Seven more telcos set to launch IPTV in south-western Ontario

Seven regional telecommunications providers, extending from London and Kitchener northwest to Lake Huron, are following in the footsteps of Bruce Telecom and launching their own IPTV services by this summer. Bruce Telecom has been offering IPTV to its 15,000 home customer base in the Port Elgin, Southampton and Kincardine areas for about a month, and the telco's president Hans Nilsson tells Canadian Communications Reports it is sharing the cost of the wholesale delivery of the content from Toronto with seven other independent telcos in the region. The partners include Wightman Telecom Ltd. in Clifford Ontario and the six telecommunications co-operatives comprising Ripley ON-based Comcentric Networking Inc.: Huron Telecommunications Co-operative Ltd. in Ripley; Hay Communications Co-operative Ltd. in Zurich; Mornington Communications Co-operative Ltd. in Milverton; Quadro Communications Co-operative Inc. in Kirkton; Tuckersmith Communications Co-operative Ltd. in Kippen; and Brooke Telecom Co-operative Ltd. in Inwood. Nilsson adds that only Wightman has selected the MPEG-4 IPTV solution from Georgia-based Conklin-Intracom that Bruce Telecom is using, while the Comcentric companies are using middleware from Motorola Inc. And not all the new services will be as robust as Bruce's 180-channel, 22 in HD, service. But if the early reviews on the Bruce service are any indication, the new providers have a lot to look forward to. "I'm smiling from ear to ear," says Nilsson after his company's first month as a BDU. Bruce has installed IPTV to about 200 homes in its first month, and last week completed the first installation in Southampton, where it's combating incumbent Bell Canada by running its own fibre to 400 homes in the community. As CCR reported in January, small telcos like Bruce are better situated to rollout IPTV because of their scale. They also have the advantage of personal relationships with their customers; IPTV is not only a new delivery service, but a new technology, and these personal relationships make it easier to assuage any fears customers may have. "People trust us," says Nilsson. "We've got a small company. We're not like the big Ma Bell or big telcos. People don't trust those guys." This trust is already starting to pay off for Bruce Telecom, which has set up a one-to-one exchange of its new IPTV set-top boxes for all StarChoice or Bell ExpressVu set-top boxes, at no charge. And while it's easy to say you have a close relationship with your customers, Nilsson clearly walks the walk. "I did a personal installation with my family doctor last night because he had just built a new home and the cable company wouldn't put cable into his house," he says. "So one of my managers and I went over to his house and had him up and running on his TV within ten minutes." That wasn't the only house call for the Bruce Telecom president. Concerned that some of their older customers might have problems setting up the new technology, he took the equipment to his retired neighbour's house and watching him easily set up the system and then call Bell ExpressVu to terminate his current account. Obviously Bruce Telecom's success doesn't guarantee similar returns for the other telcos in the region launching IPTV. But after years of waiting for rollouts from the incumbents, the market is continually showing that IPTV may grow with a push from regional telcos.

Seven more telcos set to launch IPTV in south-western Ontario

Broadcast | March 10, 2008

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