VANCOUVER – Telus today reported Q2 revenue of $2.55 billion, an increase of 6.4% over the same quarter last year. This increase was generated by nearly 10% growth in wireless revenue and 3% in wireline revenue, both driven by strong data growth.
Analysts were expecting overall revenue of about $2.52 billion.
The company says it added 94,000 new wireless subscribers in the quarter, and that wireless data revenue surged 49% on accelerating smartphone adoption which more than offset declining voice revenues. This produced a wireless average revenue per unit (ARPU) growth of 2.5%. Telus says this is the third consecutive quarter of…
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TORONTO/MONTREAL – Telus says it has added 900 new team members in Ontario and Quebec in 2011 to help meet the growing demand for its wireless services.
By the end of this year, the new 250 Ontario recruits will join the 7,800 Telus team members who already call Toronto and the GTA home. Since January Telus has also hired nearly 650 new employees in the province of Quebec, with more than half meeting the company’s growing needs in the Greater Montréal Area.
Telus plans to hire even more new team members this year to meet growing customer demand for…
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WATERLOO – Research in Motion has announced five new BlackBerry models that run the BlackBerry 7 OS and will be available for sale around the world later this month.
The new BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 are the thinnest BlackBerry phones yet, and combine a touch screen with a QWERTY keyboard. NFC technology has been added making mobile payments a possibility, however no system was announced by RIM to take advantage of it.
"This is the largest global launch of BlackBerry smartphones in our history," said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO of Research In Motion. "The BlackBerry solution offers a best-in-class mobile communications experience…
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TORONTO – Former Ontario MPP Frances Lankin has taken on the role of chair of the Telus Toronto Community Board for a three year term.
The Telus Toronto Community Board is made up of community leaders and Telus employees who make local funding decisions in areas that positively impact the future of youth in the community. Since its launch in 2006, the board has given more than $3.8 million in support of more than 220 community projects, and this year expects to donate $700,000 to local charities.
Lankin, who takes over from outgoing board chair Rita Burak, was a member of Provincial Parliament…
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WINNIPEG – Telus continues to expand its 4G coverage in Manitoba after turning on two new cell towers and upgrading 42 existing wireless sites around Winnipeg to offer increased network capacity.
Since launching its 4G wireless network in the province in February, Telus said that its coverage has increased by 15% to include the areas around Highways 1, 7 and 75 plus additional coverage within Winnipeg. The B.C.-based telco said that its coverage will extend to the Victoria Beach and Steinbach areas by the end of this year.
"Our $22 million investment in the province this year will give…
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GATINEAU – Today, Bell Canada backtracked from its two-tiered bandwidth rate structure in its aggregated volume pricing (AVP) model. The move is designed to address concerns raised by the CRTC last week that its approach penalizes independent internet service providers with higher rates for more capacity.
Under Bell’s original proposal, initial bandwidth would be charged at $0.195 cents per GB per month when the independent ISP pre-purchased capacity. If the indie Internet provider needed more, bandwidth would be charged at $0.295 cents per GB.
In opening remarks to its rebuttal during the second week of the Commission’s hearing into…
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EVEN THE VERTICALLY integrated companies know they need a code of conduct to help guide how – as the 800-pound Canadian gorillas – they do business in a country where they own most of the content and distribution channels.
CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said repeatedly during last month’s vertical integration hearing that he wants to see some sort of code of business practices for vertically integrated media companies set out in writing in order to try and avoid new regulatory and legal battles when the new BDU regulations come into force this September. So final replies, which were due…
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TORONTO – Telus smart phone customers may now tune in to the unlimited, on-demand social music service Rdio via their existing Telus account.
Founded by the creators of Skype, Rdio brings social music discovery to mobile devices, giving users instant access to a growing catalogue of nearly nine million songs. For $10 per month, Rdio users can play any song, album, artist and playlist as many times as they like without ever hearing a single ad, plus have access to new albums the day they are released. Integrated with Facebook and Twitter, Rdio also syncs seamlessly across all of the…
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GATINEAU – Aggregated volume pricing (AVP) shouldn’t be seen as a penalty on independent ISPs, but as an incentive for them to manage their network congestion, Bell Canada told the CRTC during the first day of the re-hearing of the wholesale usage-based billing issue.
Bell argued its AVP approach is a better economic internet traffic management practice (ITMP) than the 95th percentile method proposed by the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) because it provides returns on network investments and incents independent ISPs to reduce congestion in their networks.
“ ensures that incumbents receive an appropriate return on their…
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GATINEAU – It didn’t take long for the CRTC to modify its schedule in the usage-based billing proceeding. With Bell Canada’s appearance lasting all morning on Monday, the Commission has decided to push the testimony from the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Centre and OpenMedia.ca until Tuesday.
Konrad von Finckenstein, chair of the CRTC, noted that the OpenMedia.ca-CIPPIC appearance is likely to be lengthy and therefore would be better to hear from the consumer advocacy groups on Day 2 of the hearing.
The other interveners on Day 1 were Telus Corp., a panel of consumer interests from Ontario…
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