MONTREAL – Videotron is adding telephony customers as fast as it can keep up and the company announced today that it is rolling out its residential cable telephone service in Montreal.
Consumer response to Videotron’s new product has been strong and as of August 12, six months after the service was launched, more than 62,500 customers in Laval, the South Shore, the West Island and the Quebec City area had made the switch.
Those numbers make Videotron the leader among telecom companies in Canada that provide telephone service via IP (Internet Protocol) technology, but early reports out of Shaw, Rogers and Cogeco, the other three of the big four Canadian cable companies, say VOIP customer additions are moving at a brisk pace.
By making telephony available to the 825,000 homes on the Island of Montreal, expect Videotron to double the number of voice customers by the end of the year. It’s $15.95 base price is an important attraction, too.
"We also introduced our cable telephone service in the Quebec City area on July 11 and once again the market response was very positive," said Robert Depatie, president and CEO, "(t)he benefits of our innovative service are now available to more than 1.5 million households across the province."
Customers can keep their existing telephone number and equipment.
Videotron’s cable telephone service does not require an Internet connection, as do third party VOIP providers such as Vonage and Primus. “It uses the Internet Protocol, a data transfer protocol, but transmits the signal over Videotron’s own private network, which is managed entirely by Videotron, not over the public information highway, as in the case of other Internet telephone providers,” insists the Videotron press release.
The vast majority of subscribers have chosen to keep their existing telephone number, recognizing that Videotron cable telephone service is a reliable, main-line service that supports all the features and options to which they are accustomed, such as call display, voice mail, call waiting, assistance (0, 411, 911, 611), long distance and calling cards.
