IT WAS A LUCKY DAY to be in Vancouver, what with the announcement by Shaw that it’s launching VOIP here and that Telus is spending $15 million on a shiny new headend.
So, we took the opportunity to have a short visit with Fred Di Blasio, vice-president consumer product marketing (he’s in charge of the Telus TV rollout, among other things) to get a bit more than what was in the press release on Wednesday.
What follows is a conversation between Di Blasio and www.cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien at the Telus Learning Centre in Burnaby, B.C.
Greg O’Brien: When did construction begin on the new headend announced today?
Fred Di Blasio: It launched the back end of last year.
GOB: Where is it specifically.
FDB: See that mountain range? It’s on one of those peaks, we’re just not being more specific than that.
GOB: But, you’ve already got cell towers at the location.
FDB: We have some stuff up there already, absolutely…
GOB: Why build another headend here. Why not just use the one in Edmonton?
FDB: This is a redundant headend, so the idea is we’ll be serving our customers off of a super headend and this is the redundancy element to it.
GOB: What will the headend enable you to do differently as Telus TV as compared to your main competitor, Shaw?
FDB: Today we have over 200 channels, but we’ll have over 300. Our service is all digital all the time but the most important element of it is that everything we are doing is off the next-gen network so it’s all IP-based infrastructure which provides us more flexibility, generally speaking.
GOB: So, do you consider yourselves an IPTV pioneer or more of a fast-follower?
FDB: I think it’s safe to say we’re an IPTV pioneer, given our infrastructure and our launch of the service relative to our RBOC or ILEC peers in North America, we are substantially ahead of most.
GOB: Especially in Canada. You’re ahead of Bell and people often confuse what MTS and Sasktel and Aliant are doing as IPTV where it’s DSL-delivered digital video.
FDB: Right. MTS is doing a vDSL version but Sasktel and Telus have close similarities but we are true, dyed-in-the-wool IPTV service providers.
GOB: Are you partnered with Microsoft as well on this?
FDB: With respect to the middleware – at the moment our middleware is Alcatel. But, we designed the network in such a fashion that we can forklift middleware in and out so we constantly evaluate all of our providers, including Microsoft, and they’re an important player in the States. To the extent that it would give us advantages from a service level standpoint we would look at them but at the moment, it’s just Alcatel.
GOB: I’ve been following Telus’ TV trials since 1997. You had your own cable system in parts of Edmonton and Calgary. How come it took until now to get it going? Was it a technology thing, or the overall readiness of the company?
FDB: It relates to a couple of things. One is the technology getting to a point where it can be carrier-grade type service. Telus brings to market new services that are at a minimum, innovative and differentiated and solve a customer need. So, until IPTV technology was developed enough, we didn’t feel it appropriate.
Also, being mindful that we’re a public company, we always want to make sure our stakeholders get a return on their investment so that was another critical element of the go/no-go decision on the launch.
So, we’re pleased to say that on November 10th of last year we launched in Calgary and Edmonton.
GOB: Will Vancouver be the next market, or others first?
FDB: Our expectation is that we’ll be launching across both provinces and the timing of those launches is not public.
GOB: Will this new headend feed video to (Telus Mobility)?
FDB: Good question. We’re constantly trying to see how we can bring all of these different services in a converged environment seamlessly but over time, it’s my expectation that as technology permits us, we will be doing just that. At the moment, it does not do that.
GOB: What about video on demand or PVR aspects?
FDB: We have VOD at the moment with over 300 titles and we expect that to grow substantially – stay tuned over the next few weeks as we firm up and secure relationships with the U.S. studios in particular.
On the PVR portion, we don’t have it deployed but we are working with our vendors to develop a fulsome PVR solution that’s simple, easy to use, customer friendly and most important, future-friendly because a lot of them are pretty clunky in terms of user interface and our goal is to simplify the customers’ lives…
GOB: How do you feel about the level of competition in the marketplace with Shaw now, especially given their announcement today about its VOIP launch here. Is it a hyper competitive market right now or still in the beginning stages?
FDB: I think we have a well-run competitor in Shaw and we certainly welcome competition. But it’s important to note that what they’re offering in telephony is a very basic service, a very much a me-too, or even less of a me-too service.
