MONTREAL – After getting into wireless last year with the purchase of Wind (now Freedom) Mobile, many expect Shaw to soon start offering wireline/wireless bundles in the west just as Telus, its biggest competitor, already offers.
But the telco isn’t worried, Stephen Lewis, Telus’ senior vice-president and treasurer, told a CIBC investor conference on Wednesday. “We’ve seen this coming for a number of quarters and we are very confident in the preparation we’ve done for when they do bring the Shaw wireless brand to market,” he said.
He cited the “robustness” of Telus’ Internet and OptikTV offering and its continuing installation of fibre optic to the home (FTTH), which will not only mean faster Internet speeds but will also support 5G wireless in the future. “Looking only at the west, we’re the competitor that has the bundle today, that has the integrated offer today, that has secured those customers … So we don’t feel as vulnerable today as we would.
“We don’t take it lightly, but we feel well prepared.”
Telus started installing FTTH in the West and part of Quebec three years ago to keep up with the network speeds its competition can already offer. Fibre to the home is now available to just over 40% of Telus’ network, Lewis said, and by the middle of next year will be half done. It will be over two-thirds done around the end of 2021 – around time 5G wireless service may be ready, he added.
While 5G protocols are still being ironed out, Telus is experimenting with handset and network equipment maker Huawei in a so-called Living Lab. They have seen trial speeds of 30 Mbps, Lewis said.
Coincidentally on Wednesday, the partners announced the first Canadian test of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) on indoor and outdoor networks, which mixes licensed and unlicensed spectrum. It recorded download speeds of 970 Mbps indoors and 966 Mbps outdoors using 80MHz of aggregated spectrum.
Asked about the fact that, unlike Bell Canada and Rogers Communications who own TV networks and cable channels, Telus owns no content providers, Lewis shrugged, as Telus executives are wont to do. “We believe content is very important … but we just don’t believe you have to own and produce the content … Some of what our competitors do is just bring it together as a hub.”
Telus’ OptikTV platform can bring over the top content such as Netflix, the National Film Board and others, he noted (Shaw’s BlueSky TV platform also now includes Netflix).
Lewis noted he also isn’t concerned by his competitor’s new products, which are based on the X1 platform from U.S. cableco Comcast. Since Telus can see what Comcast has done Stateside in advance, the telco has about a 24-month window on what’s coming, he said.
