Quadruple play of TV, high-speed Net, land-line and mobile phone for 2006
Jim Ja
Province
Telus’s Fred Di Blasio sees excitement in merging Internet with cable television. Photograph by : Gerry Kahrmann, The Province
Imagine you’re watching a fever-pitched hockey game on television and the Flames have just scored a soft goal on the Canucks.
Suddenly a text box opens on your TV screen. It’s your cousin from Calgary. “Flames rule!” says the text message. “Your goalie couldn’t stop a beachball.”
You have your own response, ready to type into wireless keyboard, but decide to wait until Naslund picks the top corner.
The preceding isn’t available yet, but Telus Corp. plans to include it soon in a TV service it has begun rolling out in Calgary and Edmonton and expects to offer in the Lower Mainland by mid-2006.
Telus vice-president of consumer product marketing Fred Di Blasio gave The Province a preview of the company’s long-awaited Telus TV product yesterday.
He said it would be price-competitive with TV services from cable company Shaw and satellite providers Bell ExpressVu and StarChoice, but will offer more flexibility and a wider range of services.
“What makes this so exciting is what you can do with an [Internet-based] infrastructure,” said Di Blasio. “It’s the ability to bring all those services together in one unit and provide all sorts of functionality.”
The current offering includes incoming call display on your TV screen, Video On Demand (VOD; $5 per movie), a multi-functional remote-control interface and the ability to display information such as weather or sports scores while watching regular programming in a split-screen format.
The 200-digital-channel lineup begins at $22 a month for a basic package of 23 channels as well as 45 music channels. Customers can add theme packs of certain types of content such as sports, news, entertainment, family or lifestyle at $6 a month for up to four packs and declining rates for more.
Telus also offers 43 other niche channels at $2 a month each.
Shaw, for example, charges $25 for its basic cable package of 36 analog channels.
Customers will need to purchase ($150) or lease ($10 a month) a set-top box to receive Telus TV, after a technician performs a free installation.
Telus TV doesn’t yet offer channels in high definition — as do Shaw and the satellite providers — but Di Blasio said it expects to launch HD content by mid-year.
Eventually, he said, Telus plans to offer bundles that combine the so-called quadruple play of TV, high-speed Internet, and land-line and mobile-phone service.
However, you’ll have to be patient because Telus is being very cautious not to repeat the less than smooth roll-out of its high-speed Internet service a few years ago. The demand was so high that Telus couldn’t build out its network fast enough.
“We want to make sure we do this right,” said Di Blasio.
Early in the New Year, Telus will begin a trial program with some employees. By mid-year it expects to begin offering the service to selected areas in the Lower Mainland.
© The Vancouver Province 2005
