Rogers Discount Telephony Pricing

Rogers unveiled a new long-distance service that provides consumers with 5 cents/minute prices if you subscribe to at least two other services. The interesting part of the discount LD offer is the stuff in the background. First, it talks to how Rogers will approach telephony pricing when (if?) it launches a cable telephony service in mid-2005. UBS Warburg analyst Paul Fan said he expects Rogers to take an aggressive approach as it goes after customers in rival Bell Canada's backyard. Second, Rogers is rolling out LD with help from Allstream Inc., which is providing the network backbone. While Rogers executives have denied it, I get the distinct feeling that Allstream will be a major part of Rogers' telephony plans. Allstream gets a big customer to use its existing backbone while Rogers gets to save a whole lot of cash to get into the telephony business.