MONTREAL – While reporting a quadrupling of third quarter net income to $8.2 million Cogeco Cable, the country’s fourth-largest MSO, said the number of telephone customers it has predicted adding is likely conservative.
The company has only been in market with a voice over Internet protocol service since June 8th (and only in some of its markets – Oakville-Burlington launched June 8th, Trois Rivieres three weeks later) and company CEO Louis Audet declined to give any early signup data. However, it has told analysts this year it expected to connect 7,000 to 8,000 telephony customers by the end of…
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OTTAWA – Three days before the two sides were to face the CRTC, OUTtv and Shaw Communications have settled their disagreement.
The deal means that gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered lifestyle channel OUTtv will be re-packaged on Shaw Cable and Star Choice. OUTtv objected to the way it was being packaged as a stand-alone service, contrary to its rights as a category one digital channel as a must-carry.
Shaw and OUTtv were to face the CRTC for one more ruling on Friday but the channel withdrew the complaint after the two sides came to an agreement last Tuesday. “The Shaw…
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TORONTO – Call it the churn-buster
Subscription video on demand has, by all measures, been a stunning success for Astral Television, says the company’s senior vice-president of sales and marketing Domenic Vivolo (pictured). Usage rates, except in Quebec, have been extraordinarily high as people can thumb through and watch almost everything available that month from TMN and its multiplexes whenever they want, through TMN On Demand.
In the French market, though, Super Ecran does not fare nearly as well, for reasons you’ll read below.
However, with usage rates among TMN subscribers at 70% and pushing three million views per…
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THE VOIP REVOLUTION could end with a single phone call.
No, not by a call from the CRTC deregulating the incumbent telcos, but by one dropped 9-1-1 call.
I’ve often wondered why, since the launch of VOIP, the newcomers came to market without 9-1-1 service. When Primus and Vonage and others began, buried in their marketing materials in teeny type, were notes mentioning their service can’t offer some of the basics people have come to expect, like, oh, 9-1-1.
While they’ve since moved to offer the emergency calling feature, I thought its absence was unconscionable at launch.
Personally, if I’m…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable launched its voice over Internet protocol service in its Quebec territories today.
This launch follows the introduction, on June 8, of the same service in the Burlington and Oakville areas, in Ontario.
Cogeco Cable’s High-Speed Internet (HSI) customers in Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières Ouest and Pointe-du-lac can subscribe starting today. Service will then be extended progressively to most cities in Cogeco Cable’s territories by December 2006.
Cogeco’s digital telephone service package includes unlimited calling in Canada and the continental United States, five key calling features, as well as basic operator assistance and information services.
The company’s Québec-based…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable’s unionized Quebec workers have voted to ratify a pair of collective agreements, the company announced today.
The two collective agreements, expired on December 31st, 2002, have been renewed until December 31st, 2008. They provide for a 2% lump sum to be paid upon signature of the agreement and for a pay increase of 2% annually, for 2005 through 2008 inclusively.
The union and company had an agreement in principle completed on June 1st.
On the operational front, these new agreements will allow Cogeco Cable to improve its operational flexibility, facilitate personnel mobility and make recourse…
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SAN ANTONIO – Buzz continued to centre around digital simulcast on day two – another crowded day on the floor of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Cable-Tec Expo.
But, not all is about scraping bandwidth together with grooming and trans-rating. Some companies had other focuses, other ideas.
Here’s what we saw and heard: ************** Terayon Communications today announced that Cogeco Cable has deployed the Terayon DM 6400 Network CherryPicker platform to power the deployment of all-digital programming. Cogeco is currently simulcasting its channel lineups in southern Ontario.
Cogeco’s deployment leverages the same digital video networking capabilities that have…
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SAN ANTONIO – There were no official numbers at press time but boy, it sure seems real crowded here at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo – a good thing for the vendors, who filled every open space this year.
Here’s a bit of what www.cartt.ca heard and saw today. ************** This morning’s CTO session was interesting on a number of levels. The panelists were Tony Werner, senior vice-president and CTO Liberty Media, (and also a former Rogers CTO), Mike Hayashi, senior v-p advance engineering and subscriber technology at Time Warner Cable, Paul Woidke, vice-president technology for Comcast Spotlight, and…
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TORONTO – It’s been a year of enormous growth for The Movie Network on demand, the company announced today.
In its inaugural year just completed, TMNOD has proven widely successful, recording exceptional ratings in both subscriber adoption and satisfaction, exceeding all expectations, says the press release.
The service lets existing TMN subscribers view most of the pay service’s content whenever they like, at no additional charge. The earnings, for the service and the cable operator, come via the “significant decline in our churn rate,” said Domenic Vivolo, senior vice-president, marketing and sales, Astral Television Networks.
"We are delighted with…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable today made official its launch of voice over Internet telephony in many of its major service areas.
Over the last year, Cogeco Cable has successfully tested its new digital telephone service in the Trois-Rivières area in Québec and in the Burlington/Oakville Ontario corridor.
These conclusive trials, as well as the market studies conducted at the same time, have helped to better pinpoint the services and functions that customers want, says the company.
In 2001, Cogeco abandoned testing it was doing in the telephony space after spending about $25 million, saying it would wait for the…
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