QUEBEC CITY – Videotron announced today it will spend $29 million between now and the end of 2006 to upgrade its network in the Quebec City area.
The project has been on the back burner for at least 18 months as the company sorted out labor issues relating to the rebuild. Sources told www.cartt.ca that Videotron has wanted to rebuild the predominantly 450 MHz system for nearly two years but was delayed because it wanted to rebuild quickly with contractors. Videotron employees insisted their contract language said any such rebuild had to be done by them, which led to a bit of a stalemate.
The company’s release today touches on the issue, saying “(t)he announcement of the network upgrade and the launch of cable telephone service in Quebec City comes on the heels of an agreement between Videotron management and employees to extend for three years the collective agreements expiring in December 2006 and subsequent months.”
Besides the rebuild, Videotron also announced that its residential cable telephone service will be available in the Quebec City area as of Monday (July 11, 2005), giving consumers a local telephony alternative.
Videotron’s $29 million upgrade project is in addition to its major investments in the Quebec City area since 1995, which have added fibre optic capacity to its coax cable system and created a two-way network. “The network improvements have enabled Videotron to become the first carrier in Quebec to offer interactive services such as video on demand, pay per view, interactive games and an interactive television schedules. The current project will increase the bandwidth of Videotron’s network and enable the company to offer Quebec City area consumers cutting-edge progressive digital TV, high-definition TV, Internet and telephone services. For example, with the increased capacity, Videotron’s network will be able to support 800 digital television channels or 126 high-definition channels,” reads today’s press release.
Work on project design began in late 2004 and will continue until spring 2006. Roll-out began last week in the Cap-Rouge area and will be completed in late 2006. More than 4,700 linear kilometres of the network will be upgraded within the area bounded by Portneuf and Lotbiniere to the west, Beaupre and Berthier-sur-Mer to the east, Levis to the south and Quebec City to the north. During the project, one-day service cuts will have to be made to Videotron customers. Approximately 1,000 households will be affected at a time. Customers will be informed several days in advance.
So far in Montreal, continued the release, consumer response to Videotron’s cable telephone service has been enthusiastic. As of June 30, only five months after the service was launched, nearly 42,000 consumers in Laval, Montreal South Shore and the West Island had subscribed.
Videotron offers the cheapest residential phone price of any cable company, starting at just $15.95 per month for basic service. Long-distance calls between subscribers to Videotron telephone service are free. A Quebec City customer can therefore call a Videotron telephone subscriber in another locality, such as Laval, toll free.
“The technology used by Videotron will support distinctive progressive services such as video phone service and unified messaging. Unlike the vast majority of VoIP digital telephone services, Videotron’s cable telephone service does not require an Internet connection. Videotron’s telephone service uses the Internet Protocol, a data transfer protocol, to transmit voice over its private network, which is managed entirely by Videotron. Calls are not routed over the public information highway, as they are in the case of other Internet telephone providers,” says the release.
