TORONTO – Saying (many, many, times) that the company is “rebuilding Bell” or moving towards “the new Bell”, Bell Canada Enterprises senior management made a number of announcements this morning that will be hard on workers and customers.
CEO Michael Sabia told those in attendance at this morning’s company “Business Review” 2006 investors day that the company intends to cut between 3,000 and 4,000 people from its work force “primarily through attrition,” he said. This will lead to savings of around $2 billion between now and the end of 2007\ he said.
Newly minted Bell COO George Cope (who was careful only to speak of wireless in general terms, since the former Telus Mobility CEO’s non-compete agreement with his former employer doesn’t end until October 19, 2006) talked about profitable growth and laid out plans for price increases which will happen by the second half of 2006.
The company plans to add a million more subscribers in its growth products (video, high speed Internet and wireless) through 2006, but existing subscribers will feel some pain.
The company plans to increase the Bell ExpressVu system access fee from $2.99 a month to $5.99 a month, boost the monthly charge for Bell Sympatico high speed from $44.95 a month to $46.95 and raise its long distance network charge from $2.95 a month to $4.50 a month.
Bell Mobility president Robert Odendaal also added in his presentation that certain wireless fee increases will happen in 2006, but he wasn’t as specific as Cope.
