By Ahmad Hathout
Bell CEO Mirko Bibic said Thursday that the company could’ve driven more fibre through its footprint beyond its target plan for the year but slowed down because of regulatory uncertainty related to fibre and wholesale access decisions still in front of the CRTC.
“We got a head start in the first six months of this year on our fibre build and we’re well on track to hitting the targets that we had established for ourselves for 2023,” Bibic said during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call Thursday morning.
“In fact, we had some wiggle room there given that we had such a head start,” he added. “We could’ve kept going and actually built more than what was in our target plan for 2023, but we decided not to because of the regulatory uncertainty that’s out there. If the decision isn’t favourable from a fibre perspective or from a wholesale access perspective, you’re going to see us slow down the build as early as next year,” Bibic added.
“It’s as simple as that.”
The CRTC has taken the preliminary view that third-party competitors should have mandatory access to the last-mile fibre network of the large players, but has yet to pull the trigger on a decision in the matter.
Bibic has repeatedly alleged the CRTC’s preliminary take is based on an erroneous accounting of the extent of existing fibre builds. Bell said it still has at least 5 million households to which it must connect directly to fibre cable; Telus has said that even if it completes its fibre buildout, it needs time to recover its costs, with mandatory competitor access undercutting that.
Bibic said allowing the telco to drive fibre without regulatory inference will generate competition because it will force cable companies to accelerate their own fibre network builds.
“You see the results – when we enter, the customer gets better service, better value, lower prices, and that’s what’s been put at stake with the conversation we’re generally having in the regulator proceedings about TPIA access,” Bibic said, saying pure fibre is more competitive than the cableco’s DOCSIS hybrid networks.
Bell reported a 0.9 per cent increase in revenue for the third quarter to $6.08 billion, with increased revenues from the wireless and internet service segments and declines in product revenue and the media division suffering from the advertising recession.
Net earnings declined 8.3 per cent to $707 million due to higher interest and income taxes and increased depreciation and amortization expense.
The telecom saw overall gross additions to its mobile wireless postpaid subscriber base of 8.2 per cent to 423,364, but saw a decline in net new postpaid subscribers compared to the same quarter last year. Whereas it had 167,798 new subscribers last third quarter, this quarter it only added 142,886.
The total postpaid subscriber base at the end of the quarter was 10.2 million, up 3.8 per cent from last year.
On prepaid, the company added fewer gross additions at 180,406 compared to 192,535 last year. It added 24,044 net new prepaid customers this quarter, less than half of the 56,545 it added last year.
The total prepaid subscriber base at the end of the quarter was 900,846.
Postpaid churn – the rate of customer defections – was 1.10 per cent for the quarter, higher than the 0.90 per cent last year. On prepaid, it was higher at 5.10 per cent compared to the 4.58 per cent last year.
The company added 79,327 net new internet subscribers this quarter, 11.5 per cent fewer than the 89,652 it added last year. But it increased its internet base by 8.6 per cent to 4.4 million compared to last year.
Net new retail television additions were dramatically fewer this quarter, at 4,222 compared to the 10,853 last year, a decline of 61.1 per cent. The company added 35,976 new IPTV subscribers, 5.6 per cent lower than last year. It lost 31,754 satellite TV subscribers this quarter, 16.6 per cent more than last year.
It’s total TV base, including both IPTV and satellite, sat at a slight 0.3 per cent loss to 2.73 million.
Bell Media saw a slight 1.3 per cent loss in revenue for a total of $710 million by the quarter’s end. Bibic said this was a relative success considering the difficulties in the media industry right now.
The company announced the proposed acquisition of out-of-home media business Outfront Media earlier this month.
Sean Cohan took over leadership of Bell Media Thursday following the retirement of Wade Oosterman.
Screenshot of Bell CEO Mirko Bibic at an investor conference.
