Saturday’s Globe had a feature about telephone companies “frontal attack on cable.”
In the article, Bell CEO George Cope refers to Shaw, Rogers and Videotron’s 6.4 million cable TV customers as “the last monopoly.”
There are innovative capabilities enabled by IPTV and Microsoft has been powering the solutions being deployed by both Bell and TELUS. Shaw’s Peter Bisonnette observed that most of the differentiation to date has been based on price.
As the telephone companies continue to invest in their urban infrastructure, pushing fibre deeper toward their customers, the opportunities for delivering IPTV increase. Cable companies are continuing to upgrade their capabilities as well, investing in innovation, leveraging their existing outside plant.
It won’t be long until most Canadians can choose between 2 wired service providers on top of the wireless and satellite choices. Most of the carriers in Canada now have phone, TV, internet and mobile operations, leading to interesting service delivery capabilities.
The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit will examine these exciting developments in a number of sessions, including the closing panel on Thursday, June 2 that examines the explosion of the multi-screen universe: Tablets, TVs and Smartphones, oh my! The conference opens on May 31 with a keynote address by Rogers Communications President Rob Bruce.
Early bird rates are available for the next 5 weeks. Have you registered yet?