HALIFAX – Costs associated with the expansion of Bell Aliant’s fibre-to-the-home network (FTTH) FibreOp ate in to second quarter profits at the Halifax-based regional telco.
Bell Aliant reported net earnings of $79 million for the quarter ended June 30, down from $83 million in the same quarter of 2011.
Operating revenues dipped 0.7% to $688 million, as declines in local and long distance revenues driven by lower network access services (NAS) were largely offset by growth in all other major revenue categories, led by TV and Internet. EBITDA fell 1.1% to $330 million from $334 million in the same period last year as productivity gains and reductions in equity-based compensation expenses offset growth in TV content costs from higher FibreOp TV sales and other costs of revenues.
Bell Aliant passed an additional 58,000 homes and businesses with FTTH, bringing its total FTTH coverage to 574,000 premises at quarter end.
Overall net high-speed Internet customer additions were 4,300, bringing total high-speed Internet customers to 906,200 up 2.6% from a year earlier. Net IPTV customer additions were 10,200 this quarter, and the company ended the quarter with a total of 95,100 IPTV customers.
“I am particularly pleased with our performance in our fibre-to-the-home markets, where we continued to see strong growth in TV and Internet revenues, along with improved retention of our traditional voice business”, said president and CEO Karen Sheriff, in a statement. "As we have stated many times before, growing FibreOp is the key to returning our overall revenue and profitability to positive growth.”
