VANCOUVER –Telus Corp reported a 5.5% increase in quarterly profits on the strength of wireless revenue and new mobile phone and Internet subscribers, but chief executive office Darren Entwistle told a conference call with analysts that the company needs to further reduce operating expenses.
"Despite the fact that since 2001 Telus’s ongoing investment in restructuring and workforce reduction totals $1 billion, I am less than satisfied with the revision of our restructuring expense target from $50 million to $30 million," said Entwistle.
Telus earned $267 million in the second quarter ended June 30. That was up 5.5 per cent from $253.1…
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OTTAWA – Industry Minister Jim Prentice says Bell Mobility and Telus have assured him that any customers mistakenly charged for text message spam can have the charges removed from their bills.
Prentice, in a news release, says he met with the CEOs of both companies to express his "serious concerns" with the fact the plans could charge for unsolicited, unwanted spam. He also said the government has “no intention of interfering with the day-to-day business decisions of private companies or with the choices available to consumers” but added that his officials will continue to “monitor market activity.”
"I would encourage consumers dissatisfied…
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TORONTO – IT security breaches are costing publicly traded Canadian companies an average loss of more than $637,000 annually, says a new study released by Telus and the Rotman School of Management.
In government, the cost is $320,000 per organization, while the cost to private companies is $294,000 a year.
Similar studies in the U.S. show the cost of data security breaches more than doubling year over year, rising to an average of US$345,000 in 2007 from US$167,713 in 2006 for public companies. There is no similar benchmark data for Canada, but Rotman business economics professor Dr. Walid Hejazi…
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CHICAGO – Zouheir Mansourati’s task Wednesday morning was to show delegates to the IPTV World North America conference what Telus has learned so far, two years into its IPTV deployment.
The vice-president technology strategy for the Canadian telco noted first that choosing a “best-in-class” product for every piece of the IPTV pie is probably not the best idea.
“It’s far more important to have an overall system, that works together well,” he said. “You can’t have ‘best-of-class’ in every component if they don’t work together.”
Most important, though, of those components, is to choose the right set top box….
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VANCOUVER – Telus is encouraging the federal government to invest $1 billion of the $4.25 billion raised in the wireless spectrum auction to pursue its goal of making Canada the most connected country in the world. The auction says Telus has provided an unprecedented opportunity to bring broadband Internet services to thousands of rural communities.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make Canada the most connected nation in the world and advance the government’s own agenda of making ours an even more competitive economy," said Janet Yale, Telus executive vice-president of corporate affairs. "More than $4 billion has been…
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VANCOUVER – While BCE deals with a few other things, Telus today confirmed that wireless clients have never been required to pay for spam text messages – and announced an even easier way for customers to receive credits for any spam text messages they might receive.
Beginning August 24, clients can simply send any spam message to 7726 with the word SPAM in the body of the message and their account will be adjusted automatically. The credit will be processed with no questions asked of the client by Telus. This change has no impact on any Telus mobile email…
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AS THE ADVANCED wireless spectrum auction gets under way today, there are a couple of things that are clear.
First, Canadian consumers will see several new wireless operators (one or two national, some more regional) inside of 18 months after the auction’s end in three to five weeks, driving down retail prices and increasing competition for their business.
Second, thanks to the new rules favoring any newcomers to Canadian wireless that demand mandated roaming on the existing incumbents’ networks, Rogers Communications is going to take on most of that burden. It will tax the company’s system somewhat,…
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KELOWNA – The primary need when disaster happens anywhere is communication. Help can’t be co-ordinated or properly delivered if people can’t talk to each other.
And if the phone lines are down and police radios out of commission, aid workers will certainly struggle.
It was this primary challenge Telus had in mind when it built two SatCOLT units (Cost: $1.3 million each). SatCOLT stands for Satellite Cellsite on Light Truck and was pioneered Stateside by Sprint and is essentially a fully mobile telephone system.
“It’s a mobile cell site on wheels,” says Ken Green, the man in charge of…
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VANCOUVER – As at many traditional telcos, growth on the wireless side at Telus is offsetting the losses they are all experiencing in their conventional wireline business.
The company today reported first quarter revenue of $2.35 billion, a 6.6% increase from a year ago. That performance was generated by 10% growth in wireless revenue and 19% growth in wireline data revenue during the three months ended March 31st, as compared to Q1 ’07.
Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased 24% to $950 million, largely due to the $173.5 million net-cash settlement feature expense recorded in…
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GATINEAU – Telus has been ordered by the CRTC to provide rebates to customers who paid a $2.95 per month access fee but didn’t make any long-distance calls during the month. Telus however is not required to rebate customers who made long-distance telephone calls during the same month.
Local service rates are regulated by the CRTC and have to be either pre-approved by the commission or, in larger areas where it has stopped regulating rates are subject to a price ceiling. Long distance service, however, is not regulated. Telus had contended it did not need pre-approval or to abide by…
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