Videotron announced its mobile network plans Wednesday morning, saying that it has awarded its network build to Nokia Siemens Networks.
Videotron plans to spend another $250M building its network over the next 12-18 months and it will roll-out price leading mobile services. Peter Nowak at CBC has a number of the details from the announcement.
I thought that the discussion of leveraging Quebecor’s stable of media assets holds the greatest promise for customers, beyond the expected price savings. Videotron is characterizing their network as 3.75 G – nearly a 4th generation wireless network. They plan to be technology leaders in mobile, just as they have led in cable internet speeds and cable-based telephony. As such, their ability to offer a package of broadband content at home and on-the-go holds a great deal of promise for consumers.
I think back to the days when Videotron first launched telephone service. Recall that Quebec had among the lowest penetration rates for cable TV. Voice was a way to pull through cable subscriptions. Their mobile services resale helped complete the basic voice/TV/IP bundle, as we noted two years ago.
From what I heard, it sounds like Videotron is now moving to the next level of converged content delivery, with a vision to develop a distribution platform for its print and broadcast media to be as available on the go as it is at home.
The second thrust of our business model is the repurposing and dissemination of this content on an unprecedented number of media. Just as print content will be accessible in the virtual universe, purely digital creations will be accessible on more conventional media. And I see no limits to these creations and this content, be it in the field of information, art, entertainment or sport.
Telecommunications, print and the Internet will no longer be separate, self-enclosed worlds but rather platforms that readily allow for movement between them.
I suspect this is a preview of messages that Videotron will deliver to the CRTC’s New Media proceeding.