Telus to boost capicity of copper line with Alcatel gears:
Telus to Spend C$500 Mln to Expand Internet Service
(Update1)
By Steve Maich
Burnaby, British Columbia, Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Telus Corp., Canada's second-largest
telecommunications company, said it will spend C$500 million ($325.7 million) over the next
five years to make its high-speed Internet service available to more people in Alberta and
British Columbia.
The company will spend C$200 million next year and C$300 million over the subsequent four
years to expand its network and make the service available in 38 mostly-urban communities in
British Columbia and Alberta. By the end of 2005, 70 percent of the population in the two
provinces will have access to the service, the Burnaby, British Columbia-based company
said.
The service competes with high-speed Internet service offered by Shaw Communications
Inc., Canada's second-largest cable-TV company. Shaw@Home had about 283,000
customers at the end of August, more than three times the 80,000 customers Telus has now.
``We've been hearing frustration from customers that the cable service slows down during
prime surfing times,'' said spokesman Doug Strachan. ``We expect a lot of those people to
switch over to us as soon as we offer them the service.''
Telus expects to double the number of customers on its fast Internet service to 160,000 by
the end of 2001. It wants to raise that number to 500,000 by the end of 2005, said Strachan.
Telus shares fell 90 cents, or 2.3 percent, to C$38.35 in Toronto trading. The shares have
risen 9.1 percent this year.
About 70 percent of the C$500 million will be spent on equipment to boost the capacity of
copper lines for high-speed data transmission. Telus said it expects to buy the equipment
from Alcatel SA, its current supplier. Telus refused to say when they expect to recoup its
capital investment.
Telus will use about 20 percent of the money to extend its fiber-optic network further into
neighborhoods. The remaining 10 percent will be used to buy other pieces of equipment,
including modems for customers.
The C$500 million project will make the Internet service available on about 70 percent of
Telus's 4.5 million customer lines in the two provinces. That's about C$159 of capital
investment per customer line in that region.
That's 33 percent more than the $78 per customer line SBC Communications Inc. plans to
spend under its $6 billion Internet investment in the southwestern U.S. |
