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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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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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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MONTREAL – Canada’s fourth-largest cable operator, Cogeco Cable, will announce details of its impending launch of voice over Internet protocol telephony this morning.
The company has been testing and quietly launching some customers in the Oakville-Burlington corridor recently but will offer more details this morning.
Surf back to www.cartt.ca later today to read more once the information becomes available.
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BURLINGTON – Today, on Festa Della Republica, the Italian National Day, Cogeco Cable announced that it will offer RAI International to its digital cable customers in Ontario starting June 5.
A temporary promotional source feed will be available on channel 104 starting June 2 with the full broadcast beginning June 5. RAI International has recently been added to the eligible list of satellite services by the CRTC.
RAI International is a 24-hour international programming service of Italy’s public broadcaster targeted at Italian-speaking communities. It offers a broad range of programs including feature films, news and entertainment. RAI International is…
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WINDSOR – The Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires and TV COGECO recently announced that the cable community channel will be broadcasting all of the Windsor Spitfires home and away games for the entire 2005-2006 season.
“We are very pleased to once again partner up with the committed crew at TV COGECO to bring Windsor and Essex County with the best Spitfire coverage possible”, commented Steve Horne, Spitfires director of sales and business development, in a release.
“TV COGECO is proud to remain as the television home of the Windsor Spitfires”, added Rob Scussolin, programming and community relations manager with…
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Telco focusing on content and mobility bundle
By Ahmad Hathout
Bell said Tuesday it will use the CRTC’s wholesale internet framework to launch fibre-based internet services in British Columbia and Alberta, reciprocating what its telco rival Telus is doing in eastern Canada.
The telco confirmed to Cartt that the launch of the services in western Canada “is a result of the CRTC’s recent decision,” which it does not agree with because of what it says is the policy’s negative impact on network investment. The regulator mandates that competitors have access to the bundled fibre infrastructure of Bell and Telus nationwide.
“Our position on…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Several major telecoms have filed a review and vary application asking the CRTC to adjust its new outage reporting requirements and extend the deadline to implement them because they are currently “impractical or disproportionate” and impose “undue administrative burden” on their businesses.
The CRTC in September gave all telecoms two months to implement the new rules, which require them to report to certain official bodies major outages – newly defined as lasting at least 30 minutes and affecting 600,000 or more user minutes in most cases. Compared to the interim regime from 2023, the new…
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Sale of infrastructure also not out of the cards
By Ahmad Hathout
Bell’s chief financial officer said Thursday that leasing internet from Telus in western Canada is not out of the cards, but that owning the infrastructure is preferred for cash flow.
“It’s an opportunity for sure,” Curtis Millen said during a conference hosted by CIBC when asked about using Telus’s network in areas Bell doesn’t operate in. “We’ve had plenty of time to think about this.”
Bell, unlike Telus, is opposed to the CRTC policy of allowing the three largest telecoms to use the wholesale internet regime because the…
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