TORONTO – Trust Ted Rogers to have a sense of history.
Twenty years to the day after his company (which employs a corporate historian) launched wireless telephony in Canada through Rogers Cantel with a phone call between then-Toronto mayor Art Eggleton and then-Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau, Rogers Communications is officially getting into the wired voice business through voice over Internet protocol and plain old circuit-switched telephony on Friday, July 1st.
But, it’s nothing like the launch of Cantel, or Rogers’ earlier wired telephony attempt, Unitel. The company hits the ground not only running, but in a leadership position. The combination of Rogers Wireless and Sprint Canada (the deal recently announced by RCI to acquire Call-Net, Sprint Canada’s parent company was approved by 95% of Call-Net shareholders today) and now Rogers Cable Telephony means over 6 million Canadians are already getting voice service from Rogers.
In advance of its annual shareholder meeting today, Rogers made official what had become the worst-kept secret in Canadian telephony – that on July 1, 2005 it would begin introducing its Rogers Home Phone cable telephony local service offering in the Greater Toronto Area.
"It’s fitting that this tremendous expansion of our telephony offerings will occur on July 1st to coincide with Canada Day celebrations and to also coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the launch of our extremely successful wireless telephony service," said Ted Rogers, president and CEO, Rogers Communications Inc. "Millions of consumers now rely on Rogers for all of their television and Internet, as well as wireless, local and long-distance communications services, and can count on Rogers to continue its strong tradition of introducing innovative offerings that add value to their lives."
The Rogers Home Phone service will be rolled out across Rogers’ other cable areas over the coming months. The fully-featured cable telephone service allows consumers who switch their telephone service to Rogers to keep their existing phone numbers and receive popular calling features such as enhanced 911 emergency service, directory assistance, voicemail, call display, call waiting, as well as new services which will be launched in the coming months.
Beyond Rogers’ cable footprint, the existing Sprint brand will be discontinued in favor of Rogers as the company intends to build on the existing base of 600,000 customers.
Rogers does intend to compete in other cable areas as well in Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal, saying there’s room in every market for more competition. But that doesn’t preclude RCI from working with other MSOs when it comes to extending their bundles.
“We are in active discussions with the oher cable companies in talking to them about bundling our wireless with their products. I think that would be more or less white label, meaning their brand,” he said, such as Virgin Mobile in Canada is simply a branding exercise on the Bell Mobility network.
“We have the Shaw satellite service which competes with us (in video) and that does not preclude us from working intimately with Shaw on co-operative measures.”
Getting back to Rogers’ telephony introduction, the company will take is easy on its cable systems. “We will be prudently increasing our installs over our cable network. Any excess over that prudent increase, will go on to the Sprint Network,” explained Mr. Rogers at today’s press briefing. “We should be able to avoid long lineups and things of that nature.”
The pricing for the Rogers Home Phone service will mirror the current pricing of Sprint Canada’s local telephone and long distance service offerings. In addition, customers will be able to enjoy a discount, by bundling Rogers Home Phone Service with other Rogers’ cable, Internet and wireless services for a two year commitment.
Pricing for Rogers Home Phone begins at a basic $25.46 plus long distance for customers already in another Rogers bundle, increasing to $29.95 for the basic stand-alone product. The plan prices grow with the addition of features to the Ultimate Plan for $41.95 a month.
Sprint currently has a number of long distance packages, which Rogers will be keeping.
As for next July 1st? Look to that day as the launch for Rogers’ planned wired/wireless telephone. When asked when such a product will be mass-marketable, Mr. Rogers said: “I’m an optimist always and it’s next July 1st. My target was this July 1st, so it shows you how far behind we are, but the world is behind too.”
“We want to get the standards first. We are working with British Telecom and (RCI’s VP Business Development, Technology) Alexander Brock is vice-chairman of a world group who are forming the standards. I’m hopeful that will be done and the manufacturers will be ready to go for next July 1."
