln, New Brunswick, but is now based in Calgary and its broadcast centre is in Mississauga, Ontario, and has call centres in Victoria, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Montreal. March 1997, Opened first customer care centre, march 1997, Activated their first customer, Archie Gray, who purchased a receiver for $999 with 100 digital channels when he purchased $400 worth of programming. September 1997, Added Shaw PPV to their lineup, September 1999, Added 60 new channels to their lineup. January 2000, Launched HDTV programming with the broadcast of Super Bowl XXXIV, August 2000, Privatized by Shaw Communications Inc. through its acquisition of Cancom. April 2001, Activated both Anik F1 and Anik E2 satellites, becoming the first Canadian provider to broadcast services from two satellites simultaneously, march 2002, Moved its head office from Lincoln, New Brunswick to Calgary, Alberta. May 2002, Sold its one millionth receiver, August 2003, Launched its first fully integrated High Definition receiver, the Motorola DSR500 HD. September 2003, WTSN was dropped from lineup because of the channels demise, february 2004, Added 16 additional standard-definition channels to their lineup, which is also including 2 high-definition ones. July 2004, Announced the expansion of new channels as a result of the launch of the Anik F2 satellite, may 2005, Launched the dual tuner High Definition Digital Video Recorder. November 2005, TCM is introduced to the Canadian market for the first time, September 1,2006, AMC and Teletoon are introduced to the Canadian market for the first time. October 2006, A&E HD, Discovery HD and SRC HD launch on October 12,2006, Super Écran HD launches October 30,2006, bringing the total amount of free HD channels to 15. December 2006, Showcase HD and National Geographic Channel HD launch on December 19,2006 bringing the amount of free HD channels to 17. January 2007, Launched the DSR317 receiver, featuring a faster processor than previous Standard Definition receivers, Super station WGN was swapped for the local Chicago feed on January 17,2007. February 2007, Launched the DSR207 receiver, featuring a faster processor than previous Standard Definition receivers, march 2007, Star Choice announces the addition of GOL-TV, WFN, WGN HD and HD Net
10.
Bell MTS
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Bell MTS is a subsidiary of BCE Inc. that operates telecommunications services in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The companys head office is located in MTS Place on Main Street, in Downtown Winnipeg, MTS is the descendant company of Manitoba Government Telephones, which went into operation in January 1908 after the government of Manitoba bought Bell Canadas Manitoba operations. The Crown corporation became Manitoba Telephone System in 1921, and eventually absorbed all private telephone operations in the province, in 1996, the Provincial government of Premier Gary Filmon decided to sell the Manitoba Telephone System to private shareholders. The decision to privatize was seen as controversial, as it marked a significant departure from the Progressive Conservatives earlier position that MTS should remain provincially owned, on March 17,2017, Bell re-gained control of MTS after closing its $3.9 billion acquisition of the provider. As part of the sale, Bell promised that it would invest $1 billion over the five years into upgrading the MTS infrastructure to support new. For regulatory reasons, Bell will divest approximately a third of MTSs wireless business to Telus, under Bell ownership, Bell MTS will serve as the headquarters of Bells telecom businesses in Western Canada. At midnight on June 21,1959, Winnipeg was the first urban area in North America to implement the 9-9-9 emergency telephone number, also in the late 1950s, MTS located one of its administrative offices on Empress St. near the newly opened Polo Park Shopping Centre complex. In 2001 these employees were moved to 333 Main St. commonly known as MTS Place and this formed part of the Provinces Downtown First strategy. In the Spring of 1979, MTS announced that it would be a pioneer in Telidon-based two-way electronic information services, the trial was called Project IDA and ran from 1980 to 1981. MTS was a pioneer in offering videotex at the commercial level, in 1981, it partnered with Infomart to create the Grassroots service, providing information relevant to farmers on the Canadian prairies. Customers paid $47.50 per month to subscribe to Grassroots, terminal equipment was manufactured by Norpak. In the mid-1980s, MTS started a subsidiary known as MTX, however MTX was forced to shut down after controversy about the company back in Manitoba after MTX lost $27 million on the venture. In the late 1980s MTS launched MTS Mobility providing cellular and paging services in Manitoba, in 1996 in a controversial decision, the Provincial government decided to sell the Manitoba Telephone System to private shareholders. The vote to privatize MTS was held in early December 1996, as part of the deal, Bell Canada gained 20% ownership of MTS. They set up a jointly operated office in Calgary, by the summer of 1999, fibre optic cable had been laid in Edmonton and Calgary, and later extended to Vancouver. In August 1999 MTS completed work on a new trunked radio system known as FleetNet 800, in the Fall of 1999 MTS began to offer DSL high-speed Internet service in Winnipeg and Brandon, which later expanded to other areas of the province. The CRTC met with the various telecommunications providers in Canada and required of them to implement a Service Improvement Plan and this meant that MTS had to improve service to northern remote areas that even by the 21st century had poor quality phone service. Customers in northern Manitoba complained that the system could not handle data communications well
11.
The Movie Network
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The Movie Network is a Canadian English language Category A premium cable and satellite television channel that is owned by Bell Media. Launched in 1983 as the national service First Choice, an industry restructuring led to its operations being restricted to Eastern Canada from 1984 to 2016 and it resumed national operations in March 2016, when it replaced the similar Movie Central service in Western and Northern Canada. In 1976, Communications Minister Jeanne Sauvé was quoted as saying pay television is inevitable, the Saskatchewan government together with Cable Regina set up a provincial pay television network called Teletheatre in 1979. In September 1981, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission held a hearing in Hull, there were more than 24 applicants to start such services. AGF Management Ltd. and Manufacturers Life Insurance Co, together, they had $19 million in equity financing and proposed to spend $310.4 million over five years on Canadian television production. Estimated profit would be $3.1 million, a pay television licence was issued by the CRTC to First Choice Canadian Communications Corp. on March 18,1982.50 each month. However, by the time the channel launched, and providers received their revenue from the pay television services, the retail cost of First Choice jumped significantly to $15.95. When First Choice, as TMN was then known as, was launched on February 1,1983, it operated as a premium service. These programs were followed by first movie ever to be broadcast on First Choice, pacific Time that day, First Choice aired Star Wars and continued to replay the film every other day for eight hours. Before the advent of television and home theatre systems, subscribers who paid for cable FM service could receive a stereo feed of First Choice. The channels first president was Donald MacPherson, who departed in 1984 and was succeeded by Harold Greenberg, during its first year, First Choice aired a two-hour block of programming from the American adult-oriented pay service The Playboy Channel as part of a late night programming block on Fridays. The broadcast of these softcore pornographic programs resulted in opposition from many domestic feminist groups, both services used the First Choice-Superchannel name from 1984 to 1988, before they were split again in September 1988. Beginning in 1984, First Choice also made use of the slogan The Movie Network, in 1993, First Choice and Super Écran was acquired by Astral Communications. First Choice was originally granted a licence, it also operated a 24-hour French-language channel under the same licence. In early 1984, that service was merged with another Quebec-based pay-television network, TVEC, to form Super Écran, on October 1,1994, The Movie Network launched a companion film service, TMN Moviepix. On March 4,2013, the Competition Bureau approved the takeover of Astral Media by Bell Media. To that end, Corus reached an agreement with Bell through which TMN became a service once again on March 1,2016. TMN Encore also expanded nationally for the first time, and Bell took over operation of HBO Canada
12.
IPTV
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Unlike downloaded media, IPTV offers the ability to stream the source media continuously. As a result, a client media player can begin playing the data almost immediately and this is known as streaming media. Although IPTV uses the Internet protocol it is not limited to television media streamed from the Internet, IPTV in the telecommunications arena is notable for its ongoing standardisation process. Historically, many different definitions of IPTV have appeared, including elementary streams over IP networks, transport streams over IP networks and these services may include, for example, Live TV, Video On Demand and Interactive TV. These services are delivered across an access agnostic, packet switched network that employs the IP protocol to transport the audio, video, the term IPTV first appeared in 1995 with the founding of Precept Software by Judith Estrin and Bill Carrico. Precept developed an Internet video product named IP/TV, the software was written primarily by Steve Casner, Karl Auerbach, and Cha Chee Kuan. Precept was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1998, Internet radio company AudioNet started the first continuous live webcasts with content from WFAA-TV in January 1998 and KCTU-LP on January 10,1998. The operator added additional VoD service in October 2001 with Yes TV, kingston was one of the first companies in the world to introduce IPTV and IP VoD over ADSL as a commercial service. The service became the reference for various changes to UK Government regulations, in 2006, the KIT service was discontinued, subscribers having declined from a peak of 10,000 to 4,000. In 1999, NBTel was the first to commercially deploy Internet protocol television over DSL in Canada using the Alcatel 7350 DSLAM, the service was marketed under the brand VibeVision in New Brunswick, and later expanded into Nova Scotia in early 2000 after the formation of Aliant. IMagic TV was later sold to Alcatel, in 2002, Sasktel was the second in Canada to commercially deploy Internet Protocol video over DSL, using the Lucent Stinger DSL platform. In 2005, SureWest Communications was the first North American company to offer high-definition television channels over an IPTV service, in 2005, Bredbandsbolaget launched its IPTV service as the first service provider in Sweden. As of January 2009, they are not the biggest supplier any longer, TeliaSonera, in 2007, TPG became the first internet service provider in Australia to launch IPTV. Complementary to its ADSL2+ package this was, and still is, free of charge to customers on eligible plans and now offers over 45 local free to air channels, by 2010, iiNet and Telstra launched IPTV services in conjunction to internet plans but with extra fees. In 2008, PTCL launched IPTV under the name of PTCL Smart TV in Pakistan. S. Markets with an IPTV service called Prism and this was after successful test marketing in Florida. During the 2014 Winter Olympics Shortest path bridging was used to deliver 36 IPTV HD Olympic channels, in 2016, KCTV introduced the Set-top box called Manbang, claiming to provide video-on-demand services in North Korea via quasi-internet protocol television. According to KCTV, viewers can use the service not only in Pyongyang, stating that the demands for the equipment are particularly high in Sinuiju, with several hundred users in the region
