AYLMER, Ont. – Amtelecom Cable purchased three rural cable systems this week on the Bruce Peninsula.
The systems serve the communities of Oliphant, Shallow Lake, Hepworth and Tobermory – all of which fall within the incumbent local telephone serving area of Amtelecom.
The systems – serving approximately 230 customers – were owned and operated by Cable 1, a small outfit based in Oakville, Ont., run by Frank Chapple. Amtelecom purchased them from a bankruptcy trustee. The purchase price was not disclosed.
"Amtelecom’s longer term goal is to provide a comprehensive bundle of voice, video and data services in each of our markets. The acquisition being announced today represents another step towards achieving this objective,” said Amtelecom president and CEO Michael Andrews. “Our new Bruce Peninsula cable customers will see the benefits of this transaction almost immediately including an enhanced channel line-up and a better overall quality of customer service.
“Customers are already starting to see a difference in their service. We have added a community message service along with our long distance and dial-up Internet bundles.
Amtelecom will invest $1.2 million in the Grey Bruce region over the next 12 months to improve signal quality and to interconnect the cable systems with fibre optics allowing for the introduction of an expanded channel lineup and other new services.
Amtelecom also is currently adding one of Canada’s most popular specialty service, the Weather Network, to the systems and in the near future will provide a much broader range of specialty networks, says the company.
Amtelecom – wholly owned by Amtelecom Income Fund – is the incumbent local telephone service provider to several communities in southwestern and central Ontario including the Northern Bruce Peninsula, and currently provides services through approximately 21,700 residential and business telephone lines. Amtelecom also provides cable television services to approximately 9,000 subscribers as well as speed and dial-up Internet services to approximately 7,000 customers
