TORONTO – While saying that Rogers Home Phone has had a good first two months in the market (but declining to provide numbers), Rogers Cable president Edward Rogers is still hopeful the company can work with other Canadian MSOs.
During the opening morning of the BMO Nesbitt Burns Media and Telecom conference on Tuesday, Rogers said, “we’re pleased with the results that we’re seeing,” from its telephony launch. Rogers hit the ground running though, with 600,000 or so existing Sprint Canada customers thanks to its purchase of Call Net in June.
“We’re seeing a very healthy response from customers,” he added.
When asked about those Sprint customers who live and work beyond Rogers’ traditional cable territories, the executive said the company is keeping them, but was coy on future plans when it comes to out-of-territory markets.
“Today our answer is that the customers we have out of territory we’re going to keep,” he said.
But, “we continue to talk to cable companies across the country to dream up ways in which we can work together. We try to illustrate the advantages of being a four product player and we know how wireless can help.”
Rogers might have a willing dance partner on wireless in Videotron since, a few speakers later, Quebecor Media president Pierre Francoeur took the stage and said its cable division, Videotron, is looking at the possibility of a white label wireless option (where it would roll out a Videotron-branded wireless service riding on another’s network, like Virgin Mobile rides on Bell Mobility in Canada).
“(Wireless) is something that could be quite interesting,” said Francoeur. “Conceptually, we are looking at the four legs of the table, the quadruple play… for now we have nothing to announce but we are looking at it.”
But don’t expect traditional cable brotherhood to necessarily stand in the way of Rogers’ progress, said Edward Rogers. “We have aspirations to not be just confined to the cable-licensed areas for Home Phone products and high speed data products,” he said.
– Greg O’Brien
