Michael Sabia, CEO of BCE Inc., said during Bell Canada’s fourth-quarter and year-end financial results conference call that despite an acceleration of local landline erosion over the past eight quarters there now appears be signs of a stabilizing. "More recently, we are seeing a significant slowing in the rate of increase, and in effect, we think the beginnings of a stabilizing trend," he stated. In the fourth quarter, Bell Canada lost 183,000 residential telephone customers and 599,000 for the entire fiscal year. The deceleration of local landline erosion must have started in the first quarter of fiscal 2007 because the Q4 loss is significantly higher than the losses experienced in the third and second quarters of 2006.

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